Peter Scolari wins guest actor Emmy for performance as Lena Dunham’s gay dad in HBO’s ‘Girls’

Peter Scolari won his first Emmy Award tonight for his portrayal of Lena Dunham’s gay dad on the HBO series Girls.

The win took many by surprise since the actor was not initially a nominee in a field that also included Larry David (Saturday Night Live), Tracy Morgan (Saturday Night Live), Martin Mull (Veep), Bradley Whitford (Transparent) and Bob Newhart (The Big Bang Theory).

He was added to the category after original nominee Peter MacNicol was disqualified after it was discovered he had appeared in too many episodes of HBO’s Veep to qualify as a guest actor. Scolari was the next-highest vote-getter.

‘I had pushed past it, done some work on myself to be OK with not being nominated,’ Scolari told reporters backstage after his win.

‘So when it came through in the way it did I was really quite taken aback, and flush with gratitude and really humbled by it.’ Ironically, Scolari was the show’s only nominee in its fifth season.

It was a season during which Scolari’s character of Tad went from being the father of Hannah (Dunham) who was married to her mother to a gay man on his own journey.

Scolari, 60, had previously been nominated for three Emmys in the supporting actor in a comedy series category in the 1980s for his role as Michael Harris in Newhart.

He first came to fame in 1980 when he starred with Tom Hanks in the ABC comedy Bosom Buddies. They played two young single ad men must disguise themselves as women to live in the one apartment they can afford.

Scolari’s award was among those presented during the Creative Arts Emmys in Los Angeles presented a week ahead of the Prime Time Emmys next week.