Alan Cumming and Mark Duplass both received great news on Wednesday morning. Both actors received Emmy nominations for their respective projects.
Cumming received the nod for outstanding host for a reality or reality competition program for “The Traitors,” which streams on Peacock. Duplass is up for outstanding supporting actor in a drama series for his role in Apple TV+’s “The Morning Show.”
“The Good Wife” actor found out about his nomination while in the middle of a radio interview in Scotland.
“My phone went nuts and I answered it in the middle of the interview. So now my manager, my agent and my publicist are now famous in Scotland,” he laughed to KTLA 5’s Dayna Devon.
Cumming called the nomination “lovely” as he endearingly referred to the project as a “nutty” and “left-field” job for him to have taken on. He called the venture a “testament for saying yes to new things,” as he gushed over the show’s success and his love for his colleagues.
The competition is tough as he is up against famed reality show hosts RuPaul Charles for “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” Jeff Probst of “Survivor,” the judges of “Shark Tank” and Kristen Kish of “Top Chef.”
“The Traitors” has received four nominations across the board, which includes outstanding reality competition program. In that category, the show is up against “Top Chef,” “The Voice,” “The Amazing Race” and “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
“To be hosting a competition reality show, I never thought that would happen and I just love it so much. I actually think it’s one of the juiciest acting roles I’ve ever done,” he explained
While he’s very hopeful for the show to take home some gold, he also just wants to bask in the glory of the nominations.
“I’m just enjoying it and not too worried about what might happen.”
Meanwhile, Duplass found out about his nomination while he was watching the Emmys livestream, when all of a sudden he started receiving a barrage of text messages.
“I was silencing them because I was like ‘I’ve got to watch the live stream,'” he quipped.
“The Morning Show” did pretty well across the board, receiving 16 nominations, which is more than people predicted.
“I feel so excited for the deep supporting cast bench of this show,” he explained.
He then went on to tout the female nominations on the series.
“You have Nicole Beharie, Karen Pittman, Holland Taylor and Greta Lee. Not only have they been doing incredible, unsung work on this show, but they’ve been doing it in theater, television and movies for years.”
He then commended Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon for blazing the trail for the series and for getting people to watch the show.
“It’s those women who are the beating heart of this show. That was the most exciting part,” he explained.
This is the second time Duplass has been nominated for his role in the show. The first time came in 2020. Within those four years, he noticed a difference in how his peers congratulated him.
“There’s been this really interesting reaction, which is that we’re all so grateful and this is such a sweet and lovely thing but the question hasn’t been what it used to be, which was ‘Aren’t you so excited?’ The question now has been ‘Congratulations on your nomination. How are you doing?’ Because the world is in a crazy place right now,” he laughed. “So I feel like it’s been more like ‘Good for your nomination. How’s your mental health?’ and that has been actually the way that I prefer it.”
The 76th Emmy Awards will be held on Sept. 15 at the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles. The awards ceremony will air on ABC.