“Battle of the Bastards” wins Emmys for Outstanding Writing and Outstanding Directing
By Dan Selcke
The Emmys have finally gotten to the Game of Thrones portion of the evening, and it kicked it off with a win. David Benioff and Dan Weiss, the creators of the show, won an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Drama, for penning “Battle of the Bastards.”
The field looked like this:
OUTSTANDING WRITING FOR A DRAMA SERIES – 2016
- Downton Abbey—”Episode 8″
- Game of Thrones—“Battle of the Bastards”
- Mr. Robot—”eps1.0_hellofriend.mov (Pilot)”
- The Americans—”Persona Non Grata”
- The Good Wife—”End”
- UnREAL—”Return”
The show beat some fierce competitors, especially the pilot episode of Mr. Robot, which had a lot of buzz about it.
Benioff was the first to speak. “If the world was fair, every writer would have Miguel Sapochnik directing their episode, our brilliant actors reading their lines, and the best producing team on the planet, led by the unsinkable Bernie Caulfield, producing their episode,” he said.
But Weiss was on hand to lend some perspective. “But the world is not fair,” he said, “so we’re grateful to have them to ourselves.”
Moving on, Weiss thanked George R.R. Martin “for writing the books that changed our lives,” and the HBO executives for keeping “this giant lizard flying.” He also thanked his parents “for letting us have television and comic books and Dungeons and Dragons and all the other things that taught us all how to do our jobs.”
Congrats to Benioff and Weiss!
Meanwhile, Miguel Sapochnik took home an award for directing the episode. “I’m hungry,” he began. “I don’t know about you guys. I want to thank the Academy. I want to thank HBO.” He made a special point of thanking Fabian Wagner, his director of photography on the episode, “who should be up here with me. He’s awesome.”
"I want to thank the entire crew and the cast and the producers of Game of Thrones. I really would not be here if it wasn’t for you guys. Thank you very very very much. David and Dan, thank you for your trust and your friendship. I really appreciate it."
Finally, he thanked his wife and daughter, “who is the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Unfortunately, Lena Headey (Cersei), Maisie Williams (Arya), and Emilia Clarke (Daenerys) lost the Outstanding Supporting Actress award to Maggie Smith, but that wasn’t entirely unexpected. Congratulations to all the nominees and winners!