Ava DuVernay, Melanie Lynskey and Tamron Hall Honored at 2022 Gracie Awards

variety.com:

Ashley Hume Ava Duvernay, Melanie Lynskey and Tamron Hall were among the honorees at The Alliance for Women in Media Foundation’s 47th Annual Gracie Awards on Tuesday night.Holly Robinson Peete hosted the event, which was held in-person for the first time in two years at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles.

Named after the late vaudeville performer Gracie Allen, the Gracie Awards honor talented women in television, radio and digital media.The atmosphere inside this year’s gala was subdued, as facts were still emerging just hours after a mass elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that left 19 children and two teachers dead.Lynskey, who accepted the award for best actress in a leading role — drama, began her speech by thanking the Alliance for recognizing her work in the Showtime series “Yellowjackets.” “It’s amazing to be 45 and a size 12, according to this dress, and playing the sexiest, most interesting, most fun character of my career,” Lynskey said.Lynskey went on to express her sorrow over the shooting in Texas as well as the mass shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., which had occurred 10 days earlier.

She said, “It feels very weird to be celebrating tonight when such an awful thing happened today in Texas. And I just have to acknowledge it because it just feels weird, as happy as I am in this moment, there’s so much tragedy around us and my heart goes out to those families and my heart goes out to the family of loved ones from last week’s horrible shooting.”She added, “My wish, I guess, is that it just stops happening.

So just sending love to people and thank you for this. I don’t want to bring it down, but my heart is somewhere else right now.”DuVernay, who accepted the best family series award for her Peacock.