"Playing her felt like flying" - Cristin Milioti reads her 2025 Emmy winning speech for The Penguin from the back of her therapy notes

The 2025 Emmys saw a big break for The Penguin actress, Cristin Milioti, who won the best lead actress in a limited or Anthology series category. It was her very first Emmy nomination, and surprisingly, she even went on to win, as per the reports. Held at the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles on September 14, 2025, the award show was aired live on CBS and is available to stream on Paramount+.

HBO’s show, The Penguin, had already won a total of eight titles at the Creative Arts Emmys. And this time, the show earned another Emmy through Cristin Milioti’s win for her role as Sofia Gigante. 

The night of the ceremony was a big win for some of the best TV shows, like The Studio, Adolescence, and The Pitt, which took home several awards in different categories. 

HBO's The Penguin was also nominated for Best Limited Series, Best Actor (Colin Farrell), Best Directing, and Best Writing.

Christin Milioti's speech about winning her first Emmy 

While accepting her award, Cristin Milioti referred to the back of her therapy notes for her winning speech and said,

"Sorry, I wrote this on the back of notes I took in therapy the other day, so don't look at the back."

She continued, 

"It's very hard to make sense of being alive right now in this world, so I'm deeply grateful for the bright spots. Making this show with our incredible cast and crew, and getting to inhabit this woman, was a bright spot for me. Despite it being very grisly, playing her felt like flying."

The actress (humorously) thanked her family for exposing her to movies that were not suitable for her age. She thanked her loved ones by saying, 

‘’Thank you for supporting your strange kid and showing the movies that were very inappropriate for my age.”

She also thanked “The Penguin” creator Lauren LeFranc, “whose brain I wanna freebase, and she is the reason our show is very special.’’ 

After her several other ‘’thank-yous,’’ Christin Milioti, beaming with happiness, said ‘’I love you and I love acting!’’ while the cheers grew louder when she raised her one arm and shouted, ‘'Wooooo!"

Along with her, the other nominees for the lead limited series actress were Cate Blanchett for Disclaimer, Meghann Fahy for Sirens, Rashida Jones for Black Mirror, and Michelle Williams for Dying for Sex.

Christin Milioti’s highlights from her career

Though this was her first Emmy win, the actress is already a Grammy winner and has also been nominated for a Tony award. She kicked off her career on stage, and in 2012, the actress was nominated for the Tony Awards for her role as Girl in the Broadway musical, ‘Once.’  After being nominated as a musical actress, she won a Grammy for best musical theatre album. 

Christin was also the ‘mother’ with a yellow umbrella in the fan-favorite sitcom, How I Met Your Mother. Some of her previous works include  Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), the Black Mirror episodes “USS Callister” (2017) and “USS Callister: Into Infinity” (2025), and the Lonely Island-produced film Palm Springs (2020).