'Shōgun' Made History With 18 Wins At The 2024 Emmy Awards
Not content with having scored 14 trophies at the Creative Arts Emmys last week, FX series Shōgun continued its reign of award season by bagging a further four awards at the 2024 Emmy Awards on Sunday night.
But it wasn't merely its wins that cemented its status as one of the buzziest series of recent years. Instead, it was the history that was made by way of its wins.
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The historic awards haul represents the first majority non-English-language series to win in the outstanding drama series category (Netflix’s Korean sensation Squid Game was nominated in 2022 but lost to HBO’s Succession), while its two protagonists Hiroyuki Sanada and Anna Sawai are the first Japanese actors ever to win Emmys.
After thanking the Academy and others in her acceptance speech — including Shōgun co-creators Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks 'for believing in me and giving me this role of a lifetime' — Sawai thanked her family, specifically her mother. 'Mum, I love you,' she said. 'You are the reason I'm here. You showed me stoicism, and that's how I was able to portray Mariko.'
Shōgun, which is based on James Clavell’s 1975 novel of the same name, follows ‘the collision of two ambitious men from different worlds, John Blackthorne, a risk-taking English sailor who ends up shipwrecked in Japan, a land whose unfamiliar culture will ultimately redefine him; Lord Toranaga, a shrewd, powerful daimyo, at odds with his own dangerous, political rivals; and Lady Mariko, a woman with invaluable skills but dishonorable family ties, who must prove her value and allegiance,’ the show's official synopsis reads. Essentially, it’s a deeper look into the power struggle between warring forces in 1600 feudal Japan.
The 2024 Emmy Awards also made history with its nominations. While she lost to her well-deserving co-star, Jessica Gunning, Baby Reindeer's Nava Mau was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, marking the first time a Latina trans person had been acknowledged in this category at the Emmys.
Speaking to Deadline soon after her nomination was announced in July 2024, Mau laughed that she had been crying for 45 minutes with 'overwhelming joy.' She added that it was proof that trans actors can surpass all expectations when given the right opportunities.
'For trans actors we just don’t get a lot of opportunities to develop our craft, grow as artists, and to be recognised for all that we are and all that we can be,' she said.
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