The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, September 23, 2008

Bryan Batt's Emmy Night
by Dave Walker

Chris Pizzello/AP Photo Aaron Staton, far left, Michael Gladis, second left, Bryan Batt, second right, and Rich Sommer, of the television drama "Mad Men" arrive at the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards.

One of the highlights of Bryan Batt's Emmy Awards experience Sunday night was the before and after pictures.

After a long, hot limo ride with several fellow cast members, Batt and the other "Mad Men" actors unloaded onto the red carpet outside Los Angeles' Nokia Theater, which hosted the awards ceremony.

"It was funny that some people recognized us and that some people did not," said Batt during a Monday telephone interview. "We literally would stand there in front of the banks of photographers, and they would stop shooting and someone would say, 'It's the guys from "Mad Men,"' then "What? Who?"' Right next to us would be Jennifer Love Hewitt, and they'd explode with photographs."

After the show's best drama triumph, for which Batt joined the show's cast and writers and producers on stage during creator Matthew Weiner's acceptance speech, the photography gauntlet was a completely different story.

"After we won, we got to go in front of the same photographers, and it was like lightning, the flashes going off," said Batt, who plays "Mad Men" art director Salvatore Romano. "It was very bizarre in that sense."

Other highlights for the evening were congratulatory embraces with Glenn Close (a winner for FX's "Damages") and Jane Krakowski (of NBC's best comedy winner, "30 Rock").

"Backstage I get a tap on my shoulder, I turn around and there's Glenn Close, and she just throws her arms around me," Batt said. "We did 'Sunset Boulevard' (on Broadway) years and years ago. The fact that she remembered and was so happy for me, and I was so happy for her ...

"And I turned around again and there was Jane Krakowski. We haven't seen each other since, but we did 'Starlight Express,' our first Broadway show together. Those are some of the great moments. My phone went practically dead from all the texting from friends and family."

Later, Batt and the cast hit a post-Emmys party thrown by Entertainment Weekly at Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall.

"The concert hall where the philharmonic plays," Batt said. "The band was Billy Idol. That was fun."

Then it was a TV Guide party in Hollywood, and a "Mad Men" after-party in a suite at the Chateau Marmont hotel - the same suite that had been rented for the cast to watch the telecast of January's ill-fated Golden Globes awards broadcast.

"They kind of booked it in hopes that it would be lucky again, and it panned out," Batt said.

Batt said that Dana Delany ("Desperate Housewives") and Jorge Garcia ("Lost") were among the stars he met at different points during the evening.

Delany "came up and introduced herself and said, 'I know who you are,'" he said. Garcia "was quite wonderful."

"It's very odd, but I appreciate it so much when there are so many people who come up and tell me they love the show, love the work and want to talk about the character," he said. "I'm so flattered they think I'm doing a good job acting the role.

"I never expected anything like it. It's quite heartwarming."

Batt's next move is a return to New Orleans to co-host, with Patricia Clarkson, a Saturday night (Sept. 27) fundraiser for Le Petit Theatre.

"It's where I got my start," Batt said.

Emmys add: According to Nielsen, ABC's Sunday Emmy Awards telecast drew 12,339,000 viewers, which was not, as seemed likely Monday before final numbers were tabulated, the lowest audience total ever for the awards.

Fox's Sept. 16, 1990, telecast remains the least-watched Emmys ever, with 12,299,566 viewers.