Sean Kanan Honored By More Daytime Emmy Noms For Studio City

Sean Kanan, best known to soap fans as Deacon Sharpe on both The Bold and the Beautiful and The Young and the Restless, won a Daytime Emmy last month when Studio City took home the statuette for Outstanding Limited Drama Series at The 48th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards. And the good news keeps on coming.

Sean Kanan Has A Lot To Celebrate

Now, the actor’s looking forward to The Daytime Emmy Awards Lifestyle Programming ceremony in which he and his co-stars are nominated for their performances on the Amazon Prime series.

“It’s incredible,” Kanan tells Soap Hub of the show’s win. “I’ve worked in Daytime on and off since 1992 [starting as AJ Quartermaine. on General Hospital] and had never even been nominated. Now, to have one of these — it’s incredible. It feels like I’m the new kid in the club. It’s really exciting that Michele [Kanan, my wife] won alongside me. It’s special to be able to share this with her.”

Kanan attended the taping of the Daytime Emmys in June as a presenter. While he was there, the show’s producers asked him to record an acceptance speech for Studio City (to be played in the event the show won — which it did). “I said, ‘[executive producer] Timothy Woodward Jr. and I did one last year — can you just use that one?'” Kanan recalls. “They said, ‘No, we’d like you to do a new one.'”

Was there anyone Sean Kanan didn’t have time to acknowledge that he’d like to now? “I really wanted to thank everybody in Daytime,” he responds. “I’d also like to thank my family, Brad Bell [exceutive producer/head writer, The Bold and the Beautiful] and honestly, Frank Valentini [executive producer, GH], and everybody who was at GH from the first time I was there. So much of what Studio City is about [is] my experiences in Daytime television. There are people that afforded me this wonderful opportunity.”

Kanan is nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Daytime Fiction Program for his role as Studio City’s Sam Stevens. The show’s other nominees include Sarah Brown (Laurie) for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Daytime Fiction Program, Carolyn Hennesy (Gloria) for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Daytime Fiction Program, and last year’s winner for Outstanding Performance by a Supporting Actor in a Digital Drama Series Tristan Rogers (Doc), nominated this year for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Daytime Fiction Program.

Brown, Hennesy, and Rogers are known, of course, for playing or having played Carly Benson/Claudia Zacchara, Diane Miller, and Robert Scorpio, respectively on GH. Also nominated in the Outstanding Guest Performer in a Daytime Fiction Program this year are Ronn Moss (as Ronn Moss) and Anna Maria Horsford (Jolene) for their roles on Studio City. Kanan worked with Moss and Horsford when they were on B&B as Ridge and Vivienne, respectively.

“I couldn’t be happier for my fellow actors,” Kanan raves. “There are some of the most talented workhorses that I know. They’re giving and are so committed to what we are doing. I am extremely happy Ronn was nominated.” The actor/singer plays a version of himself in Studio City in a storyline that has him and Kanan’s character as rivals. “People may not have known that Ronn has it in him to be so funny,” Kanan says. “I’m happy for all of them.”

This series is near and dear to Kanan’s heart as there is part of him that relates to Stevens. “Sam’s a guy who’s an aging soap star,” Kanan says. “To the outside world, he’s a guy who has talent and notoriety but he’s a guy who is also extremely human and flawed. He deals with challenges the likes of which everyone can relate to. As the emotional layers of the onion are peeled back, you see he’s a guy who’s trying to figure it all out. He’s trying to be the best guy that he can be.”

Studio City is produced by Sean Kanan, Michele Kanan, Timothy Woodward Jr., Lauren De Normandie, Brian Levine, and Jason Antognoli. Will there be another season? “That’s the goal,” Kanan says. Studio City can be seen now on Amazon Prime.