The winners of the 2025 Primetime Emmy Awards are set to be announced this Sunday. One category that’s getting attention this year is for “guest former” in a comedy. The program “The Studio’ with Seth Rogen, includes guest nominations for Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Dave Franco, Anthony Mackie and Zoë Kravitz. Taking home “Emmy gold” in a guest category is familiar for one actor who performed in one play for the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and directed another show there.
Emmy winner Carrie Preston won the award for guest performer in a Drama Series in 2013 for her portrayal of attorney Elsbeth Tascioni in the CBS legal drama “The Good Wife.” The actor is about to begin her third season playing that character in the spin-off series “Elsbeth,” where she's in the starring role. Preston talked about that night along with her time performing for directing for Alabama Shakespeare Festival on an upcoming edition of “APR Notebook.” Back in 2013, Preston was nominated in the guest category alongside heavy hitters like Jane Fonda for “The Newsroom,” and Diana Rigg for “Game of Thrones,” as well as Joan Cusack, Margo Martindale, and Linda Cardellini.
“I did not think that I was going to win,” Preston admitted on “APR Notebook.” “Generally, that award does go to, you know, the guest it was get the award was Guest Actress in a Drama, and generally that would go to a more recognizable name. So it meant a lot to me that the, you know, my colleagues, that people in this industry, had watched my work and thought that I was worthy of such a thing, you know. So it's, it's a thrilling moment. I mean, I don't think my feet touched the ground for several years after that, because it was, you know, a really humbling but also very heady experience.”
Preston met her future husband, actor Michael Emerson, who played the character Guildenstern in a 1994 Alabama Shakespeare Festival production of Hamlet. Preston played Ophelia. Emerson has who two Emmys of his own, mentioned on "APR Notebook" how organizers of the annual award ceremony don't feed the nominees. Preston says she had a solution to that problem. She tried, one year, to smuggle in peanut butter and jelly sandwiches into the theater The lack of food didn’t seem to matter once her name was called.
“You know, to all of a sudden you hear your name, and then you're on stage giving a speech, and you're seeing, you know, they give you a certain amount of time to give that speech," Preston said on "APR Notebook." "I had rehearsed it in case I had the great fortune of winning. But you're looking at the clock, they count down in the back, you know, the numbers are going down, and you're like, oh my gosh, am I going to get it all out? And thankfully, I did, with the sigh of relief. And then two seconds later, you know, I'm standing there holding it backstage, and I'm like, I don't even know who came up and drove that bus, but it certainly wasn't me.”
Guest performer nominees for “The Studio” read like a “who’s who” of the entertainment industry. Cameo appearances in the show led to nominations for Ron Howard and Martin Scorsese perhaps being the biggest names. They, along with Dave Franco, Anthony Mackie and Zoë Kravitz, all play twisted versions of themselves on the series, which concludes with a drug-filled Las Vegas-set CinemaCon storyline. Guest nominee Bryan Cranston plays a CEO.
“It’s thrilling,” co-creator and star Seth Rogen told the Associated Press. “Dave (Franco) was like, ‘This was never on my radar. I did not think this was going to happen.’ We’ve had a few very shocked conversations with everybody. It’s such a fun group. I just look forward to getting to party with these people.”
“The fact that so many of them are getting recognition for what we think are amazing performances is so nice and really makes me feel better because it makes me feel like I didn’t waste their time,” he added.
“Severance” separated itself from the field with 27 Emmy nominations, while “The Studio” led comedy nominees with 23 in a dominant year for Apple TV+. “The Penguin,” HBO’s dark drama from the “Batman” universe, also surprisingly dominated the limited series category with 24 nominations.
