Emmy Awards: ‘The Bear,’ ‘Beef’ and ‘Succession’ Among Top Winners

The 2023 Emmy Awards finally arrived after months of delay, and TV’s biggest night finally celebrated the seasons that aired from June 2022 to May 2023 — with FX/Hulu’s The Bear, Netflix’s Beef and HBO’s Succession leading the winners.

Each of those shows won the top series prize in their respective categories: The Bear for best comedy series, Beef for best limited/anthology series and Succession for best drama series.

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Fresh off his recent wins at the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice Awards, Jeremy Allen White won his first Emmy for best actor in a comedy series. “I’m so full of gratitude to be standing in front of you all,” said White. “I love the show so much. It filled me up. It gave me a passion and set a fire in me to match the beautiful work done by [showrunners] Christopher Storer and Joanna Calo.”

Dead to Me star (and best actress in a comedy series nominee) Christina Applegate received an early standing ovation when presenting the supporting actress in a comedy series category. “Oh my God, you’re totally shaming my disability by standing up,” she quipped, nodding to her multiple sclerosis, which she announced in August 2021. “Ayo, get your ass up here,” she added, naming The Bear‘s Ayo Edebiri as the category’s winner.

In her brief speech, Edebiri noted that the FX series is about family, also thanking her parents in the audience. “Probably not a dream to immigrate to this country and have your child be like, ‘I want to do improv,'” Edebiri said of her Barbadian mother and Nigerian father. “You’re real ones.” Edebiri’s co-star Ebon Moss-Bachrach, meanwhile, won best supporting actor in a comedy series.

Creator Storer also won two Emmys — for best writing and directing for a drama series — but was not at the ceremony. According to Moss-Bachrach, Storer had to skip the Emmys due to a case of COVID.

HBO’s Succession also collected an expected Emmys haul for its fourth and final season beyond best drama.

Kieran Culkin won his first Emmy for best actor in a drama series (after previously being nominated as a supporting actor). Costar Sarah Snook — also graduating from supporting to lead actress this year — won best actress in a drama series and dedicated her speech to her daughter, with whom she was pregnant during the final season. “I carried her with me in this last season, and really it was her who carried me,” said Snook, who joked that “hormones raging” makes for great acting. “It’s very easy to act when you’re pregnant because you’ve got hormones raging. “The proximity of her life growing inside me gave me the strength to do this and this performance, and it’s all for you from here on out.”

Matthew Macfadyen beat co-stars Nicholas Braun, Alan Ruck and Alexander Skarsgard — and a slew of The White Lotus stars — to win best supporting actor in a drama series. In his speech, Macfadyen thanked both of his “onscreen wives,” Sarah Snook and Braun.

Succession creator Jesse Armstrong also won his fourth Emmy for best writing for a drama series, while Mark Mylod won his third for directing the series. (The latter brought fellow Succession directing nominees Andrij Parekh and Lorene Scafaria to the stage when accepting his award.)

Netflix’s Beef was the big winner among in the limited/anthology series categories. In addition to winning the series prize, leads Steven Yeun and Ali Wong followed their Globes and Critics Choice wins by taking the Emmys for best actor and actress. The latter was the first Asian performer to win in her category — and the first Asian woman to win an Emmy for a lead role. Creator Lee Sung Jin also won two Emmys for best directing and writing for a limited/anthology series.

TV legend Carol Burnett, who won an Emmy at last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys for her 90th birthday special, presented the best actress in a comedy Emmy to Abbott Elementary‘s Quinta Brunson, her first win in the category but second Emmy following last year’s for writing for a comedy series. “I don’t know why I’m so emotional — probably the Carol Burnett of it all,” said Brunson through tears.

Fresh off her Emmy win, Brunson returned to the stage with The Jeffersons and 227 star Marla Gibbs. “You got your first job in 1973, and you are still working. What’s the secret to working in Hollywood for so long?” Brunson asked Gibbs, who replied: “The wage gap. I got to work 20 more years before I can retire.”

The pair then presented the Emmy for best supporting actress in a limited/anthology series to Niecy Nash-Betts, for her role in Netflix’s Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. “You know who I want to thank? Me!” said Nash-Betts. “I want to thank me for believing in me and doing what they said I could not. And I want to say to myself, in front all you beautiful people, ‘Go on, girl, with your bad self!’” She dedicated her award to “every Black and brown woman who has gone unheard yet over-policed.”

Black Bird’s Paul Walter Hauser won best supporting actor for his role in the Apple TV+’s limited series, rapping through his acceptance speech and offering a nod to his Black Bird co-star and late actor Ray Liotta.

The Emmy for best supporting actress in a drama series went to The White Lotus‘ Jennifer Coolidge. An awards show favorite since the HBO show’s first season premiered in 2021, Coolidge promised to keep her remarks short (although she was told to wrap it up by host Anthony Anderson’s Mama Doris, who held up a cardboard sign with a clock). “I want to thank all the evil gays!” said Coolidge, who also said that creator Mike White “says I’m definitely dead,” alluding to her character Tanya dying after fearing the gay men she was traveling with were trying to kill her.

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver continued its streak, winning its 10th series nom — this time in the reconfigured variety sketch series, which placed the HBO series alongside sketch programs A Black Lady Sketch Show and Saturday Night Live. “I’d like to thank Jesus and my family,” said Oliver after intentionally pushing the countdown clock to trigger Mama Doris to tell him to wrap up his speech. The series also won its eighth Emmy for best writing for a variety season.

With Last Week Tonight out of the talk show category, that Emmy went to The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. The recently departed host accepted the Emmy on the show’s behalf: “I told you we would beat John Oliver if he wasn’t in our category!”

RuPaul’s Drag Race also continued streaks of its own, with RuPaul reigning as the most-awarded host in Emmy history and the show winning the best reality competition program for the eighth consecutive year. “We have released into the wild hundreds of drag queens,” said RuPaul. “Listen, if a drag queen wants to read you a story at a library, listen to her. Knowledge is power, and if someone is trying to restrict your access to power, they’re trying to scare you. So, listen to a drag queen!”

Elton John achieved EGOT status with the Emmy win for live variety special with Elton John Live: Farewell from Dodger Stadium, which broadcast the singer’s final North American concert and was the first live event streamed on Disney+.

GLAAD president Sarah Kate Ellis accepted the 2023 Governor’s Award on behalf of the organization. “For all of us at GLAAD, this work is personal,” said Ellis. “For me, it’s about my wife and our kids. Because what the world sees on TV influences how we treat each other and the decisions that we make in our living rooms, schools, at work and at the ballot box.” Added Ellis: “More people say they have seen a ghost than know a transgender person. When you don’t know people, it’s easy to demonize them. Visibility creates understanding and it opens doors. It’s life saving our community has achieved so much and yet, we are still being victimized and villainized with cruel and harmful lies. Sharing stories is the antidote.”

Host Anthony Anderson began the ceremony with a parody of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, announcing that the landmark year of the Emmy Awards gave him an opportunity to celebrate the shows of the past. Sitting at a piano and ushering in a local choir from Compton, Anderson launched into a brief medley of iconic TV theme songs, including those from Good Times, The Facts of Life, plus a brief rendition of Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” featuring Travis Barker on drums (a nod to Miami Vice).

To celebrate the Emmys’ 75th anniversary, multiple casts from iconic TV series reunited to present awards throughout the ceremony. The Sopranos‘ Lorraine Bracco and Michael Imperioli celebrated the 25th anniversary of the landmark HBO drama. Martin stars Martin Lawrence, Tisha Campbell, Carl Anthony Payne II and Tichina Arnold noted that despite 132 episodes, which have lived on in syndication, the series never earned an Emmy nom. (Late actor Thomas Mikal Ford’s photo was on a table in the living room set recreated onstage.) Cheers stars Ted Danson, Kelsey Grammer, Rhea Pearlman, George Wendt and John Ratzenberger returned to the classic bar set.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Charlie Day, Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton, Katilin Olson and Danny DeVito also came together, although their series — the longest-running sitcom in TV history — is still on the air (and, like Martin, has never scored an Emmy nom). Grey’s Anatomy — also still airing on ABC — brought out stars Ellen Pompeo, Chandra Wilson, James Pickens Jr. and former cast members Katherine Heigl and Justin Chambers, with Wilson noting the series is the longest-running primetime medical drama.

Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers also reunited on a recreation of the All in the Family living room set, as did Ally McBeal’s Calista Flockhart, Greg Germann, Peter MacNicol and Gil Bellows — although the latter group returned to its then-controversial, but ultimately ahead-of-its-time, unisex bathroom.

This story was first published on Jan. 15 at 5:52 p.m.

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