Emmy awards: Breaking Bad takes best drama series

Breaking Bad, an AMC cable series about a high-school chemistry teacher who produces and sells methamphetamine, has won the Emmy for best drama series, ABC News reported.

The critically acclaimed thriller, whose final episode will air this week, also took home the best supporting actress Emmy, for Anna Gunn.

Meanwhile, Modern Family won the Emmy for the best comedy series, the fourth consecutive year the ABC won the top comedy gong.

Jeff Daniels, who plays a jaded anchorman in HBO's The Newsroom, has scored an upset win for the best actor in a drama at the Emmys, while Claire Danes was a return winner as best drama actress for her role as a bipolar CIA agent in Homeland.

Daniels beat front-runner Bryan Cranston, who was looking for this fourth best actor Emmy in his role as unlikely drug kingpin Walt

White in Breaking Bad, and Kevin Spacey, who made waves as a cutthroat congressman in House of Cards, from online streaming company Netflix.

"I didn't expect this. I usually don't win anything," Daniels said.

"The last thing I won was for The Squid and the Whale, best actor over 50 from the AARP. With all due respect to the AARP, this is better."

Making light of the television fads of the day host Neil Patrick Harris opened the televised ceremony enclosed in a room trying to catch up on every episode.

"Right now, I am watching an episode of American Horror Story: Asylum on my contact lens," Harris joked with the audience at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles.

The lead comedy acting awards were less of a surprise than the drama category.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus won the best comedy actress Emmy for the second year in a row for her role as hapless US vice president Selina Meyer on HBO's Veep.

Jim Parsons picked up his third lead comedy actor win for his role as the nerdy and neurotic Sheldon Cooper on CBS' The Big Bang Theory.


But the awards kicked off with upsets in the two supporting actor awards in comedy going to first-time Emmy winners.

Merritt Wever, who plays a quirky nurse on Showtime's dark comedy Nurse Jackie, won best supporting actress in a comedy series and gave a novel acceptance speech. "Thank you so much. I've got to go, bye," Wever said.