By Andrew Dalton
AP Entertainment Writer

Former U.S. president Barack Obama speaks to the members of the Obama Foundation’s leadership program in Athens, Greece, Wednesday, June 21, 2023. Obama is in Greece to attend an international conference on mental health and will also gather with members of the Obama Foundation’s leadership program aimed at boosting local initiatives to promote education, entrepreneurship and healthcare access for disadvantaged communities. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Pedro Pascal and Melanie Lynskey are up for two of the most coveted Emmy Awards on Jan. 15, but both are also among this weekend’s nominees at the creative arts Emmys.

Pascal, nominated for best actor in a drama for ” The Last of Us,” is up for best guest actor in a comedy series for hosting “Saturday Night Live” and for his narration of a CNN documentary on Patagonia.

Lynskey, nominated for best actress in a drama for ” Yellowjackets,” is up for best guest actress in a drama for her one-episode appearance on Pascal’s “The Last of Us.” That series and “Succession” are the two top overall Emmy nominees. In fact, all of the dozen nominees in Lynskey’s category and best guest actor in a drama come from the two HBO shows.

The Saturday and Sunday ceremonies are a precursor to the main Emmy ceremony that will air at 8 p.m. EST Jan. 15 on Fox, with “black-ish” star Anthony Anderson as host. Just like the main telecast, the creative arts ceremonies arrive after a four-month delay because of Hollywood’s writers and actors strikes.

Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey participates at “Oprah’s 2020 Vision: Your Life in Focus” tour at the Barclays Center on Saturday, Feb. 8, 2020, in New York. (Photo by Brad Barket/Invision/AP)

This weekend nearly 100 trophies are handed out in a pair of marathon sessions that are, in general, a chance for less famous players, from hairdressers to stunt performers, to have their moment at the podium. But a handful of awards annually claim major names among their nominees.

Among them this year is Barack Obama, who can repeat as best narrator, this time for adding his voice to the Netflix documentary series, “Working: What We Do All Day.” He’s in a star-studded category that also includes Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett and Pascal. (The former president previously won for narrating a Netflix series on national parks.)

Michelle Obama is also up for an Emmy alongside Oprah Winfrey. Each is nominated for best hosted nonfiction series or special for their Netflix show “The Light We Carry.”

It would be Michelle Obama’s first, while Winfrey would be adding a second primetime Emmy on top of her 18 daytime Emmys. Both “Working” and “The Light We Carry” come from the Obamas’ production company, Higher Ground.

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