What is your favourite season? Awards season!
The 2025 Emmy nominations were announced on July 15, and several noteworthy Canadians have made the cut, including Catherine O’Hara for her roles on The Studio and The Last of Us, Seth Rogen for acting, directing, and writing The Studio, Martin Short for his lead role in Only Murders in the Building, and Jessica Lee Gagné for her directing and cinematography in Severance.
It may not have been the busiest year for Albertans, but that doesn’t mean the province is without its accolades. Here are some of the Albertans who have taken home the golden statue in recent years.
The Last of Us
The hit video game adaptation was a major money-maker for the province, resulting in over $141 million spent across the province and $182 million for Alberta’s GDP during the time it filmed here. It also shed a spotlight on local talent behind the scenes.
Calgary’s Michael Playfair was part of the team that won the award for sound-mixing on The Last of Us, season one episode one, When You’re Lost in the Darkness. Playfair has been nominated five other times in the same category for his work in Fargo and a miniseries called Broken Trail, and it was wonderful to see his hard work pay off in such a way!
Other Albertans nominated for their work in The Last of Us were Paul Healy for outstanding production design, Rebecca Toon and Michelle Carr for costume contemporary design, and Chris Glimsdale and Penny Thompson for contemporary hairstyling.
In the spotlight
While most of Alberta’s notoriety is behind the scenes, St. Albert-born actor Jason Thompson took home a Daytime Emmy Award in 2020 for his leading role as Billy Abbott in the soap opera The Young and the Restless.
Over an acting career that spans 20 years, Thompson has received seven other acting nominations for his work on The Young and the Restless and General Hospital.
A bright future
Other recent nominations with connections to Alberta include those for Prey, a sci-fi movie filmed on the Stoney Nakoda Nation, which was nominated in six categories and won for outstanding sound editing and Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock, which was produced at the Calgary Film Centre and nominated for the outstanding fiction special category.
The Emmy award winners are a drop in the bucket of Alberta nominees, and the nominees are a drop in the even bigger bucket of Alberta talent. With plenty of projects filmed here over the last year, and even more to come, who knows what’s in store for future awards?
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