Stars keep it real on the Emmys red carpet

Billy Porter got emotional on the red carpet while discussing his role as Pray Tell on Pose. “It is the role of a lifetime thus far,” he told E!. “I’m grateful that I lived to see the day where I can stand inside my authenticity and be who I am and have people receive it this way. It’s gorgeous and it’s a gift — and it’s a blessing.”

Emilia Clarke apparently left the Game of Thrones set empty-handed after the series finale. “I’m an idiot,” she confessed to E!. “I didn’t take anything. I took Daenerys in my heart forever. I keep being like, ‘Please can I have a wig?'”

Though This Is Us star Mandy Moore is planning to drop a new album in 2020, don’t plan on her costar Milo Ventimiglia releasing music anytime soon. “I am not next,” he laughed while chatting with EW. “Nobody wants to hear me sing. Not a single soul wants to hear me sing!”

While speaking with EW, Taraji P. Henson admitted that the Empire set just isn’t the same without the Jussie Smollett, who is not returning to the Fox drama this season. “We miss Jussie. He’s family to us,” she said. “There’s no way we can throw five years of family away. So we miss him. Cookie certainly misses him, he was her favorite, he was the first one she visited when she got out of jail. But the show is gonna be incredible, stay tuned. Cookie’s finding herself. It’s not about the empire, it’s not about Lucious, it’s about her. I think a lot of women can relate to that. And the struggle between her and Lucious, it’ll rip your heart out!”

Though Julia Louis-Dreyfus did not end up winning a seventh Emmy for her portrayal of Selina Meyer on Veep,  we’re hoping she still puts her plan for celebrating at the afterparties into effect: “I’m going to get my hands on some tequila, have that on the rocks with a little lime, and kick up my heels!” 

Speaking of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Marvelous Mrs. Maisel‘s Rachel Brosnahan admitted she was rather starstruck when meeting her fellow Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series nominee. “My hero, my queen,” Brosnahan gushed to E!. “I met her for the first time last night and I was very uncool about it. I mean, she’s amazing. Every woman in this category that I was so lucky to be a part of is a master class in comedy and I can’t believe, honestly, that we get to share this category together. I’m not over it; I never will be.”

When EW asked William Jackson Harper about attending his first Emmys, The Good Place star confessed, “Oh, it’s crazy. I have no idea what’s going on. I’m just letting people tell me where to go and hope I don’t fall on my face!”

Betty Gilpin got real on the purple carpet while discussing the strict diet she follows while working on GLOW with E!: “Because we do pretty intense training for when we’re filming because our costumes are tiny, Lycra glitter thongs, we’re eating like bison meat and water and then the second we wrap, Alison [Brie] and I go out and have a mixing bowl of pasta. You know the size of…if Shaquille O’Neal had a yarmulke, took it off his head? That’s my portion.”

John Leguizamo opened up about his role in When They See Us, which focuses on the Central Park Five. “I was a young man in New York then, and now I’m playing the old man,” he told EW. “It’s a beautiful moment because you saw what happened to these poor young black and Latino men back in the day, making us savages when these kids were actually innocent. To have the chance to play it and show what actually happened to these kids, it’s healing. It’s very healing.”

And it seems like viewers agree, judging by the reactions Leguizamo has gotten to the miniseries. “Everybody feels like they need more of these, because it’s not an isolated incident, unfortunately. It’s been happening, it continues to happen, and it’s happening now.”

The Good Place actress Jameela Jamil revealed she hatched a plan to get more sleep while working on the NBC comedy. “Halfway through season 1, I realized the girls were getting in at 4:30, 4:45, sometimes 4:15 in the morning; we had an hour and 45 mins in hair and makeup,” Jamil revealed. “I went to the producers and went, ‘How ugly do you think I am? There’s no prosthetics on me. I just need half an hour in hair and I’ll do my own makeup.’ And so…I got the same amount of time in hair and makeup as the boys — because I can’t be funny when I’m tired.”

Lin-Manuel had a lot of thoughts while being interviewed by E!. First off, he had just flown to L.A. from Wales. “I have no idea what time it is!” he laughed. As for how he reacted to the news when he learned that Fosse/Verdon had received an Emmy nomination for best limited series? “I jumped up and down in my apartment,” said the show’s executive producer. “I’m just like, I can’t even say a proud papa, because I didn’t do that much! I’m like a proud grandpa.”

While chatting with EW, The Good Place‘s Kristen Bell noted that her two daughters apparently don’t realize she’s a TV star. “Our kids asked Dax, ‘Do people listen to [your podcast] Armchair Expert because of you or Monica?’ ‘Well both, but people tune in because I’m famous.’ ‘You’re famous?!’ ‘Why do you think people sometimes ask me and mommy to take pictures in public?’ And she was like, ‘Mommy’s famous?!” Kids say the darnedest things. 

Brett Gelman opened up to EW about what it’s like to be one of the few American characters on Fleabag. “I think I rep our country well,” he said. “I often say, ‘I’m the ambassador of the U.S. here.’ That’s the first thing I would say every day on set. They wrote to that, I thought. Phoebe Waller-Bridge, that is.” As for his character’s shortcomings, he confessed, “He’s pretty flawed, he’s pretty messed up. Alcoholics who hate themselves don’t usually behave too well.”