Paul Walter Hauser has been feeling the awards show love for his chilling and unforgettable performance in the crime drama Blackbird. That momentum carried through on Monday, when he took home the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie.
Hauser won the award while snacking, and then delivered his speech in the form of rhyming verse, and generally brought a wild, unpredictable energy to the proceedings.
Speaking with the press pool backstage, Hauser addressed the unusual speech and explained, “I had the good fortune of getting to take home a trophy for this performance at the Critics Choice Awards and the Golden Globes. And I had kind of done the regular thank you speeches. So I was like, ‘I’m just gonna have fun.'”
“I love writing lyrics, I love being silly and I actually do rap music under the name Signet Ringer. It’s on Youtube and Spotify and Apple Music,” Hauser added. “There’s an EP with like six tracks of me actually rapping, because I enjoy doing that.”
Hauser also addressed his shout-out to his Blackbird co-star, Ray Liotta, who died unexpectedly in May 2022 at age 67.
“I only got to work with him one day on set. We did a tiny little thing together, but… for somebody like me — who loves movies, who really watches a lot of movies, and that was their entry into the business. I didn’t go to acting school. I didn’t have family in the industry. I just had a Blockbuster card. You know what I mean? And Ray Liotta, if you look at Something Wild and Goodfellas and Field of Dreams and Copland and Narc, he’s so scary in the movie Narc. I just think he was one of our great actors,” Hauser shared. “I put him up there with like the Chris Coopers and stuff,, where every time they show up, I’m happy to see them in a story.”
“So I love shouting him out for his talent, but he was also super kind to me,” Hauser added. “I think he’s at a much better party right now.”
After winning his big award, Hauser also stopped to talk with ET’s Nischelle Turner backstage, and revealed what it was he was eating when his name was announced. As it turns out, it was dried mangos given to him by his managers, as something of an inside joke.
“[They] gave me a whole bag of mangos before the show started, I was like, ‘Dude, the moment the camera’s on me I’m going to start eating those,'” Hauser said with a laugh, revealing that the whole moment “was by design.”
“That’s a shout out to them,” he added. “Whether I won or not, they got a shout out.”
The 75th Primetime Emmy Awards, originally set to take place last September, was postponed due to the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes. Hosted by Anthony Anderson at L.A. Live’s Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, the ceremony aired live Monday, Jan. 15 at 5 p.m. PT, 8 p.m. ET on Fox, and will be streamed Tuesday, Jan. 16 on Hulu. Keep checking ETonline.com for complete Emmys coverage and for the full winners’ list.
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