The Penguin star Cristin Milioti won the 2025 Emmy for lead actress in a limited series on Sunday, and she reflected on playing the role of Sofia Gigante in her acceptance speech.
“Thank you so much. I’m so profoundly grateful,” she began, sharing that she wrote her speech on the back of a piece a paper from a recent therapy session. “I loved making this show and I loved playing Sofia so much.”
The award marks Milioti’s first Emmys win, as well as her first nomination. She beat out Disclaimer‘s Cate Blanchett, Sirens‘ Meghann Fahy, Black Mirror‘s Rashida Jones and Dying for Sex‘s Michelle Williams for the honor.
“It’s very hard to make sense of being alive right now in this world and so I’m deeply grateful for the bright spots,” she continued from the awards show stage. “And making this show with our incredible cast and our incredible crew and getting to inhabit this woman was a bright spot for me despite it being, like, very grizzly. Playing her felt like flying.”
After she thanked her “incredible family” in attendance for supporting their “strange kid” and showing her “movies that were very inappropriate for my age,” Milioti thanked her friends. “I have the best friends in the world. You’re the reason that I’m standing. You’re the whole reason that I’ve gotten through life,” she said through tears.
Milioti began to wrap up her speech by thanking The Penguin showrunner Lauren LeFranc. “She is the reason our show is so special,” she said. Milioti then thanked her team and several of the people behind the scenes of the show.
“I love you and I love acting so much!” she concluded.
After her nomination was announced, Milioti reflected on the nod during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “I feel really good, it’s so nice. I feel so thrilled for our show,” she said in August. “You never know how these things are going to go, and I’m so blown away by the amount of nominations we have and that so many members of our incredible crew got nominated.”
The Penguin snagged a total of 24 nominations across a wide variety of creative categories at the awards show. Her other series, Black Mirror, was also nominated.
The 2025 Emmy Awards are hosted by Nate Bargatze and are being held at the Peacock Theater at L.A. LIVE in Los Angeles, which is airing on CBS and streaming on Paramount+ from 5-8 p.m. PT/8-11 p.m. ET.