Picture the Emmy: a statuette of a winged woman in gold, her back arched as she holds a colossal atom aloft. She is a symbol of the muse, of art, of the science of television. The man who designed her in 1948 used his wife as a model; she is majestic. Viewed in another way, she is two sharp prongs eye-width apart, and a lethally heavy base. How the hell do you get three of them through security at LAX? “With great difficulty,” laughs a jetlagged Richard Gadd. He returned to London a couple of days ago having won everything he was nominated for: Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series, Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series, and – the big one – Outstanding Limited Series, for which he crept onto the stage from the back because he hadn’t had time to return to his seat (he made his presenter Jean Smart jump).

“Here, I’ll show you a photo,” Gadd says, scrolling through his camera roll to find the person least impressed with his awards: the lady at airport security. The bagged symbol of excellence is gripped in her gloved hand; her face says she could be holding a fridge sandwich from a motorway service station. Gadd snapped the picture through the security screen while he watched, hysterical, as his third trophy was siphoned off into the place your bag goes if you’re about to have to explain something. He can’t believe it happened. He can’t believe any of this happened. “I wake up every morning and I am just… I think the phrase is kind of – I feel windswept?” he says. “I almost don't know. I just feel knocked off my feet.”

Read more at British GQ.