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ARTICLE VIEW:
Katherine LaNasa, Tramell Tillman and Jeff Hiller are three Emmy
winners to root for. Here’s why
By Lisa France, CNN
Updated:
8:02 AM EDT, Wed September 17, 2025
Source: CNN
Just about everyone has a backstory in Hollywood, and sometimes a few
special ones shine through.
Such is the case with Katherine LaNasa, Tramell Tillman and Jeff
Hiller.
LaNasa won the award for outstanding supporting actress in a drama for
her role as nurse Dana Evans on “The Pitt.”
During her acceptance speech, she thanked “all the nurses that
inspired Dana.”
The hit medical drama isn’t the only reason nurses have a special
place in LaNasa’s heart.
The 58-year-old actress in which she wrote: “Playing nurse Dana Evans
on the Max medical drama The Pitt comes naturally to me—we’re a lot
alike.”
“We’re both part-competent-working-woman-who suffers-no-fools and
part-nurturing-den-mother,” she wrote. “But my performance as the
steadfast eyes and ears of the ER was also informed by my own health
struggle and the calm, compassionate nurses I met during treatment.”
“In February 2023, I was diagnosed with Stage I breast cancer—and
I’m ready to share my story now in a way that I hope is useful,”
she added.
LaNasa explained that while appearing years ago on the series “Three
Sisters,” she had a mammogram that came back as “inconclusive.”
And while those results turned out to be benign, it caused her to be
vigilant about mammograms and led to the discovery of cancer in 2023.
“It hit me like a ton of bricks, but I was so fortunate that my very
first thought was, why not me? rather than why me? It happens to so
many people, you know, and coming from that why not me? perspective
opened the door to staying positive throughout my treatment,” she
wrote. “At every stage of the process, it became more manageable. I
learned I wasn’t going to die from it.”
LaNasa underwent surgery and radiation treatment and wrote and
recovered.
“My goal was for Dana to be a love letter and a thank you to all the
people who treated me so kindly, so lovingly, and so thoughtfully when
I had cancer,” she wrote.
A history-making win
Tramell Tillman also could lean on his past to inform his character.
He picked up an Emmy for outstanding supporting actor in a drama for
his role as Seth Milchick in the Apple TV+ series
The sci-fi series revolves around the fictitious biotechnology
corporation Lumon Industries, where employees have no memories of the
outside world while at work and none of work when they are away from
the office.
Tillman’s character is the sole Black employee in the office,
something the the 40-year-old actor has experienced.
In an interview with , Tillman recalled being the only Black student in
his acting M.F.A. program at University of Tennessee Knoxville. It was
something of a “culture shock,” since he’d had previously studied
medicine at Xavier University in New Orleans, an HBCU, and graduated
with a degree in communications from another HBCU, Jackson State.
“I stood out like a sore thumb, and although my classmates were
always supportive and my teachers were supportive, it was the
environment outside of the theater that was toxic,” Tillman told the
publication. “I was fortunate to have the work to help me push
through it.”
He made history Sunday as the first Black man to win in his category.
He credited his mother.
“My first acting coach was tough, y’all. But all great mothers
are,” the first time nominee “Mama, you were there for me when no
one else was, and no one else would show up. Your love and kindness
stay with me, and this is for you.”
An overnight success, years in the making
Another first-time nominee and winner who touched hearts with his
acceptance speech was “Somebody Somewhere” star Jeff Hiller.
Hiller took home the outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series
for his role of Joel on the show, which concluded its three-season run
on HBO in December. So beloved among actors, Hiller’s fellow nominees
Colman Domingo, Michael Urie and Bowen Yang showed when he won.
Hiller’s speech was just as delightful, as he appeared genuinely
shocked and spoke of the difficulty he faced breaking through in
Hollywood.
“I feel like I’m going to cry because for the past 25 years I’ve
been like, ‘World, I want to be an actor,’” he said. “And the
world’s like, ‘Maybe computers?’”
“I just want to say thank you to HBO for putting on a show about
sweaty middle-aged people on the same network as the sexy teens of
‘Euphoria,’” Hiller joked.
While he looks for his next role, you can read Hiller’s comedic
memoir, “Actress of a Certain Age: My Twenty-Year Trail to Overnight
Success.”
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