‘Hacks’ Is About “Women And Queer People,” Say Exec Producers – Contenders TV: The Nominees

EXCLUSIVE: Starz is developing the new comedy series Plan A from writer and executive producer Steven J. Kung (Dear White People, A Leading Man) centering on the Asian American experience. Kung will reunite with Dear White People‘s Justin Simien, who will executive produce through his production company Culture Machine, and Leann Bowen who will serve as showrunner and EP.

Deadline on Monday launched the streaming site for its Contenders Television: The Nominees, our annual TV awards-season showcase that took place Saturday with 31 panels featuring the year’s buzziest Emmy-nominated scripted and unscripted series and documentaries.

Viewers of the Emmy-nominated Angelyne on Peacock might be surprised to learn just how little of star Emmy Rossum they actually saw. Rossum said during a panel appearance at Deadline’s Contenders Television: The Nominees event that 10 prosthetic pieces transformed her face and body into that of Los Angeles billboard queen Angelyne.

As wildfires burn in Northern California, World Central Kitchen is there, providing emergency food relief. Likewise in Spain, it has responded to devastating wildfires that flared in July. You’ll find WCK in Ukraine, feeding countless souls affected by Russia’s brutal invasion.

Fans can’t get enough of FX’s What We Do in the Shadows, which is airing its fourth season, and apparently neither can the critics. The show is nominated for seven Emmy Awards including Outstanding Comedy Series.

Jeff Goldblum is the executive producer and host of The World According to Jeff Goldblum from National Geographic and Disney+. He joined Deadline for its Contenders Television: The Nominees panel and talked about how each season is mapped out — and he also teases what he hopes to see in a possible Season 3.

Writer Sarah Burgess and star Sarah Paulson said they were trying to understand and depict what motivated Linda Tripp in Impeachment: American Crime Story. The FX limited series depicts the impeachment hearings of President Bill Clinton (Clive Owen) after his affair with Monica Lewinsky (Beanie Feldstein). Paulson plays Tripp, who recorded Lewinsky’s phone calls with Clinton and gave them to Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr (Dan Bakkedahl).

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah returned to its old home in March and brought back a studio audience for the first time in two years.

It sounds to good to be true, but it wasn’t: Actors were plucked from the hell that was the pandemic and dropped into a tropical bubble, where they would end up making The White Lotus for HBO. It would garner an astonishing 20 Emmy nominations, including one for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series.

The creators and star of the HBO Max series Station Eleven became worried about releasing a show about a pandemic during the second year of the Covid pandemic. However, creator Patrick Somerville, director Hiro Murai and star Himesh Patel focused on the limited series’ hopeful message.

“There was a huge sense of wanting to do this real person justice and tell their story honestly, and with great empathy and protecting them,” Pam & Tommy’s Lily James said about playing Pamela Anderson in Hulu’s multi-Emmy-nominated miniseries.

There are only two nominees in this year’s Outstanding Variety Sketch Series: NBC’s Saturday Night Live and HBO’s A Black Lady Sketch Show. But creator/star Robin Thede would prefer to focus on how her comedy  was nominated for the third year straight, not how they’re competing against only one other nominee.

Dopesick, the Hulu drama series starring Michael Keaton, Kaitlyn Dever and Peter Sarsgaard, tells the story of the opioid crisis in the U.S. between 1996 and 2007.

The Dropout directors Michael Showalter and Francesca Gregorini zeroed in on a number of small details to help Amanda Seyfried prepare for her role as disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes in the Hulu miniseries.

If it wasn’t enough for The Great to be Emmy-nominated for its costumes, costume designer Sharon Long earned praise from her stars too. Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult appeared a panel for Deadline’s Contenders TV: The Nominees event and noted that their respective Catherine the Great and Peter III wardrobe is their favorite in their entire careers.

Only Murders in the Building has been renewed for Season 3 on Hulu, and given that the show stars SNL veterans Steve Martin and Martin Short, some have been advocating for a Three Amigos! reunion with Chevy Chase.

Director W. Kamau Bell, executive producer Katie A. King and editor Jennifer Brooks joined Deadline’s Contenders Television: The Nominees award-season event to discuss working on the Showtime docuseries We Need To Talk About Cosby, and navigating triggering material.

“These people like to keep me on my toes. Just when I think I kind of have the hang of it, or start to feel more comfortable, there’s some giant curveball, like the ‘Aristotle’ scene, or ‘imitating another comic’ scene,” said Rachel Brosnahan, star of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. She’s talking about stand-up, which her trailblazing comic and Upper West Side mother of two, Miriam “Midge” Maisel, really does a lot of in the Prime Video series’ penultimate season.

Full of body positivity and lots of girl power, Lizzo’s Watch Out For The Big Grrrls proves not every reality competition series needs to be cutthroat to be “must see TV.” And the formula worked for the Grammy Award winner and her team, who were recently nominated for six Emmy Awards including Outstanding Competition Program, Outstanding Casting For a Reality Program (Lynne Spillman, Blair Kim, and Jazzy Collins), and Outstanding Directing for A Reality Program (Nneka Onuorah).

Mark Monroe, writer-producer of the Emmy-nominated documentary Lucy and Desi, calls Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz “the most powerful couple probably Hollywood has ever seen.”