Emmys Live Blog: Backstage with the Winners!

"Hopefully this will help us a little," Fey said, holding her Emmy and looking rather fabulous. And maybe it will make that red-headed-stepchild feeling go away. "Because we shoot in New York and we're not the highest-rated show, I feel a lot of the time we're not actually on TV," she laments. "[The Emmy win] legitimizes us a little bit. I myself am going to celebrate by overeating."

As for Alec Baldwin coming up empty in the lead-actor race, Fey frowns, "I really thought he'd win." And for The Office's Steve Carell to not best Ricky Gervais either, she says, "was crazy, right?"

Finally, a good answer to the "Where will you keep your Emmy?" roundup question: "I had a giant Emmy shelf built years ago, capable of holding 500 Emmys," says Conan, fielding questions backstage with headwriter Mike Sweeney.

When a reporter flubs his verb tense and asks for Conan's take on how Ryan Seacrest is doing (the telecast had ended), O'Brien quipped, "If he's still doing it in the parking lot, that’s very, very sad. I think he's lost his mind, he's on TV way too much. It's not good for anyone." But seriously, Conan gave some props to Seacrest and the "different" kudoscast, saying. "It was neat to try it in the round, and he was right to not do [a previous host's] awards show."

Asked if he had heard about O.J. Simpson being arrested in Los Angeles earlier in the evening — a topic oft trotted out in the press room but to little effect — O'Brien said he heard the news from no less than Mary Hart. "But then I went to that guy from Extra to be sure. The one who sued to be in a rock band." Mining O.J.'s latest criminal trespass for laughs, Conan says, "is a double-edged sword. Obviously it’s a good [subject] for comedians, but when everybody's doing it, it's harder to get a fresh take on it. But my team is on it — they’ll be thinking on the red-eye. Tune in tomorrow night at 12:35."

Look at little Sally Field giving the Emmys a little last-minute sizzle, delivering a message to war mothers that, because of the phrase "g--damned," made the censors slap the bleep button. "That’s too bad," Field said matter of factly of the uproar. "I wanted to say something about the mothers who wait for their children to come home. I wanted to acknowlege them and what they do. I said at the end there is no question that if mothers ruled the world, there would be no war."

Pressed to elaborate on her bleeping, Field again shrugged, "Oh well! I’ve been there before. Good. I don’t care. I have no comment other than, 'Oh well.' I said what I wanted to say. I wanted to pay homage to the mothers of the world and let their work be seen and valued. I really think that if mothers ruled the world we wouldn’t be sending our children off to be slaughtered. That’s what [Brothers & Sisters'] Nora Walker is [about], she’s this mother and she sees life through that."

"I probably shouldn’t have said the 'god' before the 'damned,'" Field allows. "That’s life. I didn’t have a point to get across, I didn’t have an agenda. I wanted to pay homage to mothers, especially the mothers who wait for their children to come home from war. If they bleep it... oh well. I’ll just say it someplace else."

On a different topic, Field says she was a tough sell when B&S came knocking for her to play the Walker matriarch. "No, I wasn’t interested at all. As a matter of fact I was sort of heading towards theater. And then Ken Olin and Robbie Baitz called me and said, 'Please, can we just talk to you?' It was a leap of faith, a total leap of faith" — and one that paid off.

Executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer offers no apologies for monopolizing the category since its inception — "We just want to keep winning!" — nor for boxing out American Idol in doing so. "They beat us in [the number of] viewers every week, so I don’t feel bad for them," he says. "They have the No. 1 television show, so god bless them."

The secret to the Race's success, says exec producer Bert Van Munster, is that it's "very relatable." Van Munster also reveals that the production travels the next season's path "at least twice before we actually shoot the race."

Gotta give props to the first question. Positing the former vice president as someone who has weathered firestorms, the reporter asks what Britney Spears might learn from Gore. "I kinda figured the first question would be about Britney Spears," he played along, before eluding the topic like a seasoned politico. "My partner Joel Hyatt and I are just incredibly grateful to the Academy for this Emmy."

If you thought Current.tv had swept the country like wildfire, you ain't seen nothing yet. "We have other things in the works," Gore teases. "On Oct. 15, we're launching Current.com. We use Current.tv to connect with thousands of content creators, and then we put it on real TV in 52 million homes. But Current.com is the next step in state of the art." My goosebumps have goosebumps!

Call me woefully unhip for not recognizing her or her shtick, but some old lady "correspondent" from The Tonight Show crashes the room and asks Gore if her cookie-baking negatively impacts the environment. Gore, recognizing the lady from wherever, tactfully deals with her intrusion.

The replacement of fluorescent lighting with LED bulbs in the press room is not lost on the Inconvenient Truth front man. "The Emmys have gone green and I want to give them credit for that. They're one step ahead."

Speaking to her embarrassment of riches — from the Oscars to the Emmys — Mirren notes, "I [also] have had a few losses, so I am very familiar with that feeling as well. It's always down to the writing, and, of course, the direction. The writing is where the role springs from and I was lucky to have some beautifully written roles."

Updating us on the matter of ever meeting up with the queen, whom she portrayed to Academy Award-winning perfection, Mirren says, "The queen and I haven’t hooked up yet. She very graciously invited me to dinner, but [I wasn't able to go]. I felt mortified, but there was nothing I could do." A royal rain check, perhaps? "I don’t know, only time will tell! I certainly hope so."

On Ryan Seacrest saying he was not one of the top choices to host the show: "We never really asked anybody else formally. He was in the top three. So far he's doing great. He has a lot of energy and he doesn’t put himself in a situation he's not comfortable with."

On the possible writers' strike: "Everybody's hoping there won't be a strike. At the end of the day a strike is bad for the industry, it's bad for the writers, it's bad for the audience.... There are several steps… before we actually go to strike. Some of the issues are on the table, but there hasn’t been any cogent discussion yet. I hope there will be."

On the perhaps too harsh, TV-skewering Family Guy opening: "The Emmys are designed to be entertaining. It's in the tradition of the Emmys to have some fun with television. We're not curing cancer here. I thought it was done very well."

On the problem with rotating networks for the telecast: "[If] you do a great job [and get ratings], the beneficiary is somebody else. That makes marketing very challenging year after year. If you didn’t [rotate], you put yourself in the situation of having one network controlling the awards of excellence. It puts too much control in one place."

Asked why the Western continues to resonate in the assorted entertainment media, Church says, "It's uniquely American. The English have Shakespeare, the Japanese have the great Samurai melodramatic romances. It's actually a very narrow sliver of American history that has been deservedly canonized. It's a unique period like no other."

The "guiding light" lady asks, "Where do you get your inner strength?" Church goes, "Uh… fiber?" Room fills with laughter. Get what you ask for.

Reflecting on his career beginnings, Church says, "The very first thing I did that had any significance was a guest appearance on Cheers. David Angel happened to be on the set and thought I might be right for the character of Lowell on Wings. He gave me some sound advice early on — don’t quit the show."

Leslie Uggams is working on a Lena Horne project that's en route to Broadway.

Louis Gossett Jr. is heading back to Broadway with a remake of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, also starring Phylicia Rashad and directed by Debbie Allen.

John Amos, of course, is currently on Men in Trees: "Maybe next year the entire cast of that show will be here."

Ben Vereen just finished an episode of Grey's Anatomy and wants to go back to Broadway with a gospel-themed project.

LeVar Burton is on Day 10 of the shoot for Tempting Hyenas, a feature he's directing. The cast includes himself, Alfre Woodard, Lacey Chabert and Adrienne Barbeau.

Cicely Tyson jokes, "I'm looking for a job," saying she may have to pull a Bette Davis and put an ad in the newspapers. "But I, for most of my career, have been unemployed," she says, before noting, "I actually have a number of things in the works."

There's awkwardness as Cicely and LeVar get into some sort of debate about the state of today's long-form television and Roots' legacy.

Piven starts off by talking about the fine line between playing tough and playing an a--hole. "If you play monster without making him human, I don't think it's interesting," he says. "We all have our demons, we all have our shadow.... I don't think it's me winning this, it's this character, this aggressive type-A wrecking ball."

If Ari were to win an Emmy, Piven says, "He'd make a bad joke, like I did."

Not that anyone, anyone who reads Page Six questions it, Piven, in recalling how many times he has brought his mom as a "date" to an awards show, insists, "I'm straight."

I ask Piven if it's strange at all to win for material that aired not this past season, but over a year ago. "I would [accept an award] for something I did in junior high school," he laughs, "and quite honestly I would do a victory lap and hold a press conference."

Asked about this year's eco-friendly "green" theme, Piven says, "I don’t want to get political now because I've had a drink.... It'd get ugly and they'd put me on a list and I'd never act again."

Reflecting on his consecutive Emmy wins, Piven admits, "I never thought I'd be the people's favorite in anything. I've never been a type, I've been playing the abrasive best friend for decades. So to be rewarded in some way... in back-to-back years... is kind of unbelievable to me."

Pressly is anxiously awaiting the backstage arrival of her representation, whom she has been with since Day 1. "It wasn’t just me who was loyal.... They never took no for an answer and did everything they could to get me in the door. I can't wait to see them right now. We're like family."

8:47 pm: A reporter starts a question saying, "You told me this before and I want you to tell me again...," then asks about Joy being pregnant just as Jaime has dropped her real-life baby weight. "You came to the gym with me, it's not an easy workout," Pressly says to the reporter, as the rest of us feel so outside of the Cool Kids Club.

Where will Jaime put her first Emmy? "I didn’t plan to win it, so I have no idea!"

8:48 pm: Wardrobe question No. 2 for Pressly. Then: "What do you feel is your guiding light?" As my thoughts turn to the CBS soap opera, the actress answers, "My son."

Pressly says she got emotional because, "As tough as I am and as rough around the edges as I might be, I'm a softie. This [Emmy win] is important to me because I finally changed everybody's mind and had the opportunity to show what I could do." Having interviewed Jaime about her past B-movie larks and such, I can attest to how much this victory means to her.

Terry gets off to a fun start, holding his Emmy and saying, "Did you see how many of these are back there? It's going to be a long night."

8:38 pm/ET: It's starting. Terry is asked to check the designer tag on his necktie.

Terry's thinking as the category was announced? "I thought, 'As soon as this award is done, I get to go to the bathroom.'" As for winning, "It's a little frosting on being nominated. Beyond that I don’t have expectations."

8:39: On the monitor, did Katherine Heigl just visibly say, "S--t!" upon winning?

A speculation-based Lost question: Is Locke Jacob? "I have no idea," Terry says, dismissing such rumors as having "no basis in fact."

Piven!

O'Quinn!

Pressly!

Sandman!

Get back here and start the backstage show!

PS: I'm pretty sure we just saw a runner-up for Heigl's wedding dress.

As those who read last year's backstage blog may recall, every year there are one (or two) "troublemakers," those reporters who hog precious time and, quite frankly, affront many a serious thesp with the same ol' roundup question along the lines of "Who are you wearing?" Looking around the press room now, I can't nail down exactly who that pesky one will be, though I have a suspect or two. It will become painfully clear, though, once that first bedazzled actress enters the room to talk about the milestone in her acting career, only to have to lower the level of discourse to D&G vs. Lhuillier, platinum vs. Swarovski etc.

The food options are... interesting. Each "dinner box" is deemed organic, and last I checked it was down to braised short ribs or veggie lasagna. I spent almost disturbing quality time at the brunch buffet this morn, so I may be good to go, save for the annual press-room cookie. Oh, and the nonstop Red Bull.

Breaking universe-exclusive* scoop: The first Emmy to be handed out tonight is for... supporting actor in a comedy!

T minus 23 minutes...

*Exclusive to me and the other 199 people in here.

Getting a bit more crowded here in the press area. The initial group is misleading, as a lot of the empty chairs belong to people (e.g., TV Guide's Ali Gazan) who are working the red carpet, then retreat here later (hopefully minus b.o.). Poor Ali — she broke her foot a few weeks ago, and has to clomp around the glam red carpet in one of those boot thingies. She thought about toughing it out and going without the boot, but ultimately decided against putting all her weight on one foot for seven hours straight.

The photo you see here is of two of the "cigar girls" circulating in the press room. In addition to handing out radios that we use to hear the TV feed — can't have the plasma speakers on when so-and-so from obscure-but-earnest TV-movie is here reflecting on his/her win — this year they are also offering free candy! Red Bull and candy. Sigh.

Hey, I see Grey's Anatomy's Private Practice's Kate Walsh on the Fox feed. She looks swell, very modest dress. Speaking of which, during my last sweaty trek to the red carpet, I saw TV Guide Network's Lisa Rinna. Nice, understated, classy dress. She does us proud.