Danish director Susanne Bier won the Emmy Award in Los Angeles last night for ‘Best Directing for a Limited Series, Movie, or a Dramatic Special’.
Bier snagged the minor award for her work on the series ‘The Night Manager’.
“It was a little shocking and unexpected to stand up there – in a good way,” Bier told DR Nyheder. “I forgot a lot of what I wanted to say.”
No stranger to the podium
It is being widely reported that by winning the award, Bier has become the first Dane to win both an Oscar and an Emmy.
However, this is not correct as technically it is the country that wins the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, although it is traditionally received by the director.
Bier’s 2010 film ‘Hævnen’ (‘In a Better World’) won both the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film.
The People vs Bier
Bier thought the Emmy in her category would go to ‘The People vs OJ Simpson’, the winner of the main award in the category.
However, three different directors were nominated for individual episodes, while Bier directed the whole of ‘The Night Manager’, thus spreading out the votes in the Dane’s favour.
Bier told DR Nyheder she has no intention of dabbling in music or theatre to see if she can add a few more statuettes to her mantle.
“No,” she laughed. “One should not choose jobs to win awards.”
Worldwide success
Bier’s ‘The Night Manager’ is a British-American television miniseries starring Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie and Olivia Colman.
It is based on the 1993 novel of the same name by John le Carré and was adapted for television by David Farr.
The six-part series began broadcasting on BBC One in February 2016. In the United States, it began in April 2016. The series has been sold to over 180 countries.
