Jane Lynch, Mark Burnett Get Ready For The Emmys With Just ‘A Little Bit’ Of Sue Sylvester

Jane Lynch helped Jimmy Fallon open the Emmys last year as her iconic “Glee” character, Sue Sylvester, but don’t expect the McKinley High cheerleading coach to have a big presence as the actress hosts the awards show on Sunday, September 18.

“I think a little bit of Sue Sylvester goes a long way,” Lynch told reporters at the Emmy Awards panel as part of the FOX presentation day at the Television Critics Association Summer Session in Beverly Hills on Friday. “There’s some ideas out there for Sue Sylvester, but I think we’ll probably leave her tracksuit on the Paramount lot.”

“If there’s any nod to Sue it will be very minor, because… a little bit of Sue goes a long way,” Emmys Executive Producer Mark Burnett added, echoing Lynch’s words.

Lynch said she’s open to doing “anything that works” when it comes to hosting the Emmys, but she probably won’t head down the path Ricky Gervais took at the most recent Golden Globes.

“I really enjoyed Ricky Gervais, but when you hire him — this is the guy that you’re hiring,” she said. “I think that my sensibility and Mark’s and [one of our writer’s] — we kind of line up there. We don’t have that kind of snarky-ness that Ricky has, but I am a huge fan of it. I laughed many times at the Golden Globes.”

Plans are still taking shape for the Emmys and the “Glee” star said she’s heading into her hosting gig with a “cocktail” of “excitement, anticipation and abject fear.”

“I started out in theater and that’s the high — being in that place and actually harnessing that energy into good,” she said. “I think a lot of it is being present in the moment and saying ‘yes’ to everything. You have no ‘Take 2’… I enjoy that, I almost seek out that thrill of that kind of cocktail.”

While Lynch hopes to keep things moving on stage, should an award winner have a long-winded speech, Burnett, as the executive producer, is already thinking of ways the show can cope, time wise, he told Access Hollywood after the panel.

“I don’t want to [use] play off music, but I want to get people off stage so I’ve got other ideas,” he said.

“Remember, at the [MTV] Movie Awards, I had the guy dressed up as Javier Bardem [from] ‘No Country For Old Men’ with the nail gun? I had the fat naked guy from ‘Borat.’ He ran on stage and hugged people,” Burnett continued. “It’s not the [MTV] Movie Awards, I can’t do those things. It’s also network TV and the Emmys so I’ve gotta find a balance. This is — it’s a celebration show, I’ve gotta find a way to do it.”

So his advice to actors ready to carry on, and on, and on?

“Short speeches are always better received,” Burnett smiled.

Burnett is also planning to make other changes to the show, including with the “In Memoriam” section.

“’In Memoriam’ doesn’t need to be a bummer,” he said during the panel. “It’s still there, but I want to look at it as a ‘raise up,’ not a ‘bring down.’”

After the panel, in a response to a question from Access Hollywood, Burnett told a small group of reporters that he wants to change the section around to make it more celebratory.

“I may have said it in a blunt way and I don’t mean to be offensive,” he said, referring to calling the “In Memoriam” section a “bummer.” “There’s a way to look at death as a celebration, I think, especially when people who died actually did work… In this case the visual arts, so you can celebrate the work.”

While most awards shows get criticism for those late stars left out of the “In Memoriam” section, Burnett said this year’s Emmys will fit in who they can, based on the impact they made during their lifetime.

“There’s no way to fit everybody in. We’re a TV show… There’s only so much time… So the people that left the most lingering work will get longer — like ‘Columbo,’” he added, referring to the late Peter Falk.

The 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards will air on Sunday, September 18 at 8 PM ET/5PM PT on FOX.

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