Adam Driver Isn’t Motivated by Awards, Once Called the Emmys ‘Cheesy and Dated’
Adam Driver isn’t up for any categories at the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards. However, he had a few choice words for the Television Academy’s ceremony in 2013 when he was nominated. Find out why Driver said the Emmys were “cheesy and dated” the year he got nominated for playing Adam Sackler in Lena Dunham’s HBO series Girls.
Adam Driver has never won an Emmy Award
Throughout his career as an actor, Driver has been nominated four times for the Television Academy’s Emmy Awards. Driver’s role in Girls landed him nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 2013, 2014, and 2015.
Later, in 2020, Driver received a nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for hosting Saturday Night Live. He has yet to win any Emmys.
The actor doesn’t care about his lack of Emmy Awards
In a 2013 interview with the New York Times, Driver spoke to his first ever Emmy nomination. “The deadly thing in my job is to attach too much meaning to everything,” he told the outlet. “You have to have a sense of humor about yourself.”
He also spoke of the Emmy party he attended. “At the Emmy Awards, everybody runs up to you and says, ‘Aren’t you having the time of your life?'” he said. “I mean, I was never after trying to get an Emmy,” he added, continuing:
“The whole spectacle seems cheesy and dated. The thing that motivates me most is being petrified of not having a place to put my voice.”
Adam Driver, New York Times
At the time, Driver was more focused on honing his craft and his nonprofit, Arts in the Armed Forces (AITAF), which he founded with his wife, Joanne Tucker, in 2008 while they were studying at Juilliard.
Adam Driver’s nonprofit Arts in the Armed Forces is what motivates him
One of the many places the White Noise actor “puts his voice” are the plays his nonprofit puts on for members of the military. As Driver recalled to the Times: “A lot of me doing AITAF came from being told by veterans’ organizations that theater [wouldn’t] resonate with military. What I found is the opposite: you either use the anger that’s in us all or you stew in it.”
Driver served in the military after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. “September 11 happened and all my friends were like, ‘Let’s join the military,'” said Driver, per U.S. Veterans Magazine. “I was the only one who actually did.”
Since 2008, Driver’s nonprofit has honored and enriched “the lives of the US military community by offering powerful shared experiences in theater and film” (via AITAF). The organization also offers student veteran internship programs — the Bridge Award for Playwriting and another for Screenwriting — both of which award a $10,000 prize to a creative individual in the military. Of course, Driver is still acting and will star in the upcoming Netflix release White Noise and Michael Mann’s 2023 release Ferrari.
To learn more about Driver’s nonprofit, visit aitaf.org.
