LOS ANGELES (AP) — “The Bear” came back for seconds in a big way at the Emmys, scoring repeat wins Sunday night four times including best actor, best supporting actor and best supporting actress in a comedy, while British upstart “Baby Reindeer” scored four wins including best limited series.
The star of FX's “The Bear” Jeremy Allen White won best actor in a comedy for the second straight year, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach repeated as best supporting actor.
A surprise came when Liza Colón-Zayas won best supporting actor over major competition.
“How could I have thought it would be possible to be in the presence of Meryl Streep and Carol Burnett,” Colón-Zayas said as tears welled in her eyes as she accepted the award on the stage of the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.
She is the first Latina to win in the category.
“To all the Latinas who are looking at me,” she said, “keep believing and vote.”
Netflix’s darkly quirky “Baby Reindeer” scored big wins in the limited series category, including best actor and best writing for the show’s creator and star Richard Gadd and best supporting actress for Jessica Gunning, who plays his tormentor.
“Baby Reindeer” is based on a one man-stage show in which Gadd describes being sexually abused along with other emotional struggles.
“Ten years ago, I was down and out, I never ever thought I could get my life together,” Gadd said through tears as he accepted the writing award. “Here I am, just a decade later picking up one of the biggest writing awards in television.”
He added, “no matter how bad it gets, it always gets better.”
The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly as Gadd has.
The creator of “The Bear” was also a repeat winner. Christopher Storer took his second straight Emmy for directing, an award handed out by reunited “Happy Days” co-stars Ron Howard and Henry Winkler.
White said backstage that he was watching in the wings as Colón-Zayas won and “that was just the greatest.”
He also shouted out two acting wins the show had already scored at last weekend's Creative Arts Emmy Awards, when Jamie Lee Curtis won best guest actress in a comedy for playing his mother, and Jon Bernthal won best guest actor for playing his big brother.
“The Bear” won six times including most of the top comedy categories at the strike-delayed Emmys in January.
While the third season of FX’s “The Bear” has already dropped, the trio won their second Emmys for its second, in which White’s chef Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto attempts to turn his family’s grungy Chicago sandwich shop into an elite restaurant. It could still win more Sunday night including best comedy series.
The father-son hosting duo of Eugene and Dan Levy in their monologue at the top of the show mocked the very dramatic “The Bear” being in the comedy category.
“In honor of ‘The Bear’ we will be making no jokes,” Eugene Levy said, to laughs.
Jean Smart won best actress in a comedy for “Hacks.” She has won for all three seasons of “Hacks,” and has six Emmys overall.
She beat nominees including Ayo Edebiri, who as co-star of “The Bear” moved from supporting actress, which she won in January, to lead actress.
Coming into the show the big story was another FX show, “Shogun,” which had already taken the most Emmys for a show in a single season with 14 at the Creative Arts ceremony.
But well into the show, it had managed only one Emmy, for directing. Billy Crudup took best supporting actor in a drama for “The Morning Show” over Tadanobu Asano of “Shogun,” setting the tone early.
The FX series about lordly politicking in feudal Japan, also lost out in the drama writing category to “Slow Horses.” But it can still win as many as three more, including best actor in a drama, best actress in a drama and best drama series.
Veteran screen star Hiroyuki Sanada, up for best actor, Anna Sawai, up for best actress, are in position to become the first Japanese actors to win Emmys.
If “Shogun” faces competition for the best drama prize, it could come for the sixth and final season of “The Crown,” the only show among the nominees that has won before in a category recently dominated by the retired “Succession.”
Elizabeth Debicki took best supporting actress in a drama for playing Princess Diana at the end of her life in the sixth and final season of the show.
“Playing this part, based on this unparalleled, incredible human being, has been my great privilege," Debicki said. "It’s been a gift.”
Streep wasn't the only Oscar winner trumped by a little-known name. Robert Downey Jr., the reigning best supporting actor winner for “Oppenheimer,” was considered the favorite to win best supporting actor in a limited series for “The Sympathizer,” but that award went to Lamorne Morris for “Fargo.”
“Robert Downey Jr. I have a poster of you in my house!” Morris said from the stage as he accepted his first Emmy.
Yet another Academy Award winner, Jodie Foster, who could get her first Emmy for best actress in a limited series for “True Detective: Night Country.”
Several awards were presented by themed teams from TV history, including sitcom dads George Lopez, Damon Wayans and Jesse Tyler Ferguson and TV moms Meredith Baxter, Connie Britton, and Susan Kelechi Watson.
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For more on this year’s Emmy Awards, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/emmy-awards
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