Canada at the Emmys: Five things to know about Canadians at this year’s show | CBC News

Here are five things to know about homegrown talent at the 73rd Emmy Awards:

The setting

Sunday’s show was originally set as an indoor affair but moved outdoors in early August because of concerns over the COVID-19 Delta variant.

The limited audience will gather on the Event Deck at the L.A. Live entertainment complex, behind the Microsoft Theater in downtown Los Angeles, where the Creative Arts Emmys were held.

It’s a much more personable affair than last year’s largely virtual event, in which awards presenters wore tuxedo hazmat suits and handed out hardware at the winners’ homes.

The stars

Canadians set to appear in the telecast include Reservation Dogs stars D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Devery Jacobs and Paulina Alexis as presenters.

Schitt’s Creek, which swept last year’s Emmys comedy categories with seven wins, will be represented with stars Dan Levy, Eugene Levy, Annie Murphy and Catherine O’Hara.

Comedy star Seth Rogen is also slated to appear in the show, hosted by comic Cedric the Entertainer.

The contenders

Those in the running for hardware Sunday include Lorne Michaels, Toronto-bred creator of Saturday Night Live. He’s up for best writing for a variety series, on a team that includes Toronto’s Celeste Yim.

The category also includes Montreal’s Barry Julien, nominated as part of the writing team on CBS/Global’s The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.

 And Toronto-raised pop superstar Abel Tesfaye, aka the Weeknd, is part of a team up for best live variety special for his Super Bowl halftime show.

The early wins

Canadians who emerged victorious last weekend include Cameron for the National Geographic docuseries Secrets of the Whales on Disney Plus.

The Kapuskasing, Ont.-born executive producer was part of a team that won best documentary or non-fiction series, beating out nominees including Canadian filmmakers Elliott Halpern and Elizabeth Trojian of the PBS American Masters documentary How It Feels To Be Free.

And sound designer Craig Henighan, graduate of the media arts program at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ont., shared an award with the sound editing team of Netflix’s adult animated anthology series Love, Death + Robots.

The early losses

A slew of Canadians lost out on awards at last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys.

They included Dan Levy, whose stint guest hosting NBC’s SNL fell short to Dave Chappelle’s turn hosting the sketch comedy series.

Vancouver-born renovation twins Jonathan and Drew Scott of HGTV’s Property Brothers: Forever Home and business tycoons Kevin O’Leary and Robert Herjavec of ABC/CTV’s Shark Tank lost the structured reality show category to Netflix’s Queer Eye team.

The category for best host for a reality or competition program was stacked with Canadians, but they lost to RuPaul from RuPaul’s Drag Race, on Crave: including O’Leary, Herjavec and the other Sharks; Montreal’s Antoni Porowski and the Fab Five hosts of Netflix’s Queer Eye, and Toronto cookbook maven Gail Simmons, co-host of Food Network’s Top Chef.

Late-night host Samantha Bee, up for short form non-fiction or reality series for Pandemic Video Diaries: Vaxxed And Waxxed, lost to YouTube’s Uncomfortable Conversations With A Black Man.

Montreal composer Christophe Beck’s work on Disney Plus’s WandaVision lost to music on Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit, while best choreography for variety or reality programming went to Dancing With The Stars over Toronto-raised Sergio Trujillo’s work on NBC’s Christmas in Rockefeller Center.

The Ontario-shot The Handmaid’s Tale, available on CTV Drama Channel/Crave, had several misses for Canadians — including the categories of fantasy/sci-fi costumes, production design, sound mixing, picture editing, casting and contemporary (non-prosthetic) makeup.