And the Emmy goes to… the Brits! Huge night for UK stars as The Crown cleans up
British talent has dominated TV’s biggest awards night, with stars including Kate Winslet, Ewan McGregor and Michaela Coel honoured – and royal drama The Crown and feel-good football comedy Ted Lasso cleaning up.
The 2021 Emmys was a night of Hollywood bowing down to the UK’s acting royalty, with The Crown named best drama and stars Olivia Colman and Josh O’Connor taking home awards for their portrayals of the Queen and Prince Charles in the fourth season of the hit Netflix series.
One of the most applauded wins of the night was Coel’s writing recognition for her hard-hitting drama I May Destroy You – an award she dedicated to “every single survivor of sexual assault”.
Winslet was named best actress in a limited series for her critically acclaimed performance as a small-town detective in gritty Sky murder drama Mare Of Easttown – in a tough category that saw her up against Cynthia Erivo, Anya Taylor-Joy and Elizabeth Olsen, as well as Coel – while McGregor picked up the best actor equivalent for Halston.
Ted Lasso, the Apple TV+ London-based comedy about an American football coach brought in to manage a struggling English Premier League club, was named best comedy for its first season, while US star Jason Sudeikis picked up the gong for best comedy actor. The series also saw wins for two of its British actors, Hannah Waddingham and Brett Goldstein, who were named best supporting actress and actor in the comedy category.
Perhaps the only real surprise of the night came right at the end with the final award, which saw chess drama The Queen’s Gambit take home the best limited series gong ahead of favourites I May Destroy You and Mare Of Easttown.
Kate Winslet was named outstanding lead actress in a limited or anthology series or movie, for Mare Of Easttown, while Jason Sudeikis (below) won the award for best actor in a comedy, for Ted Lasso
The biggest night in US TV returned to downtown Los Angeles for a glamourous in-person event, 12 months after last year’s pandemic-hit remote ceremony, while many of The Crown stars accepted their awards at a ceremony in London. It was a huge night for the royal show – and a fitting end to Colman’s reign after two seasons, with Imelda Staunton set to take over in series five.
Oscar-winner Colman delivered yet another memorable awards show acceptance speech, becoming emotional as she paid tribute to her late father, who died during the pandemic. “What a lovely end to the most extraordinary journey with this lovely family,” she said. “I loved every second of it and I can’t wait to see what happens next.”
She continued: “I wish my dad was here to see this. I lost my daddy during Covid and he would have loved all of this.”
During his speech, O’Connor paid tribute to his co-star Emma Corrin, who played Princess Diana and was nominated alongside Colman, describing the actress as a “force of nature”. The Crown’s supporting stars also won, with Gillian Anderson and Tobias Menzies recognised for playing Margaret Thatcher and the Duke of Edinburgh respectively.
Coel, the star and creator of the critically acclaimed I May Destroy You, which explores the issues of consent and sexual assault, used her acceptance speech to send a message to fellow writers, saying that “visibility these days seems to somehow equate to success, do not be afraid to disappear, from it, from us, for a while and see what comes to you in the silence”.
Winslet’s win, in one of the most competitive categories, saw her recognised for playing the vape-smoking detective Mare in Mare Of Easttown, one of the year’s most talked about dramas. Accepting her prize, the actress said the decade must be about “women having each other’s backs” – and thanked the show’s creator for writing a lead character who is a “middle-aged, imperfect, flawed mother”, adding: “You made us all feel validated.”
Gillian Anderson, who played Margaret Thatcher in The Crown, was another winner for the hit royal drama
The supporting stars of Mare Of Easttown also won in the limited series category, with Julianne Nicholson named outstanding supporting actress and Evan Peters outstanding supporting actor – both thanked Winslet in their speeches.
Elsewhere, the ceremony’s In Memoriam section included tributes to stars including Larry King, Helen McCrory, Cicely Tyson and Michael K Williams – who died earlier in September, and had been nominated in the supporting actor category for drama.
Actress, dancer and choreographer Debbie Allen was the recipient of this year’s governor’s award, the TV Academy’s lifetime achievement prize – becoming the first black woman to be honoured with the gong.
The Stone Roses bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield has died at the age of 63, his family has said.
Mani’s brother, Greg, said in a post on Facebook: “It is with the heaviest of hearts that I have to announce the sad passing of my brother.”
“RIP RKID,” he added.
Gary “Mani” Mounfield and his wife Imelda at the world premiere of “The Stone Roses : Made Of Stone” in 2013. Pic: Reuters
Formed in 1983, The Stone Roses were a mainstay of the “Madchester” scene.
Mani joined the band in 1987 and formed part of its classic line-up alongside singer Ian Brown, guitarist John Squire and drummer Alan ‘Reni’ Wren. He remained with the group until their split in 1996.
Mani’s death comes two years after that of his wife, Imelda Mounfield, who was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in November 2020. The couple welcomed twin boys in 2012.
Ian Brown, left, with Mani, right, performing on stage during their 2012 reunion concerts in Manchester. Pic: Reuters
The Stone Roses frontman Brown shared a tribute online, writing: “REST IN PEACE MANi X.”
Oasis singer Liam Gallagher said he was “in total shock and absolutely devastated”, describing the bassist as “my hero”.
“RIP Mani – my heartfelt condolences to his twin boys and all of his family,” wrote the Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder, whose bandmate Rowetta added: “Back with your Imelda, Mani. Going to miss you so much. All my love to the boys, the family & all those who knew & loved him.”
The Charlatans frontman, Tim Burgess, shared a photo of himself with Mani, writing alongside it: “I shared this photo a week or so ago on Mani’s birthday.
“It never failed to bring a smile to my face – and that was exactly the same for the man himself.
“One of the absolute best in every way – such a beautiful friend.”
Echo & the Bunnymen vocalist Ian McCulloch said Mani was someone “who I have always loved and always will love, deeply and forever. Like a brother”.
He continued: “I am in shock to be honest. Please tell me I’m just having a bad, bad dream. My thoughts and feelings and Mani. Love to all of his family from me”.
Pic: Robert Marquardt/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
The “Madchester” bands were known for blending indie with acid house, psychedelia, and pop.
The Stone Roses’ eponymous debut album of 1989 was a huge success, and was named the second greatest album of all time in a “Music of the Millennium” poll conducted by HMV, Channel 4, The Guardian, and Classic FM.
The novel has survived the industrial revolution, radio, television, and the internet. Now it’s facing artificial intelligence – and novelists are worried.
Half (51%) fear that they will be replaced by AI entirely, according to a new survey, even though for the most part they don’t use the technology themselves.
More immediately, 85% say they think their future income will be negatively impacted by AI, and 39% claim their finances have already taken a hit.
Tracy Chevalier, the bestselling author of Girl With A Pearl Earring and The Glassmaker, shares that concern.
“I worry that a book industry driven mainly by profit will be tempted to use AI more and more to generate books,” she said in response to the survey.
“If it is cheaper to produce novels using AI (no advance or royalties to pay to authors, quicker production, retainment of copyright), publishers will almost inevitably choose to publish them.
“And if they are priced cheaper than ‘human made’ books, readers are likely to buy them, the way we buy machine-made jumpers rather than the more expensive hand-knitted ones.”
Chevalier, author of the book Girl With A Pearl Earring, with the painting of the same name. Pic: AP
Why authors are so worried
The University of Cambridge’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy asked 258 published novelists and 74 industry insiders how AI is viewed and used in the world of British fiction.
Alongside existential fears about the wholesale replacement of the novel, many authors reported a loss of income from AI, which they attributed to “competition from AI-generated books and the loss of jobs which provide supplementary streams of income, such as copywriting”.
Some respondents reported finding “rip-off AI-generated imitations” of their own books, as well books “written under their name which they haven’t produced”.
Last year, the Authors Guild warned that “the growing access to AI is driving a new surge of low-quality sham ‘books’ on Amazon”, which has limited the number of publications per day on its Kindle self-publishing platform to combat the influx of AI-generated books.
The median income for a novelist is currently £7,000 and many make ends meet by doing related work, such as audiobook narration, copywriting or ghost-writing.
Read more: The author embracing AI to help write novels
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Could the AI bubble burst?
These tasks, authors feared, were already being supplanted by AI, although little evidence was provided for this claim, which was not possible to verify independently.
Copyright was also a big concern, with 59% of novelists reporting that they knew their work had been used to train AI models.
Of these, 99% said they did not give permission and 100% said they were not remunerated for this use.
Earlier this year, AI firm Anthropic agreed to pay authors $1.5bn (£1.2bn) to settle a lawsuit which claimed the company stole their work.
The judge in the US court case ruled that Anthropic had downloaded more than seven million digital copies of books it “knew had been pirated” and ordered the firm to pay authors compensation.
However, the judge sided with Anthropic over the question of copyright, saying that the AI model was doing something akin to when a human reads a book to inspire new work, rather than simply copying.
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Most novelists – 67% – never used it for creative work, although a few said they found it very useful for speeding up drafting or editing.
One case study featured in the report is Lizbeth Crawford, a novelist in multiple genres, including fantasy and romance. She describes working with AI as a writing partner, using it to spot plot holes and trim adjectives.
“Lizbeth used to write about one novel per year, but now she can do three per year, and her target is five,” notes the author of the report, Dr Clementine Collett.
Is there a role for government?
Despite this, the report’s foreword urges the government to slow down the spread of AI by strengthening copyright law to protect authors and other creatives.
The government has proposed making an exception to UK copyright law for “text and data mining”, which might make authors and other copyright holders opt out to stop their work being used to train AI models.
“That approach prioritises access to data for the world’s technology companies at the cost to the UK’s own creative industries,” writes Professor Gina Neff, executive director of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy.
“It is both bad economics and a betrayal of the very cultural assets of British soft power.”
A government spokesperson said: “Throughout this process we have, and always will, put the interests of the UK’s citizens and businesses first.
“We’ve always been clear on the need to work with both the creative industries and AI sector to drive AI innovation and ensure robust protections for creators.
“We are bringing together both British and global companies, alongside voices beyond the AI and creative sectors, to ensure we can capture the broadest possible range of expert views as we consider next steps.”
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