On the night before the 76th annual Primetime Emmy Awards—the second ceremony of 2024, after last year’s actors and writers strikes delayed the 2023 Emmys telecast to January—the cast and creators from The Bear and Shōgun gathered at the annual FX and Vanity Fair Emmy party to celebrate, socialize, and take the edge off ahead of TV’s biggest night.

FX has a lot of reasons to celebrate. The network earned a total of 93 Emmy nominations—a new record for the company—fueled by the critically acclaimed drama series Shōgun, which received 25 nominations, the most of any series this awards cycle, and already broke a record at last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmy Awards, taking home 14 trophies—the most ever won by a TV series for a single season. Shōgun star Hiroyuki Sanada, who also produced the period epic about the power struggle between lords in feudal Japan in 1600, has been working on the show for about 10 years. He says authenticity was the key factor in the creation of Shōgun.

“I wanted to show my culture as authentic as possible in Hollywood for a long time and avoid all the stereotypical Western images of Japan,” said Sanada after mingling with Shōgun’s cocreators, Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo, at the party, which was held at the iconic Sunset Tower Hotel in West Hollywood. “We put Japanese eyes into the script, so there’s an authentic perspective, and I am so happy. FX and the creators and the producers respected our culture very well. It was important for us to introduce our culture correctly to the world. I hope this kind of project is going to be a big stepping stone and the Hollywood studios will respect all other cultures.”

Sanada, who has been acting for 60 years, scored his first-ever Emmy nomination for his nuanced lead performance as the cunning Lord Toranaga. The 65-year-old is modest about his nomination, but proud that the show is being recognized. If he wins at Sunday’s ceremony, he will take the opportunity to thank all the people who have supported him.

“Me being nominated is to say thank you to all the crew and cast, and a thank-you to all the people who trained me since I was a child actor, when I was five years old,” he said. “So I learned a lot from them, from Japan, for 40 years, and Hollywood for 20 years. I put all my experience into this show, so to receive a nomination means a lot to me. Being nominated, I’m already happy. It’s enough for me. So I hope I can enjoy the reunion tomorrow. I haven’t seen all of the cast in two years.”

Shōgun’s other breakout star, Anna Sawai, received a lead-actress-in-a-drama nod for her compelling work as Lady Toda Mariko on the juggernaut series, and she’s favored to win. “I’m not thinking about it. If it doesn’t happen, what we did doesn’t change. The impact that we made, the impact that Justin and Rachel were able to bring to the world, the Emmys will not change any of that,” said Sawai. “The fact that our story really reached everyone who watched it and meant something to them, and that it is opening doors for our community—that means so much to me. The show shows where we are coming from and why we act certain ways and how we value life, so I learned a lot from it. I have a better appreciation of our culture and the people, so if everyone is sharing that feeling, then I couldn’t ask for more.”

Tadanobu Asano, who plays fan-favorite samurai Kashigi Yabushige, and Takehiro Hira, who portrays would-be throne-stealer Ishido Kazunari, both nabbed Emmy nominations as well. The two attended the party and enjoyed the sweeping views of Los Angeles from the Sunset Tower Hotel’s outdoor patio.

The network’s hit restaurant comedy, The Bear, cooked up 23 nods this year for its second season, setting a record for the most nominations by a comedy series in one year. Coming off a first season with 10 Emmy wins, the show already nabbed seven wins at last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys. Jamie Lee Curtis was among the big winners, earning her very first Emmy for outstanding guest actress in a comedy series for her role as Donna Berzatto. The Oscar winner was the first guest to arrive at Saturday’s celebration. “Winning the award is lovely and unexpected, but to be on the show is everything to me,” she said. “I’m such a big fan, so to be able to do something like this is extraordinary. I’m just so, so happy to be a part of something great.”

Curtis joined The Bear in season two as the alcoholic mother of Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), Sugar (Abby Elliott), and Mikey (Jon Bernthal), with the character being revealed as leaving a foundational wound on each of her kids. She was one of many guest stars to appear in “Fishes,” the flashback episode chronicling a chaotic Christmas dinner five years prior to the show’s events. Tackling the role of a complex, alcoholic mom dealing with destructiveness, mental health issues, and addiction has taught Curtis to act more freely. “I learned that I need to now let it rip for the rest of my life,” she said. “I’m now wide open because the combination of the words from a script and the partnerships of the other actors and with the director, like on The Bear, can lead to this beautiful result. It is a real vote of confidence for myself to just let it rip. No holds barred. Be free. It’s really artistic freedom.”

As soon as Curtis spotted White, she made a beeline and greeted him with a big hug. White then introduced his younger sister, Annabelle, to Curtis. They happily chatted and posed for photos. White took home the Emmy for lead actor in a comedy series last January and is the top contender to win again. When asked how he was feeling about attending the Emmys for the second time, White said, “I feel okay today. Once you get to the show, it’s so many people, and it’s so many people you love and admire that I’m sure I’ll feel crazy tomorrow. But today I’m calm.”

White is thrilled that season two of The Bear set a new record with 23 Emmy nominations, which included individual nods for the majority of the main cast, like Ayo Edebiri, Liza Colón-Zayas, Lionel Boyce, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and for guest stars like Curtis, Olivia Colman, Bernthal, Will Poulter, and Bob Odenkirk. “It’s the best feeling in the world to see them get recognized. When those nominations came out for the show and nearly everybody got recognized, that was the best feeling I’ve had so far in the journey of this show,” said White. “I hope tomorrow we have a lot more to celebrate.”

Edebiri, who won best supporting actress last time around, is now nominated in the 
lead-actress-in-a-comedy category. At the party, she spent her time talking with Nick Kroll as he ate a slider and fries. She then chatted with Vanity Fair’s editor in chief, Radhika Jones. Later she spotted her Bear costar Molly Gordon, who plays Carmy’s love interest, Claire, across the room and shouted out her name. The two met up and shared an animated conversation. Then they posed for photos together. Meanwhile, on the outdoor patio, The Bear’s Elliott, Matty Matheson, and Chris Witaske were in a group huddle and enjoying a long conversation.

Jon Hamm arrived at the cocktail party with his wife, Anna Osceola. He socialized with Matheson before catching up with Dave Foley, his costar from the FX crime-anthology series Fargo. Hamm is a double nominee at this year’s Emmys. He landed one nod for his evil turn as Fargo season five’s Sheriff Roy Tillman and another one for his role as a billionaire tech mogul on The Morning Show. This marks Hamm’s second time receiving two nods simultaneously in a single year. He won an Emmy in 2015 for the final season of Mad Men and was nominated for his guest role in the comedy Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt that year as well. “It’s an incredible honor to be nominated for two wildly different things. I’ve actually had this experience before and it was very cool,” he said. “None of us get into this business to get nominations or awards, but it is really nice when you get singled out. When I look at the category that I’m in and the people that I’m in it with, it’s pretty good company. So I feel very pleased.”

Return trips to the Emmys as a nominee are a huge accomplishment, but receiving that first nomination is especially exhilarating and memorable. The 76th Emmys mark that thrilling milestone for 36 performers, from new faces to movie stars to established veterans with bodies of work stretching across decades. Up-and-comer D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai is the first Indigenous actor to receive a lead-acting nomination in TV Academy history, honored for his work in Reservation Dogs, the groundbreaking FX comedy series about a group of Native American teens in Oklahoma. Woon-A-Tai still can’t believe that he’s a working actor, let alone an Emmy nominee.

“It was never a possibility to me to be an actor. Being from Canada and growing up not seeing people who looked like me onscreen, it’s unbelievable, and I’m surprised myself that I’m here,” said the 22-year-old breakout star. “It’s like me becoming an astronaut. It was just so out of this world, but what a time it is for people of color, and for us to tell our own stories from our own perspectives and not have people tell it for us. That’s the big thing that Hollywood has realized now. I’m so happy that they are noticing. What a great time it is for everybody, especially for Native Americans.”

Naomi Watts scored her first-ever Emmy nomination for her portrayal of socialite Babe Paley in Feud: Capote vs. the Swans. She made a brief appearance at the party and made a pit stop at the portrait studio to pose for some photos.

Veteran actor Colón-Zayas, who plays no-nonsense sous-chef Tina Marrero on The Bear, has been acting for more than three decades. She said landing her first Emmy nomination has been surreal. “I did dream about this and then life got real, and then I stopped dreaming about it,” said Colón-Zayas, a Bronx native. “It was rough. I never wanted to give up acting, but I didn’t have any other skills. It was make-or-break—I gotta keep trying. Now that it happened, I could have never imagined this. But for me, the biggest compliment is the messages I’m getting from people that they went through what my character went through, or their mom went through or their aunts. They so closely relate and were moved by my character’s story.”

Now Colón-Zayas is heading to the Emmy ceremony on Sunday wearing a custom gown designed by Christian Siriano. “I feel like Cinderella and that’s what I said to him a couple of days ago. We had a few options, and he just knows how to dress me. It’s magical,” said Colón-Zayas, who wore a beautiful purple dress created by Siriano that featured roses and was paired with a cropped black blazer.

The rousing night also attracted FX’s most buzzed-about stars, from Feud: Capote vs. the Swans’ Diane Lane, nominated for her performance as Slim Keith, and Tom Hollander, nominated for playing Truman Capote, to The Old Man’s Jeff Bridges and Oscar winner Taika Waititi, the cocreator of Reservation Dogs.

Other guests included Matt Berry, nominated for lead actor in a comedy series for his work as Laszlo Cravensworth in What We Do in the Shadows, which is based on the 2014 New Zealand mockumentary film of the same name and follows four vampires and their human living together in a house on Staten Island. The show will air its sixth and final season beginning in October. It was a hit with critics from the beginning but took time to find an audience.

“When I started this particular job, I wasn’t convinced that anyone would go for it, because I thought there’d be so much love for the film that they’d go, ‘I don’t need this. I’ve got the film.’ I didn’t know how it would do,” said Berry, a staple of British comedy for two decades and also an accomplished musician with nearly a dozen albums. “So it goes to show, don’t expect or assume anything, because here I am nearly seven years later. I’m very proud of the show and what we have done. If it has made one person laugh, then it was worth doing.”

John Landgraf, the chairman of FX Networks, gave a toast to express his deep gratitude to the talent, creators, and executives in attendance for their hard work and accomplishments. Landgraf, who has been at the company for more than two decades, gave an inspiring speech that discussed the power of storytelling and how its led FX to grow into a powerhouse network. “Our belief is that storytelling is the most fundamental, uniquely human tool and that every other tool our species has ever made and put to it, good or bad, started with a story,” he shared. “So we understand that stories are powerful. They can bind us together, or they can tear us apart.” He went on to remind the crowd that stories can inspire us to improve our lives and that artists deserve the full commitment and resources to tell their stories so that “audiences [can] be entertained, moved and surprised, challenged, and the world can be a little better for all of us.”

Juno Temple has earned rave reviews for her work as fierce Minnesota housewife Dorothy “Dot” Lyon in Fargo, which landed her a fourth Emmy nomination. “This role changed my life. I feel like I’ve finally grown up now when it comes to being on camera,” she said. “I feel like I’m a grown-up now, and playing Dot was the first time playing a mother. The relationship that I got to develop with Sienna [King], who played my daughter, was so important. That was really a special experience.”

The evening’s festivities came to a close with White as the last guest to leave. Before heading out, he spoke about how winning the Emmy has not changed his daily life significantly, but now he can get into coveted restaurants.

“My life is pretty simple, the way that I have it set up, and that’s the way that I like it, but it is nice to go to a restaurant now,” he said. “Certainly that’s changed [since] being on the show, and it’s easier to get a reservation and they’ll send out some food and that’s nice. But the biggest difference is I get to come to parties like this, and I get to talk to and work with more people that I have admired so much for so long. So that’s really the big stuff.”

Set designer: Jamie Dean Studio. Producer: Boom Productions Inc. Sittings editor: Anastasya Kolomytseva. On-set hairstylist: Claudio Belizario. On-set makeup artist: Ty Sanderson.