They finally did it. This week, the Emmys honored Vulture favorite Matt Berry with his very first nomination, for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, delighting both fans of FX’s silly vampire sitcom, What We Do in the Shadows, and the cultlike following he has built up over a decadeslong career spent absolutely destroying every line he’s ever read. It feels both long overdue and undeniably necessary in a year when Berry also made memorable appearances in other Emmy-nominated shows, annoying his co-nominee Larry David in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm and delivering a spine-tingling monologue in Fallout. We reached Berry in his music studio, shortly after he’d gotten the news from his agent via FaceTime, where he then bashed out a quick celebration at the drum kit. “I wasn’t thinking about any Emmys. I wasn’t thinking about any acting, to be honest,” he said, noting he’d just returned from a two-week trip to Tallinn, Estonia. “It was a complete shock.”
Berry is known for his humility and general aversion to the hype of celebrity. When we profiled him in 2021, he kindly assured us we didn’t have to print it if we didn’t find him interesting enough. We did. Now, he’s enjoying what is decidedly a television-comedy actor’s highest honor alongside the likes of Steve Martin, Martin Short, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, the aforementioned David, and last year’s winner, Jeremy Allen White. Of course, despite being audibly pleased as punch, Berry does not expect to take home the Emmy in September. “I won’t come prepared,” he told me.
It was the same non-plan he had in 2015, when he was nominated for a BAFTA, though he did end up winning that and had to ad-lib a stunned acceptance speech. But the star needs no list in front of him to remember who to thank, as he almost automatically begins crediting the people around him for his success, most notably production designer Shayne Fox, who is also up for one of the show’s eight Emmy nominations. “Personally, it’s the set that gets me where I need to be in order to do all that stupid stuff,” he said. “Once you’re in a house like that, you are in that world.” He’s also glad the show itself received a nod: “Otherwise, I’d be there on my own. So that’s good.”
While Shadows has yet to air its final season, filming has already wrapped. When I asked if this honor is bittersweet, given that he will never get to play Laszlo Cravensworth again, he was just so Matt Berry about it. “I’m nostalgic about where we filmed and all of that,” he said. “I’m always nostalgic about other people’s work; I’m just never nostalgic about my own, because I just want to get on to the next thing.” Please, Emmy voters, we implore you: Let that next thing be another overwhelmed appearance on an awards-show stage.
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