Award shows often seem so polished and planned, with people reading jokes from teleprompters and seasoned actors rolling out well-practiced speeches. Yet they’re almost always also filled with moments of genuine emotion, when the person on the podium seems to be brimming with unexpected feelings.
One such moment at last night’s Emmy Awards was Alex Edelman’s acceptance speech for the award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special. He won that winged statuette, his first Emmy, for the incredibly personal comedy special “Just For Us,” in which the Jewish comedian recounts the time he went to a meeting of neo-Nazis in Queens. The special is dense, funny and unique — a reflection on his relationship with his Jewish identity that feels imminently relatable, but also about what it feels like to sit in a room with people who revile you merely for being Jewish, and what it means to try to see the world through their eyes.
It was Jewish actress Maya Rudolph, who herself won an Emmy for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance, who announced Edelman as the winner. He was visibly moved, hugging his fellow nominees as the theme song of the show, Regina Spektor’s “Human of the Year,” played. In a voice thick with emotion, he shared his worries about crying in front of the great Carol Burnett (honestly, crying in front of a legendary comedian is a sign that you’ve arrived!).
“I made this with my great collaborator, Adam Brace, who passed away before we started on Broadway,” the comedian, 35, shared with the crowd. “And this huge group of people rushed in to fill that void.” He thanked Alex Timbers, who “directed the special of my dreams,” and his fellow nominee Mike Birbiglia, who produced the show.
“I really miss Adam,” he said, but shared his gratitude for the seven-year journey in which he “got to make something really funny with my friend.”
As he spoke, viewers at home could see everyone who Edelman wanted to thank in a card on screen, including Spektor, his friend and new EGOT-winner Benj Pasek, Jewish TV maven Jenji Kohan, his parents, siblings and “poppa” musician Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Brace’s family and, funnily enough, “my kids — wait, I don’t have kids.” You’ve gotta love a comedian who never misses an opportunity for a silly joke.
Earlier that night, Edelman reflected about what it meant to be nominated for an Emmy with The Hollywood Reporter. “A lot of the people that supported me are here,” he shared. “And I brought my parents and my best friend, Benj Pasek, who just EGOT-ed himself.”
“I’m sure people here feel it but I’m not sure if they say it, you never think that something like this would happen to you,” he recounted, seeming just as moved as he did on stage.
When asked what he wanted audiences to take from his show, he said “my show is about a Jew (me) who goes to this meeting of neo-Nazis in Queens… The show is kind of about what happens when we sit down with people who are fundamentally opposed to us, and what we learn about ourselves. I think, given what’s going on in the country right now, given what’s going on in the world, I like the idea that people who are fundamentally opposed to one another, maybe even hate one another, can have productive conversations.”
Edelman shared that he thinks that kind of introspection and communication can be “a really interesting way forward,” one that he doesn’t see represented in media as much as he’d like it to be, and maybe that’s why, he posited, his show has resonated with people the way it has.
“Make no mistake, it’s not a good thing to be a Nazi,” he made clear, “but having conversations with people who hate you, I think that’s going to become necessary. We get further and further apart as a country, our environment gets more and more rancorous.”
He said he wants people to take away from his show that there is an appetite out there “for content like that” and for “conversations like that,” that can bridge some of these divides.
After winning, Alex did share one extra thank-you with the Emmys’ thank you cam: “I’d like to thank Hashem,” he said, referring to the Hebrew term for God. “Jesus gets a lot of love, Hashem gets very little and so I gotta thank him for this, even though I’m not sure I believe in him, but that’s probably enough for the thank you cam,” he added.
Mazel tov to Alex! “Just for Us” is streaming on Max.
