Emmy Host Eugene Levy Doesn’t Want to Make Jokes at Celebrities’ Expense

If vicious comedy roasts are back in vogue, no one told Emmy host Eugene Levy. The last thing he wants is to be cruel to his fellow celebrities. “It’s always hit me in a funny way when jokes are done at the expense of people who are nominated,” Levy told the Los Angeles Times, as reported by Variety. “They’ve put in the work, and it’s their night, really, and you have to have enough respect for the awards show itself. Otherwise, why are we here?”

So if Levy isn’t going to stick it to Shogun and The Bear, how is he approaching hosting duties? “Just paying tribute to television, certainly the nominees, but to the medium that gave us both our starts,” he explained. 

Will the ceremony will turn into a schmoozefest? Levy’s son and Schitt’s Creek co-star Dan will be sharing host duties — and it sounds like he wants to keep dad’s sentimentality in check. Dan says celebrating the stars is great, but he wants to ensure the show still has “a bit of an edge.”

I’m not buying it. While Dan is promising edgy, the comedy target of Emmy preview spots was Eugene’s prodigious eyebrows. 

“People, from what I’ve been told, are kind of excited that we’re not hard-edged comics, that there will be a kind of warmth to the room,” Dan told the L.A. Times. “It’s trying to marry all of those things without being boring, ultimately.”

The kinder, gentler Levy approach doesn’t feel like it’s setting a trend. The Golden Globes recently tapped roast queen Nikki Glaser as its next host. When she got the gig, she said she hoped to follow in the tradition of Ricky Gervais with jokes that deliver “exactly what we all didn’t know we desperately needed to hear.” 

Glaser deserves eye-rolls for her pre-show claims that her jokes “might get me canceled” — everyone knows her nasty burns at the Tom Brady roast are the reason she got the job in the first place. Not to mention, the “Look at me being naughty!” style that Gervais made famous is just as insufferable as Levy’s “Let’s not make jokes at our friends’ expense” stance.  

Personally, I’ll take the Amy Poehler/Tina Fey approach — sticking it to celebrity pomposity without claiming maverick status for doing so. 

For this weekend anyway, we’re stuck with the Levys, who promise to be affable if nothing else. “We were asked before, and it didn’t feel like the right time for whatever reason,” Dan explained. “Then we were asked again this year, and I think ran out of reasons not to do it. It seemed like a fun little challenge — not little, quite huge actually.”