Three book adaptations won awards at the 72nd Emmy Awards ceremony on Sunday night, including HBO’s miniseries Watchmen, which won in four categories. But others, such as the BBC America show Killing Eve, were completely shut out.
Watchmen, based on the 1987 DC Comics graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, took home the Emmy for Outstanding Limited Series or Movie, and also won for best actress (Regina King), writing (Cord Jefferson and show creator Damon Lindelof), and supporting actor (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II). Here’s Lindelof’s acceptance speech for the limited-series Emmy:
Mark Ruffalo won the award for best actor in a limited series for his dual role as troubled twin brothers Dominick and Thomas Birdsey the HBO miniseries I Know This Much Is True, based on Wally Lamb’s 1998 bestseller:
The third book-based Emmy winner was the Netflix show Unorthodox, based on the 2012 nonfiction book Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots by Deborah Feldman. Maria Schrader received the award for best direction for a limited series:
Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh had both been nominated for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series for Killing Eve, based on spy novels by Luke Jennings; Comer won the award last year. However, the Academy of Television Arts Sciences gave the Emmy to Zendaya for her role in the HBO show Euphoria. Killing Eve’s Fiona Shaw was up for best supporting actress, but she lost out, for the second year in a row, to Julia Garner of Netflix’s Ozark.
Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale, based on Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel, had been a contender for three awards last night, including Outstanding Drama Series, but it, too, came up empty-handed. So did multiple-award nominees Little Fires Everywhere, the Hulu miniseries based on Celeste Ng’s Kirkus-starred 2017 bestseller, and the HBO series Big Little Lies, based on the 2014 novel by Liane Moriarty.
David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.
