Emmys: Best Drama Actor sure to go to a new name for 10th year running
Best Drama Actor has become the ideal place for new blood to break in. While other Emmy categories, such as Best Drama Actress, have held consecutive winners and multiple winners of late, Best Drama Actor has consistently rewarded different performers for some time now.
In fact, the last nine years have produced nine different winners: Kieran Culkin (“Succession”), Lee Jung-jae (2022, “Squid Game”), Josh O’Connor (2021, “The Crown”), Jeremy Strong (2020, “Succession”), Billy Porter (2019, “Pose”), Matthew Rhys (2018, “The Americans”), Sterling K. Brown (2017, “This Is Us”), Rami Malek (2016, “Mr. Robot”), and Jon Hamm (2015, “Mad Men”). Bryan Cranston won in 2014 for “Breaking Bad” — he’d already won for the same show in 2008, 2009, and 2010.
This may not seem that special but it is when you compare it to all of the other acting categories. Here’s the breakdown:
Lead: In Drama Actress, Zendaya has won two of the last four awards for “Euphoria” (in 2020 and 2022 — Olivia Colman won in between for “The Crown” while Sara Snook won for “Succession” earlier this year). In Comedy Actor, Sudeikis won back-to-back Emmys 2021 and 2022 for “Ted Lasso” before Jeremy Allen White won earlier this year for “The Bear.” Similarly, Jean Smart won consecutive Comedy Actress Emmys for “Hacks” in the same two years that Sudeikis won (before Quinta Brunson won for “Abbott Elementary”).
Supporting: In Drama Supporting Actor, Peter Dinklage won in 2018 and 2019 for “Game of Thrones” and Matthew Macfadyen won consecutive Emmys for “Succession;” Julia Garner has won two of the last four Drama Supporting Actress awards for “Ozark” (in 2020 and 2022, with Gillian Anderson winning for “The Crown” in between and Jennifer Coolidge triumphing with “The White Lotus” most recently). Brett Goldstein won two Emmys for Comedy Supporting Actor for “Ted Lasso” in 2021 and 2022 (Ebon Moss-Bachrach won for “The Bear” earlier this year) while Alex Borstein won Comedy Supporting Actress in 2018 and 2019 for “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
Guest: Ron Cephas Jones won Drama Guest Actor in 2018 and 2020 for “This Is Us,” while Drama Guest Actress has overlapped a few times. Firstly, Cherry Jones won consecutive awards in 2019 and 2020 for two different shows — “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Succession,” respectively. Secondly, “The Handmaid’s Tale” won this award three times in a row for three different actresses in 2017 (Alexis Bledel), 2018 (Samira Wiley), and 2019 (Jones). And, thirdly, Margo Martindale won this award back-to-back for “The Americans” in 2015 and 2016. It’s a similar story in Comedy Guest Actor, where “Saturday Night Live” won consecutive awards in 2020 (for Eddie Murphy) and 2021 (for Dave Chappelle). Chappelle also won this award for the same show in 2017. And, last but not least, Comedy Guest Actress went to Maya Rudolph in 2020 and 2021 for “Saturday Night Live.”
So, the longest current streak of variety and “newness” in any of the other acting categories is in Comedy Supporting Actress, which is on a streak of five. Therefore, the nine years of freshness in Drama Actor stands out by itself.
You could also heighten this by including past winners for the same show in this streak and just focusing on different winners rather than new winners. In that case, Drama Actor is on a streak of 14 different winners for different shows. Before Hamm won for “Mad Men” in 2015, Cranston won in 2014 for “Breaking Bad,” Jeff Daniels won in 2013 for “The Newsroom,” Damian Lewis won in 2012 for “Homeland,” and Kyle Chandler won in 2011 for “Friday Night Lights.” Cranston breaks the streak due to his three consecutive wins ending in 2010.
Whereas in other acting categories, they like familiarity, here they really crave variety. But what does that mean for this year’s Best Drama Actor hopefuls?
Well, here’s who we predict will be nominated this year: Gary Oldman (“Slow Horses”), Hiroyuki Sanada (“Shōgun”), Dominic West (“The Crown”), Donald Glover (“Mr. and Mrs. Smith”), Cosmo Jarvis (“Shōgun”), and Colin Farrell (“Sugar”).
So, in actual fact, any of these performers could win to continue this “newness” pattern aside from West, who stars in “The Crown” — the show that O’Connor won for in 2021. West would be a different actor winning for the same show in the same way that Culkin and Strong both won for “Succession.” So, it would still be something of a variety. But if favorites Oldman or Sanada win, it would be the 10th different winner for a different show in nine years.
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