The Diplomat landed its second and third Emmy nominations Tuesday, including one in the Outstanding Drama Series category, which creator Debora Cahn says couldn’t have come at a more apt time.
“It’s just really, really gratifying to see that everybody is getting this recognition. It’s a show about civil servants, and thousands of them just got fired. [So], it’s also nice to see that people are enjoying watching a show about what they do,” she said. “It doesn’t happen all the time, and they deserve some recognition.”
Cahn says she thinks it is “more important than ever” to peel back the curtain on the lives and careers of public servants “whose jobs we know nothing about and whose daily life we don’t hear about.”
“Hopefully, it can create a little bit of an appreciation for what these people do, at least in the public, if not in the government,” she said. “These are people who work incredibly hard in order to make other people’s lives better, and seeing them mowed down is horrifying and terrifying for what it means for the country and what it means for the world, and it just feels more important to be shining a light on what this work is and what it means and what these people do.”
The Diplomat. Keri Russell as Kate Wyler in episode 206 of The Diplomat. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2024
By the time she spoke with Deadline, Cahn said she’d already caught up with The Diplomat star Keri Russell, who is nominated for her role as U.S. Ambassador Kate Wyler for the second time. She called Russell a “f*cking rock star” and a “national treasure” who she’s grateful to have worked on this project with.
Cahn is also hard at work on Season 3 of The Diplomat, which she told Deadline “is pretty much ready to go.”
“We’re in post, and we’re locking episodes, and it’s gonna come on the air in the fall, and we’re really excited about it,” she smiled.
As for how she’ll celebrate the win? Well, she and The Diplomat writers are going to take the day to soak it all in.
“I’m not really sure that we should say in the paper that I’m going day drinking, but…literally, as soon as I get off the phone with you, me and the writing staff are gonna go out and celebrate,” she teased.
