Where You’ve Seen 74th Emmys Announcer Sam Jay Before
Keenan Thompson is hosting the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards, but many viewers are curious about who the Emmys announcer is. Learn more about comedian Sam Jay and where you may have seen her before the 2022 Emmy Awards.
Emmys announcer Sam Jay is a stand-up comic with acting and writing credits
Before the 2022 Emmy Awards, you may have seen Jay in her Netflix comedy special 3 in the Morning. She is also the co-creator and co-star of the HBO comedy series PAUSE with Sam Jay. According to IMDb, Jay’s other work includes:
- Flatbush Misdemeanors
- Bust Down
- Untitled Sam Jay Show
- Tig N’ Seek
- Crank Yankers
- That Damn Michael Che
- Heads Will Roll
- Shrill
- Dope State
- Saturday Night Live
- Broad City
- Nobodies
- Where Love Lies
- Playlist
- Pinsky
- Take My Wife
- Get Your Life
If you’ve never seen anything Jay is in, you’ve likely seen something she’s worked on behind the scenes. Her IMDb profile lists Jay as a writer on the following projects:
- Pause with Sam Jay
- Bust Down
- That Damn Michael Che
- Saturday Night Live
- Sam Jay: 3 in the Morning
- BET Awards 2020
- Donald Glover Presents
- The 70th Primetime Emmy Awards
- The Comedy Lineup
- 2018 MTV Movie & TV Awards
Keenan Thompson and Sam Jay vibe from their days on ‘SNL’
If you picked up on Jay and Thompson’s chemistry at the 2022 Emmys, that’s because they’ve worked together before on Saturday Night Live. Jay’s work as a writer on the NBC series began in 2017 — that’s why she referred to Thompson as her “brother” at the beginning of the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards. Jay made history joining the writing staff of the Emmy-winning sketch-comedy series as the first Black lesbian writer in the history of the show.
“When I’m writing stand up, I’m just writing to me and my perspective, and that’s it,” Jay said of her writing process for SNL (via Entertainment Weekly). “I’m not thinking about how someone else is going to say something or how things will come out of someone else’s mouth.”
She continued: “You have to consider all that when you’re writing a sketch. The other thing is it’s a different plate of food, really. It’s on NBC, it has to be more palatable for all types of people, it has to be clean, following all the rules of the network. There’s a lot of coloring in the lines. When I’m on stage, I can just color wherever I want.”
Sam Jay was nominated for two Emmys in the past
In previous years, Jay was nominated for the Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series in 2018, 2019, and 2021. She did not win for the category any of the years she was nominated.
