The short-form web series in which former Days of our Lives star Patrika Darbo (Nancy Wesley) currently stars might be called Acting Dead, but there's nothing lifeless about her performance as Margot Mullen on the independent show. Her charismatic screen presence just landed the actress an Emmy Award win in the category of Outstanding Actress in a short form comedy or drama -- her first primetime Emmy win in a career that has spanned over 30 years.
Speaking of firsts, 2016 marked the beginning of the Academy recognizing short-form online shows like Darbo's Acting Dead, Adult Swim's Children's Hospital, and AMC's Fear of the Walking Dead: Flight 462 (starring General Hospital's Kathleen Gati [Dr. Obrecht]) during the Creative Arts portion of the event. The winners were announced this weekend during the two-night Creative Arts Emmy ceremony, which will be available for fan viewing on Saturday, September 17 at 8PM ET/10:30PM PT on FXX. The broadcast will then be available for online streaming the next day at emmys.com.
Acting Dead is a comedy series about Hollywood zombies that also stars DAYS' Jillian Claire (ex-Abigail Deveraux), DAYS' Eric Martsolf (Brady Black), Sean Kanan (Deacon Sharpe, The Bold and the Beautiful; ex-A.J. Quartermaine, GH), and GH's Carolyn Hennesy (Diane Miller).
Writer/creator Brian Beacock told Soap Central the idea came from all the other zombie shows and movies that have taken over the world in the past several years. "[Zombies are] everywhere -- you know, Walking Dead and BBC's In the Flesh and the movie Warm Bodies. So they're everywhere you look... and I was watching a show -- I was watching, I think, Walking Dead, and thinking, 'What's going on with all those actors that are playing zombies?' and I said, 'Wouldn't it be really funny if they were zombies, but they were actually actors trying to get work as zombies?'" he says. "So I thought, 'Well, that'd be kind of a weird world. So here's L.A., with all of these out-of-work actors that can't get a job, and they go to this company that actually can turn them into a zombie to make them more better-equipped, more realistic, more castable to be cast in a zombie show.' And that kind of was the germ of the idea, and then it just kind of went from there."
As for her take on Emmy nominations and wins, Darbo says, "I've been around a long time, and these kind of things are just icing on the cake."
Check out a trailer for Acting Dead below then let us know what you think about Darbo winning an Emmy for her work as Margot Mullen.
What do you think about Darbo being chosen as this year's Outstanding Actress Emmy winner in the Academy's first short-form web series category? Would you like to leave the actress a congratulatory message? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
