Youngstown native wins Emmy Award
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Sean O'Malley has no "Beef" with this year's Emmy Awards.
The Youngstown native and 1998 Ursuline High School graduate won his first Emmy for outstanding sound mixing at the Creative Arts Emmys ceremony Sept. 6 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles for his work on the Netflix limited series "Beef."
During his lunch break Wednesday on the set of "I Love LA," the HBO series shooting its second season, O'Malley talked about the win.
"It's actually my third time being nominated, so I felt a little bit more at ease than the last two because I've never won. So I sort of got used to losing and was kind of OK with it," he said. "I was trying, as much as possible, to take in the event for what it is. But the longer it goes, the more the thoughts start creeping in your head -- 'When's my category going to happen?'"
The award for sound editing came first, which also was won by the "Beef" team. At that point, O'Malley realized the odds had increased that they could win for outstanding sound mixing, since the two awards often go to the same show.
"That was a relief to see that happen, and then my blood pressure started going up a little bit," O'Malley said. "I definitely got a blood pressure warning on my Apple iPhone from anxiety, and when they called our names, it was just a blur from there."
O'Malley wasn't the one who had to speak on stage for the sound mixing team, so he didn't prepare any remarks in advance. However, they have a camera set up backstage where the winners can thank anyone they didn't have time to acknowledge on stage.
"I froze up a little bit," he said. "I definitely forgot to thank my mom (MaryAlice O'Malley). Maybe we could thank her here."
O'Malley, 47, and his wife, Morgan, went to the ball following the Sept. 6 ceremony, but they left early because they have a 10-week-old daughter, Clancy. He also will get to attend Netflix's post-Emmy Awards party Monday.
O'Malley received his first Emmy nomination in 2022 for the HBO series "Euphoria" and his second nomination for "Beef" in 2023. "Beef" is an anthology drama with a different cast and storyline each season.
This year's nomination was for the final episode of season two, "It Will Stay This Way and You Will Obey." The entire "Beef" sound mixing team voted for which episode to submit for consideration.
Sound mixing involves two facets. O'Malley is the sound mixer on location, the person trying to capture as much usable live sound as possible. The other unit does post-production work, adding sound that couldn't be captured live.
It's too early to know what impact winning an Emmy will have on his future opportunities.
"If somebody's just looking at a resume, I definitely get a pretty big edge over somebody who hasn't won an Emmy," he said. "But the industry is one of relationships that I've fostered through 20 years of working in it. When I get a call for a job, it's usually somebody that I've worked with before who trusts me and wants to work with me again. But if it gives me an edge in the future, I hope it does.
"Mostly, it's an acknowledgement from your peers, which is really one of the biggest honors you can have. The people that vote for the Emmys are other sound mixers and other sound professionals. So it is just such an honor from your colleagues to say we really like what you're doing, we like what you're creating and we're willing to vote for that."
That recognition comes at a valuable time. Many stories have been written in recent years about television and film production leaving Southern California as other states and other countries offer substantial tax breaks and other incentives to bring that business to their locales.
O'Malley compared the entertainment industry in Southern California today to what happened in the Mahoning Valley in the late '70s and '80s. When the steel mills started to close, more people competed for fewer jobs.
"I've been fortunate enough to have had a really good couple of years, but there have definitely been times in the past two years where I really wanted to be working and I wasn't, and there wasn't much happening," he said. "I definitely feel the effects of it, and you're reading the tea leaves and you're just hoping that things are going to turn for the better for us. I live in Los Angeles, and I would love to work in Los Angeles. And getting the Emmy, I think, definitely puts me in a better space than other people.
"I feel for the people starting out in the industry right now. I'm pretty established. I do think that there's still a place for me. Somebody just coming out of school right now, I think that they're going to have a much harder time than I had. It's not an easy industry to get into."
The Creative Art Emmys where O'Malley won will be broadcast on cable channel FXX at 8 p.m. Saturday and will be available for streaming on Hulu starting Sunday.
The 78th Emmy Awards, where "Beef" is up for best limited series, will be broadcast live on NBC and Peacock at 8 p.m. Monday. This year's host is Mariska Hargitay, longtime star of the police serial drama "Law & Order: SVU."