Celebrity Docs Dominate Emmy Nominations

Emmy voters showered stars with attention this morning, and not just in the acting categories. Celebrity documentaries also dominated the nonfiction ranks.

Films and series about John Candy, Martin Short, Mel Brooks, Martin Scorsese, Jayne Mansfield and Mariska Hargitay earned major recognition across multiple categories. A series about a celebrity of the sports world – Rafael Nadal – also made the cut. So did Sean Combs: The Reckoning — though that’s far from being a celebratory depiction of the imprisoned music mogul.

Mel Brooks: The 99-Year-Old Man!, the two-part HBO documentary about the comedy legend, led the way with six nominations, including Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special and Outstanding Directing for a Documentary/Nonfiction Program, recognizing directors Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio. It was also recognized for music composition, picture editing, sound editing, and sound mixing.

Mel Brooks: The 99-Year-Old Man! examines the career of a man who is now 100 years old; Brooks hit the century mark on June 28 (to our knowledge, there are no plans to update the title of the film).

Brooks also appears in another documentary that scored Emmy nominations today – John Candy: I Like Me (Brooks directed Candy in the 1987 comedy Spaceballs). The Candy documentary, directed by Colin Hanks and executive produced by Ryan Reynolds, earned five nominations, including Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special. Along with Brooks, the film from Amazon MGM Studios includes interviews with Tom Hanks, Bill Murray, Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, Steve Martin, Macaulay Culkin, and Candy’s children – Chris Candy and Jennifer Candy-Sullivan (who serve as co-executive producers).

Martin Short, John Candy’s colleague from SCTV, wasn’t neglected in the documentary nominations today. Marty, Life Is Short, the Netflix film about him directed by Lawrence Kasdan, received a trio of nominations, including Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special, as well as a directing nod for Kasdan, and a picture editing nomination recognizing Sierra Neal and Bennett Piscitelli.

Short also landed a nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor In A Comedy Series for Only Murders in the Building.

Mr. Scorsese, the Apple TV series about brilliant filmmaker Martin Scorsese, also earned three nominations, among them Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series. Director Rebecca Miller earned a nomination for her work behind the camera on the five-part series. Her husband, Daniel Day-Lewis, is among those who appear in the documentary, along with Scorsese himself, Robert De Niro, Leonardo Di Caprio, Jodie Foster, Spike Lee, editor Thelma Schoonmaker, screenwriter Paul Schrader and others.

Mariska Hargitay will not only be hosting the Emmys telecast on NBC, the Law & Order: SVU was also nominated today for the documentary she directed, My Mom Jayne. The HBO film is up for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special, along with earning the directing nod Hargitay and Outstanding Cinematography, recognizing the work of Tony Hardmon.

Hargitay just wrapped her Broadway debut in Every Brilliant Thing. Her documentary My Mom Jayne looks at her late mother, actress Jayne Mansfield, who died tragically in an auto accident when Mariska was just 3 (Hargitay and her two brothers were in the backseat of the vehicle when it crashed). The film also delves into a mystery about the identity of Mariska’s father, long assumed to be Micky Hargitay.

Rafa, the four-part Netflix documentary series about tennis champ Rafael Nadal, netted a nomination for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series. Zach Heinzerling directed the acclaimed documentary, which will try to match another sports themed nonfiction series — The Last Dance — by winning a Primetime Emmy in the highly competitive doc series category. Also of note — the Rafa series earned an Emmy nomination for David Ellison, an executive producer on the project. He’s the chairman and CEO of Paramount Skydance, which of course is in the process of trying to complete an acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.

Coming at the intersection of celebrity and true crime, in a sense, is the Netflix series Sean Combs: The Reckoning, which explores shocking claims of sexual abuse and other disturbing behavior by the music mogul. It earned a nomination for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series, as well as a directing nomination for Alexandria Stapleton.

“I’m very, very honored and excited,” Stapleton told Deadline after hearing the news. “I’m proud to be a female in this category. I’m proud to be a Black woman in the category.”

The filmmaker said there’s a cautionary element to the Reckoning story, examining the dark side of celebrity worship.

“It’s not a legacy film about ‘let’s just honor this person and what they contributed to sports or entertainment,’” Stapleton observed. “This is actually a film that mandates you to sit and pay attention and to have some uncomfortable conversations with how we glorify celebrity. It’s kind of a little bit of the inverse impact, I guess, of what happens when we just adore and idolize people… and what we do as a society to contribute to silencing people that want to take on famous celebrities in our culture.”

The documentary categories will be presented as part of the Creative Arts Emmys, a two-night event September 5 and 6 at the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles. The Primetime Emmy telecast – with Mariska Hargitay as host – is set for Monday, September 14 on NBC.