‘The Bear’ and ‘Shogun’ could start claiming trophies at Creative Arts Emmys

LOS ANGELES — Top Emmy nominees “Shogun” and “The Bear” can start running up the score early at the two-night Creative Arts Emmy Awards, which honor artistic and technical achievement in television.

The Saturday and Sunday ceremonies are a precursor to the main Emmys ceremony, hosted by Dan and Eugene Levy, that will air at 8 p.m. EST Sept. 15 on ABC.

Presenters at the Creative Arts ceremonies — held at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles like the forthcoming bigger show — will include Oscar-winners and current Emmy nominees Jamie Lee Curtis and Brie Larson.

Creative arts nominees also include names as big as Ryan Gosling and Angela Bassett.

But such nominees don’t often show up, and the nearly 100 trophies that will be handed out in a pair of marathon shows Saturday and Sunday are mostly deep cuts for the less-than-famous. Outstanding contemporary makeup (non prosthetic) is a typical category. The evenings give a moment of glamour — and for winners a moment on stage — to hairdressers, stunt performers, sound mixers and casting directors who rarely get either.

Saturday night’s show is devoted to reality, variety and talk shows. Fittingly, the craft practitioners of “Saturday Night Live” are up for a dozen awards.

Game show hosts, who do typically show up and count as big stars on this night, and their Emmy category includes the recently retired Pat Sajak of “Wheel of Fortune” along with Ken Jennings for “Jeopardy,” Steve Harvey for “Celebrity Family Feud” and Keke Palmer for “Password.”

The best narrator award always draws famous figures — last year’s winner was Barack Obama — and this year is no exception, with Bassett, Morgan Freeman, Paul Rudd and Octavia Spencer among the nominees.

Sunday’s show shifts to scripted comedies and dramas.

“Shogun” the FX series about politicking in feudal Japan, leads all nominees this year with 25. Seventeen of those awards will be handed out Sunday in craft categories it could easily dominate, including best period costumes, best prosthetic makeup and best stunt performance.

“The Bear,” FX’s series about a scrappy culinary gang, leads all nominees in the comedy categories with 23. Fourteen of those will come up Sunday, including nominations for its cinematography, its hairstyling and its all star team of guest actors including Curtis, fellow Oscar-winner Olivia Colman, Bob Odenkirk and Jon Bernthal.

Yet another Oscar winner, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, is also nominated in Curtis and Colman’s category — best guest actress in a comedy — for her acting on “Only Murders in the Building.”

Other presenters who are also nominees include Hannah Waddingham, Jane Lynch and Mark Cuban.

Gosling is nominated in the guest acting category for his work as host of “Saturday Night Live,” as are two of the show’s alums, Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph. Rudolph is up for four Emmys, three of which will be given out at Creative Arts.