Squid Game from South Korea became the first foreign-language television program to receive top honors at the Emmy Awards on Monday. The Best Actor award went to Lee Jung-jae, who portrays player 456; the Best Director award went to Hwang Dong-hyuk, a native Korean, marking them the first Asians and Koreans to win in the category.
The Netflix program attempted to imitate the popularity of the Oscar-winning South Korean film Parasite with a victory at TV’s highest prize ceremony, in which misfits and criminals fight for money in savage and lethal renditions of schoolyard sports.
Succession, the story of a family battling for control of a media empire that is riddled with Shakespearean backstabbing, is a strong competitor. Succession had the most nominations overall with 25, and it defeated Squid Game to win the Best Drama award.
The HBO juggernaut is difficult to compete with, according to Pete Hammond, awards columnist for the Hollywood trade paper Deadline.
Succession has been pegged as the favorite by experts surveyed by the award forecasting website Gold Derby.
The dystopian workplace thriller Severance on Apple TV+, starring Adam Scott, and Ozark’s final season on Netflix are among programs competing for the night’s top drama awards.
With a second season and a wholly fresh cast and setting, the program is defying Emmy norms and has received an astounding eight acting nods, including one for Jennifer Coolidge.
According to Hammond, “I think Michael Keaton has a hold on the actor in a limited series” for Dopesick, while The Dropout, in which Amanda Seyfried portrays disgraced Theranos head Elizabeth Holmes, is anticipated to be a hit.
