Arts & Entertainment
‘Pose’ scores six history-making Emmy nominations
‘RuPaul’s Drag Race,’ Schitt’s Creek’ also land noms


“Pose” landed six Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series and a Best Actor nomination for Billy Porter, marking a historic milestone for the first television series to feature the largest cast of LGBTQ actors.
Porter, who portrays Pray Tell on “Pose,” is the first openly gay black man to be nominated for an Emmy.
“I just haven’t been breathing for the past day,” Porter told Deadline about his nomination. “So today, I was able to breathe — that was my first reaction!”
Other LGBTQ nominations include “RuPaul’s Drag Race” for Outstanding Competition Program and “RuPaul’s Drag Race: Untucked” for Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program. RuPaul also was nominated for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Competition Program up against Ellen DeGeneres for “Ellen’s Game of Games.”
Laverne Cox is nominated for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for “Orange is the New Black” and Jane Lynch is nominated for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
Kate McKinnon was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for “Saturday Night Live” and Ben Whishaw is nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for “A Very English Scandal.”
“Schitt’s Creek,” which stars out actor Dan Levy, was nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series. “Queer Eye” was also nominated for Outstanding Structured Reality Program.
Outstanding Short Form Variety Series is full of gay nominees including “Billy on the Street,” “Gay of Thrones” and “The Randy Rainbow Show.”
“Game of Thrones” also made history with a total of 32 nominations, the most nominations received by a television series in one year.
The Emmys air on Sunday, Sept. 22 at 8 p.m. on FOX.
Check out more of the nominees below and the complete list here.
Outstanding Drama Series
“Better Call Saul”
“Bodyguard”
“Game of Thrones”
“Killing Eve”
“Ozark”
“Pose”
“Succession”
“This Is Us”
Outstanding Comedy Series
“Barry”
“Fleabag”
“Russian Doll”
“Schitt’s Creek”
“The Good Place”
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”
“Veep”
Outstanding Limited Series
“Chernobyl”
“Escape at Dannemora”
“Fosse/Verdon”
“Sharp Objects”
“When They See Us”
Outstanding Drama Actor
Bob Odenkirk (“Better Call Saul”)
Kit Harington (“Game of Thrones”)
Jason Bateman (“Ozark”)
Sterling K. Brown (“This Is Us”)
Milo Ventimiglia (“This Is Us”)
Billy Porter (“Pose”)
Outstanding Drama Actress
Emilia Clarke (“Game of Thrones”)
Robin Wright (“House of Cards”)
Viola Davis (“How To Get Away With Murder”)
Sandra Oh (“Killing Eve”)
Jodie Comer (“Killing Eve”)
Mandy Moore (“This Is Us”)
Laura Linney (“Ozark”)
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
Jonathan Banks (“Better Call Saul”)
Giancarlo Esposito (“Better Call Saul”)
Alfie Allen (“Game of Thrones”)
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (“Game of Thrones”)
Peter Dinklage (“Game of Thrones”)
Michael Kelly (“House of Cards”)
Chris Sullivan (“This Is Us”)
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series
Lena Headey (“Game of Thrones”)
Gwendoline Christine (“Game of Thrones”)
Sophie Turner (“Game of Thrones”)
Maisie Williams (“Game of Thrones”)
Fiona Shaw (“Killing Eve”)
Julia Garner (“Ozark”)
Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series
Michael McKean (“Better Call Saul”)
Glynn Turman (“How To Get Away With Murder)”
Kumail Nanjiani (“The Twilight Zone”)
Bradley Whitford (“The Handmaid’s Tale”)
Michael Angarano (“This Is Us”)
Ron Cephas Jones (“This Is Us”)
Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series
Jessica Lange (“American Horror Story: Apocalypse”)
Carice van Houten (“Game of Thrones”)
Laverne Cox (“Orange Is The New Black”)
Cicely Tyson (“How To Get Away With Murder”)
Cherry Jones (“The Handmaid’s Tale”)
Phylicia Rashad (“This Is Us”)
Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series
Game of Thrones “The Last Of The Starks”
Game of Thrones “The Long Night”
Game of Thrones “The Iron Throne”
Killing Eve “Desperate Times”
Ozark “Reparations”
Succession “Celebration”
The Handmaid’s Tale “Holly”
Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series
Better Call Saul “Winner”
Bodyguard “Episode 1”
Game of Thrones “The Iron Throne”
Killing Eve “Nice And Neat”
Succession “Nobody Is Ever Missing”
The Handmaid’s Tale “Holly”
Outstanding Comedy Actor
Bill Hader (“Barry”)
Don Cheadle (“Black Monday”)
Anthony Anderson (“Black-ish”)
Eugene Levy (“Schitt’s Creek”)
Ted Danson (“The Good Place”)
Michael Douglas (“The Kominsky Method”)
Outstanding Comedy Actress
Christina Applegate (“Dead to Me”)
Phoebe Waller-Bridge (“Fleabag”)
Catherine O’Hara (“Schitt’s Creek”)
Natasha Lyonne (“Russian Doll”)
Rachel Brosnahan (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”)
Julia Louis-Dreyfus (“Veep)
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series
Henry Winkler (“Barry”)
Anthony Carrigan (“Barry”)
Stephen Root (“Barry”)
Tony Hale (“Veep”)
Tony Shalhoub (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”)
Alan Arkin (“The Kominsky Method”)
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series
Sarah Goldberg (“Barry”)
Sian Clifford (“Fleabag”)
Olivia Colman (“Fleabag”)
Betty Gilpin (“GLOW”)
Marin Hinkle (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”)
Kate McKinnon (“Saturday Night Live”)
Alex Borstein (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”)
Anna Chlumsky (“Veep”)
Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series
Robert De Niro (“Saturday Night Live”)
John Mulaney (“Saturday Night Live”)
Adam Sandler (“Saturday Night Live”)
Matt Damon (“Saturday Night Live”)
Luke Kirby (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”)
Rufus Sewell (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”)
Peter MacNicol (“Veep”)
Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series
Fiona Shaw (“Fleabag”)
Kristin Scott Thomas (“Fleabag”)
Emma Thompson (“Saturday Night Live”)
Sandra Oh (“Saturday Night Live”)
Maya Rudolph (“The Good Place”)
Jane Lynch (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”)
Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series
“Barry” (“The Audition”)
“Barry” (“ronny/lily”)
“Fleabag” (“Episode 1”)
“The Big Bang Theory” (“Stockholm Syndrome”)
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (“All Alone”)
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (“We’re Going To The Catskills!”)
Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series
“Barry” (“ronny/lily”)
“Fleabag” (“Episode 1”)
“PEN15” (“Anna Ishii-Peters”)
“Russian Doll” (“Nothing In This World Is Easy”)
“Russian Doll” (“A Warm Body”)
“The Good Place” (“Janet(s)”)
“Veep” (“Veep”)
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series
Mahershala Ali (“True Detective”)
Hugh Grant (“A Very English Scandal”)
Benicio del Toro (“Escape At Dannemora”)
Sam Rockwell (“Fosse/Verdon”)
Jared Harris (“Chernobyl”)
Jharrel Jerome (“When They See Us”)
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series
Amy Adams (“Sharp Objects”)
Patricia Arquette (“Escape At Dannemora”)
Michelle Williams (“Fosse/Verdon”)
Joey King (“The Act”)
Aunjanue Ellis (“When They See Us”)
Niecy Nash (“When They See Us”)
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series
Ben Whishaw (“A Very English Scandal”)
Stellan Skarsgard (“Chernobyl”)
Paul Dano (“Escape at Dannemora”)
John Leguizamo (“When They See Us”)
Michael K. Williams (“When They See Us”)
Asante Black (“When They See Us”)
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series
Emily Watson (“Chernobyl”)
Patricia Clarkson (“Sharp Objects”)
Marsha Stephanie Blake (“When They See Us”)
Vera Farmiga (“When They See Us”)
Patricia Arquette (“The Act”)
Margaret Qualley (“Fosse/Verdon”)
Outstanding Television Movie
“Bandersnatch (Black Mirror)”
“Brexit”
” King Lear”
“My Dinner with Hervé”
Outstanding Short Form Variety Series
“Billy On The Street”
“Carpool Karaoke: The Series”
“Gay Of Thrones”
“Honest Trailers”
“The Randy Rainbow Show”
Outstanding Competition Program
“American Ninja Warrior”
“RuPaul’s Drag Race”
“Nailed It!”
“The Amazing Race”
“The Voice”
“Top Chef”
Outstanding Host for a Reality or Competition Program
Ellen DeGeneres (“Ellen’s Game of Games”)
RuPaul (“RuPaul’s Drag Race”)
Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman (“Making It”)
James Corden (“The World’s Best”)
Marie Kondo (“Tidying Up With Marie Kondo”)
Outstanding Structured Reality Program
“Antiques Roadshow”
“Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives”
“Queer Eye”
“Shark Tank”
“Tidying Up With Marie Kondo”
“Who Do You Think You Are?”
Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program
“Born This Way”
“Deadliest Catch”
” Life Below Zero”
“RuPaul’s Drag Race: Untucked”
“Somebody Feed Phil”
“United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell”
Music & Concerts
Indigo Girls coming to Capital One Hall
Stars take center stage alongside Fairfax Symphony

Capital One Center will host “The Indigo Girls with the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra” on Thursday, June 19 and Friday, June 20 at 8 p.m. at Capital One Hall.
The Grammy Award-winning folk and pop stars will take center stage alongside the Fairfax Symphony, conducted by Jason Seber. The concerts feature orchestrations of iconic hits such as “Power of Two,” “Get Out The Map,” “Least Complicated,” “Ghost,” “Kid Fears,” “Galileo,” “Closer to Fine,” and many more.
Tickets are available on Ticketmaster or in person at Capital One Hall the nights of the concerts.

Friday, June 13
“Center Aging Friday Tea Time” will be at 2 p.m. in person at the DC Center for the LGBT Community’s new location at 1827 Wiltberger St., N.W. This is a social hour for older LGBTQ adults. Guests are encouraged to bring a beverage of choice. For more details, email [email protected].
Women in Their Twenties and Thirties will be at 8 p.m. at Wundergarten. An update will be posted the night of the event on where to find WiTT’s table. There’ll be a Pride flag to help people find the group. For more details, join WiTT’s closed Facebook group.
Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Pride Month Happy Hour” at 7 p.m. at Freddie’s Beach bar and Restaurant. This event is ideal for making new friends, professional networking, idea-sharing, and community building. This event is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.
Saturday, June 14
Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Pride Month Brunch” at 11 a.m. at Freddie’s Beach Bar & Restaurant. This fun weekly event brings the DMV area LGBTQ+ community, including Allies, together for delicious food and conversation. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.
Rainbow History Project will host “Behind the Scenes With the Senior Curator of ‘Pickets, Protests and Parades’” at 7:30p.m. at Freedom Plaza. This behind-the-scenes experience offers a rare glimpse into the creative process behind this groundbreaking showcase of DC’s LGBTQ+ history. Learn about the bold design decisions that shaped the Quote Wall and Hero Cubes and the powerful stories that almost made the cut. Tickets cost $82 and can be purchased on Eventbrite.
Monday, June 16
“Center Aging Monday Coffee Klatch” will be at 10 a.m. on Zoom. This is a social hour for older LGBTQ+ adults. Guests are encouraged to bring a beverage of choice. For more details, email [email protected].
Genderqueer DC will be at 7 p.m. in person at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. This is a support group for people who identify outside of the gender binary. Whether you’re bigender, agender, genderfluid, or just know that you’re not 100% cis. For more information, visit their website at www.genderqueerdc.org or check us out on Facebook.
Tuesday, June 17
Bi+ Roundtable and Discussion will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This is an opportunity for people to gather in order to discuss issues related to bisexuality or as Bi individuals in a private setting. Check out Facebook or Meetup for more information.
Wednesday, June 18
Job Club will be at 6 p.m. on Zoom. This is a weekly job support program to help job entrants and seekers, including the long-term unemployed, improve self-confidence, motivation, resilience and productivity for effective job searches and networking — allowing participants to move away from being merely “applicants” toward being “candidates.” For more information, email [email protected] or visit thedccenter.org/careers.
“Legends Live Loud: A Queer Karaoke Experience” will be at 7 p.m. at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. This will be a dynamic, Center-wide karaoke event celebrating the brilliance and cultural impact of some of our most colorful queer icons. The Center will honor legends through music, pop culture, dance, and inextinguishable liberation. For more details and to sign up, visit the DC Center’s website.
Thursday, June 19
Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Book Club” at 7:30 p.m. at Federico Ristorante Italiano. This book club is co-hosted by EQUALITY NoVa and is another opportunity to engage in a fun and rewarding activity. The group doesn’t discriminate when it comes to genres it reads – from classic literature to best selling novels to biographies to histories to gay fiction. For more details, visit Eventbrite.
Cultivating Change Foundation will host “Cultivating Pride Happy Hour” at 5:30 p.m. at Dacha Beer Garden. This Pride month, the organization is inviting LGBTQ+ people and allies in food and agriculture to come together in communities nationwide. These informal gatherings are a chance to connect, celebrate, and build community, whether it’s over coffee, a cocktail, or a conversation. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.

There was a time, early in his career, that young filmmaker Wes Anderson’s work was labeled “quirky.”
To describe his blend of dry humor, deadpan whimsy, and unresolved yearning, along with his flights of theatrical fancy and obsessive attention to detail, it seemed apt at the time. His first films were part of a wave when “quirky” was almost a genre unto itself, constituting a handy-but-undefinable marketing label that inevitably became a dismissive synonym for “played out.”
That, of course, is why every new Wes Anderson film can be expected to elicit criticism simply for being a Wes Anderson film, and the latest entry to his cinematic canon is, predictably, no exception.
“The Phoenician Scheme” – released nationwide on June 6 – is perhaps Anderson’s most “Anderson-y” movie yet. Set in the exact middle of the 20th Century, it’s the tall-tale-ish saga of Anatole “Zsa-Zsa” Korda (Benicio del Toro), a casually amoral arms dealer and business tycoon with a history of surviving assassination attempts. The latest – a bomb-facilitated plane crash – has forced him to recognize that his luck will eventually run out, and he decides to protect his financial empire by turning it over (on a trial basis, at least) to his estranged daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton), currently a novice nun on the verge of taking her vows. She conditionally agrees, despite the rumors that he murdered her mother, and is drawn into an elaborate geopolitical con game in which he tries to manipulate a loose cadre of “world-building” financiers (Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Riz Ahmed, Mathieu Amalric, and Jeffrey Wright) into funding a massive infrastructure project – already under construction – across the former Phoenician empire.
Joined by his new administrative assistant and tutor, Bjorn (Michael Cera), Korda and Liesl travel the world to meet with his would-be investors, dodging assassination attempts along the way. His plot is disrupted, however, by the clandestine interference of a secret coalition of nations led by an American agent code-named “Excalibur” (Rupert Friend), who seeks to prevent the shift of geopolitical power his project would create. Eventually, he’s forced to target a final “mark” – his ruthless half-brother Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch), with whom he has played a lifelong game of “who can lick who” – for the money he needs to pull it off, or he’ll lose his fortune, his oligarchic empire, and his slowly improving relationship with his daughter, all at once.
It’s clear from that synopsis that Anderson’s scope has widened far beyond the intimate stories of his earliest works – “Bottle Rocket,” “Rushmore,” “The Royal Tenenbaums,” and others, which mostly dealt with relationships and dynamics among family (or chosen family) – to encompass significantly larger themes. So, too, has his own singular flavor of filmmaking become more fully realized; his exploration of theatrical techniques within a cinematic setting has grown from the inclusion of a few comical set-pieces to a full-blown translation of the real world into a kind of living, efficiently-modular Bauhaus diorama, where the artifice is emphasized rather than suggested, and realism can only be found through the director’s unconventionally-adjusted focus.
His work is no longer “quirky” – instead, it has grown with him to become something more pithy, an extension of the surreal and absurdist art movements that exploded in the tense days before World War II (an era which bears a far-too-uncomfortable resemblance to our own) and expresses the kind of politically-aware philosophical ideas that helped to build the world which has come since. It is no longer possible to enjoy a Wes Anderson movie on the basis of its surface value alone; it is necessary to read deeper into his now-well-honed cinematic language, which is informed not just by his signature aesthetic but by intellectual curiosity, and by the art, history, and cultural knowledge with which he saturates his work – like pieces of a scattered puzzle, waiting to be picked up and assembled along the way. Like all auteurs, he makes films that are shaped by a personal vision and follow a personal logic; and while he may strive to make them entertaining, he is perhaps more interested in providing insight into the wildly contradictory, often nonsensical, frequently horrifying, and almost always deplorable behavior of human beings. Indeed, the prologue scene in his latest endeavor illustrates each of those things, shockingly and definitively, before the opening credits even begin.
By typical standards, the performances in “Phoenician Scheme” – like those in most of Anderson’s films – feel stylized, distant, even emotionally cold. But within his meticulously stoic milieu, they are infused with a subtle depth that comes as much from the carefully maintained blankness of their delivery as it does from the lines themselves. Both del Toro and Threapleton manage to forge a deeply affecting bond while maintaining the detachment that is part of the director’s established style, and Cera – whose character reveals himself to be more than he appears as part of the story’s progression – begs the question of why he hasn’t become a “Wes Anderson regular” long before this. As always, part of the fun comes from the appearances of so many familiar faces, actors who have become part of an ever-expanding collection of regular players – including most-frequent collaborator Bill Murray, who joins fellow Anderson troupers Willem Dafoe and F. Murray Abraham as part of the “Biblical Troupe” that enact the frequent “near-death” episodes experienced by del Toro’s Korda throughout, and Scarlett Johansson, who shows up as a second cousin that Korda courts for a marriage of financial convenience – and the obvious commitment they bring to the project beside the rest of the cast.
But no Anderson film is really about the acting, though it’s an integral part of what makes them work – as this one does, magnificently, from the intricately choreographed opening credit sequence to the explosive climax atop an elaborate mechanical model of Korda’s dream project. In the end, it’s Anderson himself who is the star, orchestrating his thoroughly-catalogued vision like a clockwork puzzle until it pays off on a note of surprisingly un-bittersweet hope which reminds us that the importance of family and personal bonds is, in fact, still at the core of his ethos.
That said, and a mostly favorable critical response aside, there are numerous critics and self-identified fans who have been less than charmed by Anderson’s latest opus, finding it a redundant exercise in a style that has grown stale and offers little substance in exchange. Frankly, it’s impossible not to wonder if they have seen the same movie we have.
“The Phoenician Scheme,” like all of its creator’s work, is ultimately an esoteric experience, a film steeped in language and concepts that may only be accessible to those familiar with them – which, far from being a means of shutting out the “unenlightened,” aims instead to entice and encourage them to think, to explore, and, perhaps, to expand their perspective. It might be frustrating, but the payoff is worth it.
In this case, the shrewd political and economical realities he illuminates behind the romanticized “Hollywood” intrigue and his deceptively eccentric presentation speak so profoundly to the current state of world we live in that, despite its lack of directly queer subject matter, we’re giving it our deepest recommendation.