The Emmy nominations for 2020 have been announced, and Watchmen earned far and away the most nods–26 in total. It’s a huge figure, and includes six nominations across acting categories and three across directing. Showrunner Damon Lindelof is very happy with this–but it doesn’t mean he’s coming back for season 2.
Lindelof has spoken to Entertainment Weekly about the show’s Emmy success, and said that he’s very pleased with it. “I expect nothing in this day and age, and I think that it’s hard to put too much stock and invest in award shows,” he says. “But at the same time, we all have to acknowledge that they mean something because it’s our peers. I didn’t really realize how much I cared until my heart started racing.”
Lindelof said that he and his wife “shrieked out loud” when Jeremy Irons was nominated for his performance as Adrian Veidt, and that he’s very glad for all the technical nominations too. “The best part of it is not how many nominations, but it’s all these people that I worked with over the course of two years, my creative partners, whether they worked in the camera department or the sound mixing or they were composing the score or doing the costumes,” he says.
Asked which nominations he was most happy about, Lindelof mentioned two. Lou Gossett Jr.’s nomination meant a lot to him, he said, because ha has “worshiped him from afar as just a lover of cinema and storytelling” since childhood. He was also happy to see music supervisor Liza Richardson, who he previously worked with on The Leftovers, nominated. “Music supervision is an art form, and it was just great to see her sort of singled out and recognized for that,” he says.
Asked if this changes his position on not returning for more Watchmen, Lindelof doubled down, saying that while he hopes someone else makes something, it won’t be him. “I’m so proud of the work that we all did. But this show only worked because other [writers] told the story and I got out of the way, and that was not easy for me. I’m not saying this because I’m being modest; I’m a narcissist, for sure, but in the case of Watchmen, the magic occurred and that could never be replicated.”
“I hope there’s more Watchmen,” Lindelof says. “I really feel like that space is now open for others to come and play in, and I really look forward to what they do with it.
Watchmen was reclassified as a Limited Series after airing, which also partially explains how it was able to get so many nominations–it dominated in those categories.
Watchmen was GameSpot’s favorite show of 2019, and is likely to win Emmys in several categories.
