Irish nominated for top TV awards
Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers was nominated for an Emmy award yesterday for his portrayal of Elvis Presley in the TV mini-series, Elvis, broadcast in the US in May.
Presented annually by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Emmy awards are the US television equivalent of the Oscars.
The prizes will be presented in Los Angeles on September 18th.
Rhys Meyers (27), who was born in Dublin and raised in Cork, first attracted notice as the assassin who killed the title character in Michael Collins (1996).
He went on to feature in such films as Velvet Goldmine, Bend It Like Beckham, Alexander, and the new Woody Allen film, Match Point. This week he started work with Tom Cruise on Mission Impossible 3.
He was nominated for an Emmy as outstanding actor in a mini-series or TV movie for Elvis, and one of his fellow nominees is Belfast native Kenneth Branagh for his portrayal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Warm Springs. The other nominees are Ed Harris (Empire Falls), William H Macy (The Wool Cap) and Geoffrey Rush (The Life and Death of Peter Sellers).
Irish animator Paul Donnellon received an Emmy nomination yesterday for best animated title sequence for his very witty pastiche of the Pink Panther films in the opening credits of The Life and Death of Peter Sellers.