LOS ANGELES -- "Game of Thrones" ruled the 2016 Emmys with 12 wins, including awards for Best Drama Series, Best Directing (Miguel Sapochnik) and Best Writing (David Benioff and D.B. Weiss) for "Battle of the Bastards." That ties the record it set last year, when it scored the most Emmy wins for a series in a single season. The show now also holds the record as the scripted primetime series with the most wins (38 in total), beating "Frasier," which had 37.
"We loved 'Frasier' and he had a long run," showrunner David Benioff joked backstage after the show's Best Drama win. "We're sure someone will come along and take [the record] from us, but hopefully not until we're all dead."
Anticipation is high for Season 7, and when asked what we can expect from the penultimate year of the show, Weiss wryly said, "it will be bigger, and it will be better, and it will also be worse, but mostly better."
When asked about the possibility of a prequel or spinoff following the end of the series, Benioff tempered expectations -- asking reporters to pose that question to author George R. R. Martin, and implying that he and Weiss would bow out of the show once "Thrones" reached its conclusion: "It's a great world, I'm sure there will be other series set in Westeros, but for us, this is it."
Martin allowed that there might be a possibility for another series somewhere down the line, noting, "I do have thousands of pages of fake history of everything that led up to 'Game of Thrones...' There's a lot of material there and I'm still writing more. But for now we still have two seasons to finish and I still have two books to finish, so it's all speculation."
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The show entered this year's Emmy Awards ceremony already leading the pack, having won nine statues from the Creative Arts Emmys last weekend, a haul that allowed "Thrones" to surpass "The West Wing" and "Hill Street Blues" and claim the record for the drama series with the most wins in Emmy history.
The HBO drama fell short in the acting categories, though stars Peter Dinklage, Kit Harington, Emilia Clarke, Lena Headey, and Maisie Williams got nods in their supporting roles -- potentially cancelling each other out, with "Downton Abbey's" Maggie Smith and "Bloodline's" Ben Mendelsohn taking the gongs.
"Thrones" nabbed eight awards at last year's Creative Arts Emmys and four during the Emmys telecast including its first win for Best Drama, and a second prize for Supporting Actor Peter Dinklage, who previously won for his role as Tyrion Lannister in 2011.
The show will return for Season 7 in the fall of 201
"Veep" star Julia Louis-Dreyfus won her fifth straight Emmy for her role in the satirical White House comedy on a night when politics played large in the midst of an extraordinary 2016 U.S. election campaign.
True crime also made its mark. "The People v. O.J. Simpson," FX's 10-hour dramatization of the former football player's 1995 double murder trial and sensational acquittal won nine Emmys, including for best limited series, writing, for lead actors Sarah Paulson and Courtney B. Vance and supporting actor Sterling K.Brown.
Paulson, who played losing Los Angeles trial prosecutor Marcia Clark in the show, brought Clark along with her to the Emmys.
"The more I learned about the real Marcia Clark... the more I had to recognize that I along with the rest of the world had been superficial and careless in my judgment," said Paulson, accepting her first Emmy.
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Louis-Dreyfus, who plays the vainglorious U.S. president Selina Meyer on HBO's "Veep", apologized for what she called "the current political climate."
"I think that 'Veep' has torn down the wall between comedy and politics. Our show started out as a political satire but it now feels like a sobering documentary," she said while accepting the award.
As Americans prepare to vote in November for a new president, "Veep" is also expected to win the coveted comedy series category, which is announced at the end of Sunday's three-hour ceremony.
Host Jimmy Kimmel opened Sunday's show with a string of jokes about Republican presidential contender and former "Celebrity Apprentice" host Donald Trump.
"If Donald Trump gets elected and he builds that wall, the first person we are throwing over it is Mark Burnett," quipped Kimmel, addressing Burnett, the British producer who created "Celebrity Apprentice."
"Saturday Night Live" comedian Kate McKinnon, who plays Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, won supporting comedy actress, while Louie Anderson was named best supporting actor for playing the wholesome mother of Zach Galifianakis' quirky clown in the FX comedy "Baskets."
Jeffrey Tambor won best comedy actor for a second time for his role as a father who transitions to a woman in Amazon's ground-breaking "Transparent
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