Nick Offerman Wins His First Emmy for “The Last of Us”: 'Fortune Presents Gifts Not According to the Book'

Offerman won an Emmy for guest actor in a drama series Saturday night for his performance in the unforgettable third episode of the HBO drama 'The Last of Us'

Nick Offerman took home his first Emmy at the 75th annual Creative Arts Emmy Awards on Saturday, winning Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his performance in The Last of Us.

The category was dominated by nominations for performances on the HBO shows, with four actors — Murray Bartlett, Lamar Johnson, Keivonn Montreal Woodard and Offerman — competing for the award against Succession actors James Cromwell and Arian Moayed.

“Fortune presents gifts not according to the book," he said in his acceptance speech.

Offerman also saluted Cromwell and thanked his "magnificent" partner Megan Mullally, who had previously encouraged him to take on the role of Bill, a paranoid survivalist, who unexpectedly falls in love with unexpected trespasser Frank (Bartlett).

While answering questions from the press afterward, Offerman suggested there could be a whole miniseries that revolved around Bill and Frank's decades-long relationship, quipping, "It could be a musical."

Here is a look at the six nominees.

Related: 'Succession', 'White Lotus' and More Dominate 2023 Emmy Nominations: See the Full List

Offerman and Bartlett broke hearts in episode 3, "Long, Long Time," playing two men who fell into each other's orbits and hearts in the wake of a global apocalypse. From reluctant friends to decades-long lovers, skittish survivalist Bill (Offerman) and extroverted nomad Frank (Bartlett) saved each other before choosing not to live without each other. They found life's only remaining purpose in each other, bringing viewers to tears to the tune of the 1970 Linda Ronstadt song that gave the episode its name.

Bartlett is not only a double nominee this year — he also earned a 2023 outstanding supporting actor nomination for playing real-life choreographer Nick De Noia in Hulu's limited series Welcome to Chippendales — he's also a returning Emmy winner after taking home a 2022 supporting actor statuette for his breakout turn in season 1 of The White Lotus.

This year was Offerman's fourth Emmy nomination after three shared nods with Making It co-host Amy Poehler. (His and Bartlett's costar Anna Torv also scored a guest actress nod for her three-episode arc, which included "Long, Long Time.")

Related: Nick Offerman Nearly Turned Down 'The Last Of Us' Role Until Wife Megan Mullally Stepped In: 'You're Going'

Johnson and Woodard played brave but doomed brothers in episodes 4 and 5 of The Last of Us. Johnson's Henry, a.k.a. "The Most Wanted Man in Kansas," would do anything to protect his Deaf younger brother Sam — even if it meant taking on the risky mission of helping Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey's travelers Joel and Ellie as they eluded pursuit of a relentless local power player Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey, who is also in the outstanding guest actress race).

Johnson and Woodard's nominations were their first, with 10-year-old Woodard making history as both the youngest actor to ever to be nominated in this category as well as the first ever Black Deaf actor to receive an Emmy nod.

Related: Deaf 'The Last of Us' Guest Actor Makes History with Emmy Nomination — and Gets Kudos from Marlee Matlin

Cromwell rounded out his four-season run on the darkly hilarious family drama with a third nomination for portraying Logan Roy's (Brian Cox) crusty, liberal brother Ewan. Perhaps earning Cromwell this year's nod was his stirring, scathing delivery of an impromptu eulogy for Logan: "I loved him, I suppose, and I suppose some of you did too.... Now and then darkened the skies a little. Closed men’s hearts. Fed that dark flame in men, the hard mean hard-relenting flame that keeps their heart warm while another grows cold."

Related: 'Succession' Shocker! Find Out Which Character Died and Why the Actor Says They Knew It Was Coming

Cromwell has scored four additional Emmy nods during his storied career, receiving praise for his supporting work in 2012's American Horror Story: Asylum, two guest actor nods for Six Feet Under (2003) and ER (2001), and a supporting nomination for portraying publishing titan William Randolph Hearst in the 1999 TV movie RKO 281.

Moayed, another Succession OG, was also a 2022 nomination in this category for playing agnostic venture capitalist Stewy Hosseini, whose billions continued to flow even as — and probably because — his allegiance to Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) shifted and whipped as quickly as the winds of Wall Street.

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