Ayo Edebiri Becomes First Woman Emmy-Nominated in Both Acting and Directing a Comedy Series

FX’s The Bear continues to be an awards season juggernaut. The Emmy nominations for this year have been announced and the dramedy has scored a whopping 13 nominations. According to Deadline, Bearstar Ayo Edebiri makes Emmy history as the first woman ever to be nominated in the same year in both acting and directing for a comedy series.

Speaking last month, Edebiri said that The Bear creator Christopher Storer always recognized her potential as a director and encouraged her.

“He’d say, ‘When you’re not working on set, come to set,'” Edebiri said in June. “‘When you’re on another film, hit me up, call me, what do you see?’ he’d say.”

She also spoke about how “Napkins” was an opportunity to further flesh out the character of Mikey. Played by Jon Bernthal, the late brother of Jeremy Allen White’s tortured Carmy looms large over the show and, in a flashback, he shares a vulnerable dialogue with Colón-Zayas’ Tina, who is the center of the episode.

“For the show, we are getting to see these characters be vulnerable and create space for each other,” she explained. “But we’re also getting to see this character who is the object of a lot of characters’ fixations and hangups. And we’re getting to see part of the magic that is him and why he meant so much to people, even in his chaos and his messiness and his complicated illness and the times where he could be hard, he still was a really beautiful person who created space for people.”

Season 4 of The Bearpremiered on Hulu in June. All seasons of The Bearare currently streaming.