Two Emmy nods and a fridge full of Tim Tams – meet the Aussie staging pop culture’s biggest moments

When Grammy-winning global superstar Bad Bunny stepped onto the stage at this year’s Super Bowl LX Halftime Show , an extraordinary 128.2 million people in the United States were watching. Within a day, clips from the show had reached a global audience of 4.16 billion, across a raft of platforms.

Standing behind Bad Bunny, the stage name of Puerto Rican rapper, singer and songwriter Benito Ocasio, was Salvadoran-Australian production designer Julio Himede. And what may come as no surprise is that at that moment, when the curtain went up, he was scared.

“I was scared that the ideas were [not going] to translate to our audience on television, and on their devices,” Himede says. “When you look at my work over the last 20, 25 years, it’s usually quite minimalist with one big statement. This was the opposite.”

“I really believed in it, but part of my brain kept thinking, ‘are they going to get it? Is it going to look like one big mess or are we really going to nail it?’ When you really do take a huge risk, there’s a certain part of you that has confidence, but there’s a certain part of you that’s also very, very scared.”

That risk seems to have paid off. Himede is one of many Australians nominated at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards taking place this weekend . What makes Himede’s nomination special is that he’s been nominated twice, in the same category – outstanding production design for a variety special – for both the Super Bowl Halftime Show , and for his work on this year’s Grammy Awards.

But a double nomination can be a double-edged sword. Himede is not sure if he’s halved his chances or doubled his luck. “I still can’t believe it, it’s sort of surreal when you put it in that perspective,” he told this masthead. “I’m very honoured, but it is surreal. It’s very special to be nominated twice.”

Himede was born in El Salvador and came to Australia with his family at the age of 12. He grew up on the Gold Coast, and later moved to Sydney to study at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), the school which has produced some of Australia’s most extraordinary talents, including production designer Catherine Martin, actress Cate Blanchett and director Baz Luhrmann.

“Coming to Sydney as an 18-year-old boy, who’d only ever seen maybe one musical, which was The Phantom of the Opera , getting into NIDA was like an injection of culture,” Himede says. “I had to learn and I had no option. It was like I was at the train station and the train came, and it just took me with it.

“I had a good life in Sydney, the beach was part of my everyday life in a way, especially on the weekend. I miss that now that I live in New York,” he adds. “I can’t just say, let’s drive to Bondi. I look at that Australian life and I can honestly say I still call Australia home, as cliché as it sounds.”

Graduating in 1999, Himede faced a difficult choice. A new Star Wars film – Attack of the Clones – was to be shot in Sydney, and he had interviewed for a position as an assistant designer. The other was a call from designer Brian Thompson, the supervising designer for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games Closing Ceremony.