'Getting On' Emmy Nominee Niecy Nash Is Not Afraid to Ugly Cry

There are times when you shouldn’t have to feel bad about having an ugly cry: Learning that you’ve just been nominated for an Emmy is one of them. Comedian and actress Niecy Nash couldn’t avoid shedding some ugly tears when she got the news that she’d been recognized in the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role on the acclaimed HBO nursing home comedy, Getting On. She even preserved the moment on her cell phone, and shares it with Yahoo TV in the above exclusive video interview about her reaction to her nomination. “I looked so ugly when I was crying. It was a very ugly cry. [But] I’m not scared to be ugly!” Don’t worry, Niecy — you’ll always be beautiful to us.

Nash received her nomination for the fourth episode of Getting On’s second season, “The 7th Annual Christmas Card Competition.” In this second video, she breaks down some of her favorite moments from that half-hour, including a hilarious scene where her character, DiDi, is accused of submitting a photo of a patient’s private parts to the hospital’s yearly competition. The episode also gave her a chance to show off her dramatic range, cheering up a terminal cancer patient (played by guest star Carrie Preston) with a glamorous makeover. “You get teary-eyed in the moment. That was good to play against all of the other crazy that’s happening in the episode.”

Fortunately for Nash, laughs were more plentiful than sobs during her Yahoo Confessional. Not only did she reveal her first celebrity crush — Diff’rent Strokes’s Todd Bridges (like she says, “Don’t judge!”) — but she also picked her theme song: Carl Calrton’s “She’s a Bad Mama Jama.” Wait… is she sure she didn’t mean “The Tracks of My Tears”?

The first two seasons of Getting On are available to stream on HBO Go and HBO Now. Season 3 premieres in 2016.