Emmy- and Oscar-winning filmmaker Martin Scorsese earned his first Emmy nomination for acting on Tuesday, grabbing a slot in the Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series category. The “Goodfellas” and “Taxi Driver” director appeared in the pilot of Apple TV+’s Hollywood satire “The Studio” this year, playing a version of himself.
It is his 13th overall Emmy nomination.
In the episode, “The Promotion,” Seth Rogen’s newly appointed studio head, Matt Remick, is tasked with getting a Kool-Aid movie off the ground. Remick, a cinephile, wants to produce movies with artistic merit beyond studio franchise fare. When he takes a meeting with Scorsese about a Jonestown movie the legend is set on making, Remick tries to brute force the director’s pitch into becoming the Kool-Aid adaptation, drawing a link between the IP and Jim Jones’ oft-misidentified poisonous drink mix. Rogen directed Scorsese’s performance alongside series co-creator Evan Goldberg.
In TheWrap’s recent cover story on “The Studio,” co-creator Evan Goldberg recalled the heady experience of directing Scorsese and said, “At one point we were filming a moment with him and Charlize [Theron], and he kept muttering something to her. I went over and asked what it was and they said, ‘Nothing.’ And then after it was all done, they admitted to me that he knew we were doing something wrong, but he didn’t want to backseat direct. He was just like, ‘They’ll get there.’ And we did.”
To which Rogen replied with a laugh, “He could have saved us 45 minutes. Whatever.”
Though he is best known as one of the greatest living filmmakers, Scorsese has appeared on screen several times prior to “The Studio.” He has cameoed in many of his own films — most recently, as the radio narrator in the coda to “Killers of the Flower Moon” — as well as in Robert Redford’s “Quiz Show” and comedy series “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “30 Rock.”
Scorsese earned his first Emmy nod in 1995 with the musical documentary “Eric Clapton: Nothing But the Blues,” recognized in the (now defunct) Outstanding Cultural Program category. He received 12 more nominations over the decades, finally winning Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series in 2011 for HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire.” He won twice more the next year for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special and Outstanding Direction for Nonfiction Programming with another music-oriented doc, “George Harrison: Living in the Material World.”
Scorsese also has, of course, a long and somewhat odd relationship with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He landed his first Oscar nomination, for directing “Raging Bull,” in 1981, and was nominated in the category nine more times before finally winning in 2006, for “The Departed.” He has since become the second most nominated director in history with 10 nods, just behind William Wyler’s 12. He has a career total of 16 Oscar nominations for directing, writing, and producing.
Scorsese is nominated in the Television Academy’s Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series alongside fellow pop-ins on “The Studio” Bryan Cranston, Ron Howard, Anthony Mackie and Dave Franco, plus last year’s winner, Jon Bernthal for “The Bear.”
Scorsese was one of 12 industry figures who appeared on the Emmy ballot for playing themselves in “The Studio.” The others were Zac Efron, Dave Franco, Ron Howard, Zoe Kravitz, Greta Lee, Anthony Mackie, Sarah Polley, Nicholas Stoller, Olivia Wilde, Ramy Youssef and journalist Matt Belloni.
The 77th annual Primetime Emmy Awards will air live Sunday, Sept. 14 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBS and Paramount+. Comedian Nate Bargatze will host.
