This is why Cooper Koch is ‘devastated’ after Emmy nominations, despite nod

Cooper Koch is part of a sweep of queer talent to snatch a nomination for the 2025 Emmy Awards, with the out gay star landing a nod for Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story – but two of his co-stars failed to.

Koch portrayed Erik Menéndez in the second season of Ryan Murphy’s Monster anthology series, which focused on Erik and his brother Lyle’s murder of their own parents in 1989.

Despite the series facing criticism – with viewers accusing Murphy of creating “incestuous fetish porn”, and Erik himself labelling the series purposefully “naive and inaccurate” – Monsters has picked up 11 nominations at the prestigious Emmy Awards.

Koch has scored his first nomination as Outstanding Lead Actor In A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie for his turn as Erik. His co-stars Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny picked up nods in the Supporting Actor and Actress category, respectively, for their roles as the Menéndez parents, José and Kitty.

But Koch’s on-screen brother, Nicholas Alexander Chavez, who portrayed Lyle, and Ari Graynor (who played defense attorney Leslie Abramson) were not among the nominees.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Koch said he was “devastated” by the omissions.

“I talked to Ari; I’m devastated that she didn’t get it,“ he said. “That’s the one sort of bummer from today that she didn’t get it. Same thing with Nicholas. I think both of them really deserved to be on there, so I’m super bummed that they didn’t get nominated.”

Monsters also nabbed a further eight category nominations, including for Outstanding Casting, Period Costumes, Picture Editing, Hairstyling, Makeup, Music Composition, Sound Mixing and Outstanding Limited Or Anthology Series.

The Netflix show, which reportedly has seasons three (and four) on the way, is the sixth most nominated television show this year, behind only Severance (27), The White Lotus (24), The Last of Us (16), Hacks (14) and Andor (14).

Bella Ramsey has become the first non-binary actor to receive more than one nomination at the awards ceremony for The Last of Us, and Wicked‘s Bowen Yang has become the awards’ most nominated Asian male performer for his 2025 nom in the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his role across multiple sketches on US primetime hit, Saturday Night Live (SNL).

RuPaul has also made Emmys History by scoring his tenth nomination in the Outstanding Host for a Reality or Competition Program category for, of course, RuPaul’s Drag Race. He is the most nominated host in history.

The Emmy Awards will take place on 14 September.

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