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Five Things to Know about the Emmys

"Succession" is leading the way for the Emmy Awards with the most nominations, but can "Squid Game" win a historic prize for best drama? VALERIE MACON AFP/File
"Succession" is leading the way for the Emmy Awards with the most nominations, but can "Squid Game" win a historic prize for best drama? VALERIE MACON AFP/File
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Five Things to Know about the Emmys

"Succession" is leading the way for the Emmy Awards with the most nominations, but can "Squid Game" win a historic prize for best drama? VALERIE MACON AFP/File
"Succession" is leading the way for the Emmy Awards with the most nominations, but can "Squid Game" win a historic prize for best drama? VALERIE MACON AFP/File

Will "Squid Game" make history? Or will HBO powerhouse "Succession" swipe the best drama statuette again at television's equivalent of the Oscars?

And will Hulu break through on a wider scale?

Here are five things to know about the 74th Emmy Awards, which take place on Monday night in Los Angeles, AFP said.

- Is Hollywood ready to crown K-drama? -
K-pop sensation BTS are so beloved that news of the boy band taking a break sparked a global meltdown on social media. "Parasite" broke all the rules on its path to Oscars glory in 2020. Is Hollywood now ready to honor a television series in Korean?

"Squid Game" -- the blockbuster Netflix series about down-and-out people competing in children's games to the death for money -- became a global phenomenon upon its launch just about a year ago.

Now it could win the Emmy for best drama, in what would be a first for a non-English-language series. It is already a trailblazer just for earning a nomination in the category, one of 14 overall.

The series has already tasted Emmys victory, with Lee Yoo-mi taking the prize for best guest actress in a drama at the Creative Emmys, the pre-gala event at which many statuettes are awarded in minor categories.

Lee plays Ji-yeong, one of the 456 desperate competitors hoping to win cash in the brutal contest.

- Double nominations -
A host of performers are up for multiple awards on Monday, many of them in both acting and off-camera categories.

Julia Garner ("Ozark" and "Inventing Anna") and Sydney Sweeney ("Euphoria" and "The White Lotus") are among those nominated for multiple acting roles, with Garner tipped to win the head-to-head battle for best supporting actress.

Best comedy actor nominee Bill Hader ("Barry") is also nominated for directing, writing and producing the show about a hitman who moves to Los Angeles and gets involved in the acting scene.

Seth Rogen is nominated for best supporting actor in a limited series and for producing "Pam and Tommy" -- the story of how an infamous sex tape of actress Pamela Anderson and Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee was made public.

- Bring on the gala -
For the first time in the era of Covid-19, the Television Academy is staging a full-throttle show at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, after a largely virtual event in 2020 and a scaled-back event at a partially outdoor venue last year.

"Saturday Night Live" veteran Kenan Thompson, himself a past Emmy winner, will make his debut as host. The festivities begin at 5:00 pm Monday (0000 GMT Tuesday).

The show is being held on a Monday night this year because NBC, which has the rotating network rights to air it, also airs Sunday Night Football, and the gridiron trumps Tinseltown, with Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on the schedule.

- Hulu has high hopes -
HBO and Netflix tend to dominate the Emmys, but 2022 could be a banner year for Hulu, which is majority-owned by Disney.

The US-only streamer, specializing in more adult-oriented content than Disney+, creates originals such as 2017 drama winner "The Handmaid's Tale," and has been ramping up production.

This year, it has a handful of top contenders in the limited series categories.

Michael Keaton is the frontrunner for best actor in a limited series for playing a doctor embroiled in the US opioid epidemic in "Dopesick," which raked in 14 nominations.

Amanda Seyfried is the frontrunner for best actress glory in the same section for her turn as disgraced biotech star Elizabeth Holmes in "The Dropout."

"Pam and Tommy" has 10 nominations, and comedy "Only Murders in the Building" -- starring Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez as an unlikely trio of true-crime podcasters -- is also in the mix.

- Posthumous pre-gala Emmy for Boseman -
"Black Panther" star Chadwick Boseman died in August 2020 after battling colon cancer -- a diagnosis he never publicly discussed.

Last year, he narrowly missed out to Anthony Hopkins on a posthumous Oscar, for best actor in blues drama "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom."

But he earned some final awards glory at the Creative Emmys, winning for voicing a version of his "Black Panther" character in Marvel's animated series "What If...?"

Other winners at the pre-gala event were former US president Barack Obama (now halfway to an EGOT with his two Grammys), pop star Adele, rapper Eminem and reality show host RuPaul.

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‘Happy Face’ Looks at Ripple Effects of True Crime

Annaleigh Ashford, from left, Dennis Quaid and Melissa G. Moore attend a special screening of the Paramount+ television series "Happy Face" at Metrograph on Tuesday, March 18, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)
Annaleigh Ashford, from left, Dennis Quaid and Melissa G. Moore attend a special screening of the Paramount+ television series "Happy Face" at Metrograph on Tuesday, March 18, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)
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‘Happy Face’ Looks at Ripple Effects of True Crime

Annaleigh Ashford, from left, Dennis Quaid and Melissa G. Moore attend a special screening of the Paramount+ television series "Happy Face" at Metrograph on Tuesday, March 18, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)
Annaleigh Ashford, from left, Dennis Quaid and Melissa G. Moore attend a special screening of the Paramount+ television series "Happy Face" at Metrograph on Tuesday, March 18, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)

The new Paramount+ series "Happy Face" has all the elements of a gripping true-crime yarn: A serial killer, his estranged daughter, a race to get an innocent man off death row. But perhaps the most intriguing part? How it examines the warping nature of true crime itself.

"I was less interested in the specific psychology of a serial killer or glorifying the murders or seeing violence against women on screen," says Jennifer Cacicio, executive producer and showrunner. "I just feel like we’ve seen that. I was very interested in making a true crime show told through a different lens."

"Happy Face," which begins airing Thursday, is inspired by the true story of Melissa Moore, whose father was a prolific serial killer infamous for drawing smiley faces on letters to the media and prosecutors. She was just 15 when he was captured.

Decades later, as an adult with her own children, she finds herself drawn back into his orbit as she sets out to save an innocent man for a crime her father committed. She also has to tell her daughter the truth about her grandfather.

Starring Annaleigh Ashford and Dennis Quaid, "Happy Face" is told from a female point of view and looks at how a shameful secret can echo through generations. It's also about the push and pull of infamy, with horrendous crimes somehow remaining an alluring draw.

"There’s a lot of crime dramas out there that I think are very male-centric. It’s either about the cops are the cool guys or the criminals are the cool guys, and it’s all about kicking in doors. I’ve written on those shows and they’re fun and they serve a purpose. And I think that I really wanted to try something different," Cacicio says.

"What is it like for the rest of the family when there’s this shameful secret and this series of crimes and these acts of violence and what are the ripple effects on everybody involved?"

Ashford, who earned a Tony Award nomination playing a serial killer on Broadway in "Sweeney Todd," plays Moore with tenderness and anger, saying she was interested in exploring generational trauma.

"It’s one of the worst nightmares," she says. "The worst nightmare of all is having a family member be a victim. And then the second worst nightmare is having a family member be the perpetrator. So what would you do if you’re a parent or your sibling or your spouse or your child committed an atrocity?"

Moore previously shared her story in the bestselling memoir, "Shattered Silence" and the 2018 "Happy Face" podcast, reaching out to her father's victims and advocating for other family members of killers. Cacicio was one of a number of writers interested in telling her story for TV.

Cacicio approached Moore with this pitch: "If you want someone who’s a straight-up journalist, who’s just going to tell exactly the story of the podcast, you should let someone else do it," she told her. "There’s also an opportunity for it to be a bigger story that’s asking some questions about true crime."

Cacicio and Moore, it turned out had plenty in common. They were the same age, and both the oldest of three kids. Both had close relationships with their fathers, who hid other lives — Moore's was a killer and Cacicio served time in prison for drug dealing.

"Obviously, the crimes are different, the circumstances are different. But I think, in my family, it was something we didn’t talk about and it was something I didn’t want my friends to know," says Cacicio.

"A lot of it was really personal to me. And I think that’s what made her trust me — that I really understood the feelings, even if I didn’t necessarily understand the specific circumstances."

Quaid plays Moore's father, but unlike other roles he's taken that involve a living person, he had no intention of meeting the prisoner. He didn't want to glorify the killer but also "Happy Face" isn't that kind of show.

"This is told from Melissa’s point of view, and I think it’s actually truer than his point of view, because I think she knows him much better than he knows himself," he says. "I think he shows emotions like a little boy who’s trying to talk himself out of a whipping."

Cacicio says it's time we took a look at the explosion in popularity of true crime, in which women are often the victims but women are also the chief consumers.

"Are we obsessed with these stories because we’re trying to protect ourselves in case the worst happens?" she asks. "I read somewhere that it’s an act of normalizing your own experiences, because usually it’s whatever you’re watching is worse than what’s happened to you. So it kind of like makes you feel better about your own traumas."