
Arrested Industries chief executive Anthony Kimble reflects on what the Golden Globes mean for international TV.
As I watched the Golden Globe Awards on Sunday, I wondered if we’d reached a major turning point in TV: the US could finally be waking up.
These events usually celebrate the obvious in Hollywood: youth, beauty, big budgets, studio power and, for the most part, American stories and talent.
And yet with the Globe’s TV awards, I found myself surprised and delighted at the roll call of what once might have been considered unlikely winners.
We had two women over 60 winning big: Jodie Foster (True Detective) and Jean Smart (Hacks), three if you include Demi Moore for the film The Substance.
Then there was the brilliantly unconventional Brit Jessica Gunning (Baby Reindeer) as best supporting actress, and three Japanese stars from Shōgun – Anna Sawai, Hiroyuki Sanada and Tadanobu Asano – taking away best actress, best actor and best supporting actor in a drama TV series.
The Japanese-language series was also crowned best drama, while Baby Reindeer – that quirky, non-glamorous indie-led show about a British barman/comedian and his stalker – was best miniseries.
uch long-overdue recognition for the different, the diverse, the quirky and the indie-driven – not to mention the international nature of most of the winners – was reflected in many of the movie wins, too, such as Emilia Perez and The Brutalist.
More reliably perhaps, every awards ceremony has a ‘major transformation’ winner, so thank goodness for Colin Farrell, almost unrecognisable under prosthetic makeup in The Penguin. Ditto for Sebastian Stan in the film A Different Man.