Game of Thrones receives 23 Emmy nominations

Fantasy drama Game of Thrones has received 23 Emmy nominations, one more than its closest rival, crime series The People v OJ Simpson.

Thrones, which won a record-breaking 12 awards in 2015, delivered almost a quarter of network HBO’s 94 nods.

There were also several British nominees, including Sherlock, Luther and Downton Abbey and for talk show hosts James Corden and John Oliver.

The awards will be handed out in Los Angeles on 18 September.

Viola Davis, who also made history in 2015 by becoming the first black woman to win the best lead actress prize, has once again been nominated for her role in How To Get Away With Murder.

Comedy star Amy Schumer secured four nominations, the most given to any one person this year, for her acting and writing in Saturday Night Live, Inside Amy Schumer and Amy Schumer: Live At The Apollo.

The nods for Game of Thrones included best supporting actor and actress nominations for last year’s winner Peter Dinklage, Kit Harington, Lena Headley, Emilia Clarke and Maisie Williams and nods for writers David Benioff and DB Weiss.

The People v OJ Simpson’s lead actors, Courtney B Vance and Cuba Gooding Jr were both nominated for the outstanding lead actor award.

That category also saw nominations for Idris Elba for Luther, Benedict Cumberbatch for Sherlock and Tom Hiddleston for The Night Manager.

There were also nods for Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney, for their writing on comedy Catastrophe, and for The Americans’ Matthew Rhys, who was nominated in the best drama actor category.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus will go for her fifth best comedy actress title for playing Selina Meyer on Veep, while last year’s winner Jeffrey Tambor was once again nominated for best comedy actor for his role as a transgender college professor in Transparent.

Tambor was one of several nominations for performances in shows on streaming services, such as Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Others included both Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright for House of Cards; Aziz Ansari for Master of None; Kyle Chandler for the drama Bloodline; Rami Malek for Mr Robot; Lily Tomlin for Grace and Frankie plus Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’s Ellie Kemper.

Beyonce’s film Lemonade took two nominations, with the singer receiving a personal nod for her directing work.

Five-time best comedy winner Modern Family was once again nominated – it is currently tied with Frasier for the show with the most titles in the category.

The nominations were announced by Gilmore Girls star Lauren Graham and Black-ish’s Anthony Anderson, who whooped and cheered as he read out his own nomination in the best comedy lead category, one of several the show received.

A full list of the nominations is available on the Emmys website. BBC