Nigel Lythgoe and BAFTA/LA hold star-studded afternoon tea party celebrating Emmy nominees
There have been scores of pre-Emmy bashes around town this weekend and one of the nicest was that BAFTA/LA Tea Party on the lawn of the Century Plaza Hotel where guests enjoyed scones and finger sandwiches and refreshing drinks.
“We’re sort of richly embodied in the Los Angeles culture and community and this is a celebration of the Emmy nominees,”
Nigel Lythgoe, Chairman of BAFTA/LA told me at the start of the event. “Tomorrow they’re going to be sitting down and keeping their fingers crossed whether they’re going to get the Emmy or not so this is just , ‘Hey, let’s spend some time congratulating you. We’re not going to give you a gold statuette but we are going to give you a lovely cup of welcoming tea.”
Among those joining Lythgoe at the afternoon event were Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Rose Byrne, Michael Sheen, Bryan Batt, Paris Barclay, Steve Levitan, Wendie Malick, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Kate Flannery, Ashley Jensen, Evan Handler, David Zayas, Madeline Zima and Oscar Nunez, among others.
Byrne [pictured at top of page], nominated for the second time for Damages, told me she doesn’t expect to win the Emmy today but was enjoying her weekend anyway: “I am the underdog but you never know. It’s a long weekend [of parties] but it’s fun, it’s such a decadent thing to do especially in this time. Really it’s nothing to complain about. You put on a frock, get your make-up done. I’m nominated along with Glenn [Close] and Martin Short and Lily Tomlin. We’re thrilled.”
It was great, as always, to see the radiant Kate Flannery from The Office at the party. I remarked that she always seems to be having such a good time at these events and she jokingly replied: “I’m just doing research for my part on The Office. I don’t really like parties, I just try to figure out how to play Meredith better. I just need to do more research. This is just a sacrifice, a personal sacrifice for my art.”
I had a good gab with the brilliant Wendie Malick who co-stars with Betty White on the new hit show Hot In Cleveland. I wondered how Betty, who won her seventh Emmy last weekend, is handling all of the attention she has been getting all year at the age of 88: “She is filled with gratitude,” Wendie said. “That’s like the mantra on our set, we are all filled with gratitude.”
Jesse Tyler Ferguson, a outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series nominee for Modern Family, seemed relaxed on the red carpet and inside the party. You can read my interview with him HERE.
I also had a good gab with Stephen Tobolowsky who was a creepy riot as teacher Sandy Ryerson in seven episodes of Glee last season and also had recurring roles on Heroes, Deadwood and CSI: Miami, among his 200 credits.
He had some thoughtful things to say about why Glee received a whopping 19 Emmy nominations this year: He said he expected a lot of Emmy nominations for various reasons “and some of them were cynical and some were not.
The cynical one is
Glee is at a point where it’s such a phenomenon that a lot of people want a jump on the
Glee bandwagon including the television industry saying look how vital we are, look at what we’re doing in a period of time where sitcoms are dropping off the face of the Earth, reality TV is rising, game shows are rising.
And here is one of the most vitally creative shows in a long time and so they’re saying, ‘This is what we want to represent.’ So I can see it for that reason. And another reasons is less cynical and that is that Glee is one of the shows that epitomizes achievement in almost every category. In technical categories, in the musical categories, the camera work, the sound recording. It is a major production and it’s done beautifully – especially for television.”
I remarked how creepy his character on Glee is. He laughed and said: “I love the creepy characters. Otherwise I would never work.”
Will Sandy Ryerson be back next season?
“I certainly hope so. They intimated that I’m going to be in some shows but it’s television so you have to wait and see. You ride that horse with a loose rein.”
And finally this: Why have I not been watching ABC’s The Gates this summer? They have got to have the most gorgeous cast on television! I met and chatted up three of them at the party (pictured below): Colton Haynes who plays werewolf Brett Crezski, Skyler Samuels who plays Andie Bates and Justin Miles who plays cop Marcus Jordan.
“It’s a blast, we just wrapped the first season,” Colton said.
Added Skylar: “The show’s gotten a really good response. We’ve gotten a lot of creatures and elements to our show that Twilight and some of the other vampire and werewolf flicks haven’t hit so that makes us pretty unique.”
The show’s two hour finale airs on ABC on Sept. 19!
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