Four Armenians, Kim Kachougian, Louie Zakarian, Peggy Tachdjian and Raz Karakashian, earned nominations at the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards for their work across some of television’s most prominent productions, from the studios of Saturday Night Live to the far-flung sets of Survivor, announced by the Television Academy on Wednesday, July 8.
Their names appear not among the actors and hosts but in the technical and artisan categories decided at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards, the behind-the-scenes crafts that give a program its look, its texture and its rhythm. Here are the four.
Kim Kachougian, Saturday Night Live
Set decorator Kim Kachougian earned a nomination for Outstanding Production Design for a Variety or Reality Series, recognized for the Saturday Night Live episode hosted by Jack Black. She shares the nomination with production designers Keith Ian Raywood, Akira Yoshimura, N. Joseph DeTullio and Ken MacLeod, along with art director Melissa Shakun.
For close to a decade, Kachougian has decorated the sets for the show’s pre-taped film unit, the team behind the faux commercials, music videos and short films threaded through each live broadcast. It is among the most demanding assignments in television, with an entire sketch designed, sourced and dressed in barely a day. She won the Emmy in this same category in 2024, for the show’s Josh Brolin episode. Her path to Studio 8H was a gradual climb, from a theater-design degree at Adelphi University through dressing Macy’s window displays to work in the art department on films including Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies and The Post. Beyond television, she runs the floral design studio Mac & the Mushroom, based in Hoboken, New Jersey.
Louie Zakarian, Saturday Night Live
Makeup department head Louie Zakarian was nominated for Outstanding Makeup for a Variety, Nonfiction or Reality Program, for the Saturday Night Live episode hosted by Bad Bunny. He shares the nomination with key makeup artist Jason Milani.
Zakarian is one of the most decorated makeup artists in television, a multiple-Emmy winner who has led the SNL makeup department for decades, overseeing the rapid, often astonishing transformations that have become a signature of the live show. His reach extends well beyond Studio 8H. Across more than three decades in film, television, theater and live music, his credits include Across the Universe, Southpaw, The Magnificent Seven, Bohemian Rhapsody, Framing John DeLorean, You Should Have Left and Vampires vs. the Bronx, along with the series Fringe. He has toured with Paul Simon and designed the makeup for Broadway’s Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.
Peggy Tachdjian, Hacks
Editor Peggy Tachdjian was nominated for Outstanding Picture Editing for a Single-Camera Comedy Series, for the Hacks episode “The Cube.” It is the latest recognition in a career that reached a high point last year, when Tachdjian won the 2025 Emmy for Outstanding Picture Editing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie, for her work on Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.
Tachdjian has moved fluidly between scripted and unscripted television over a career spanning more than two decades. Her editing credits include Only Murders in the Building, Shrinking, American Horror Story, Ratched, 9-1-1 and the musical film The Prom, alongside a long run in reality television on series such as Project Runway, RuPaul’s Drag Race, Keeping Up with the Kardashians and Born This Way, the last of which brought her multiple Emmy nominations. She is known for finding the emotional beat and the comic timing buried in raw footage.
Raz Karakashian, Survivor
Editor Raz Karakashian, whose full name is Razmig Karakashian, was recognized as part of the editing team on Survivor, nominated in the reality-editing category for the season’s body of work. Reality editing is among the most labor-intensive crafts in the medium, shaping hundreds of hours of unscripted footage into a coherent, propulsive story, and Karakashian shares the nomination with the show’s large editorial team.
Together, the four nominations are a reminder of how deeply Armenian-American artists are woven into the fabric of American television, not always in the spotlight, but in the crafts that make the spotlight possible. The 78th Primetime Emmy Awards will be held on Monday, September 14, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, with the Creative Arts Emmy Awards, where each of these categories is decided, scheduled for September 5 and 6.Zartonk Media
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