Had enough of talking about yesterday’s Emmy nominations yet? Good — me neither! Today I’m sharing the four big narratives that will drive the remaining weeks before final Emmy voting begins on Aug. 17, as well as my conversations with three nominees — The Pitt’s Sepideh Moafi, Slow Horses’ Jonathan Pryce and Pluribus’ Karolina Wydra — all of whom took the good news in very different ways. On Monday, I’ll have even more big-picture takes on what an Emmy nomination can mean in 2026, with insight from two nominees who were two martinis in when we spoke. Get into the celebratory mood with us!
It’s HBO Max vs Apple… AgainA wide range of networks get to have bragging rights this week, but when it comes down to the top awards in both the drama and comedy categories, there are really just two contenders: HBO Max and Apple. Just like last year. In 2025, we watched Apple’s newcomer The Studio sweep past HBO Max’s veteran Hacks in the comedy category, while HBO Max’s newbie The Pitt squeaked past the second season of Apple’s Severance in the drama category. This year, The Pitt is the veteran trying to hang on to its crown in the face of Apple’s newcomer Pluribus, while the final season of Hacks now has stronger-than-expected competition from another freshman Apple series, Widow’s Bay. The huge number of nominations for both The Pitt and Hacks (25 and 24, respectively) makes it feel likely that HBO Max will get both trophies for itself, but I am starting to wonder about Widow’s Bay, which seems to be surging in a very similar way to how The Pitt surged last season. Or you could compare it to the best comedy series race in 2024, when everyone expected the second season of The Bear to cruise to victory — only for it to get pipped at the finish line by the third season of Hacks, winning the show’s first series Emmy. As it proved last year, HBO Max knows how to be the insurgent newcomer in these races; could it be toppled by its own playbook this time?
What Will Netflix Actually Win?The streamer for everyone got a wide range of nominations, from prestige tentpoles like Beef and The Diplomat to Love Is Blind and Pop Culture Jeopardy. (Netflix had 111 nominations overall, tied for second-most with Disney; HBO Max led everyone with 122.) But in the drama and comedy series races, it’s likely to be an also-ran, with Nobody Wants This (two nominations overall) and The Diplomat (seven nominations overall) not expected to win top awards. Things are a little different over in the limited series race. Netflix has dominated there recently, winning four of the last five best limited series trophies. This year, it has two top contenders — former winner Beef (which led all shows in the category with 16 nominations) and pulpy thriller The Beast in Me (where star Matthew Rhys, also win-competitive for Widow’s Bay, could find himself at the head of the best actor race). As usual, Netflix is all over the limited series and TV movie acting categories, too. Four of the five lead actor nominees are from Netflix shows, and three of the five lead actress nominees hail from the streamer. Recent history suggests Netflix will triumph here again, probably with Beef — and it will surely wind up with bragging rights across the board with several wins in various technical categories. But after HBO Max’s DTF St. Louis arguably overperformed, landing a shock nomination for Joy Sunday — who made it into the supporting actress category over Beef’s Cailee Spaeny — and Peacock broke through with All Her Fault (more on that in a mere moment), there’s at least some question about how this category might ultimately shake out.
All Her Fault Helps Peacock Level UpGiven all the uncertainty in the world of NBCUniversal these days, it must have been pretty validating to see the seven Emmy nominations snagged by All Her Fault, the pulpy limited series that became one of Peacock’s only bona fide hits last fall. Yes, The Traitors remains a dominant force in reality races, and Poker Face won the streamer its first Emmy in 2024 (for Judith Light). But All Her Fault’s nomination for limited series, as well as for stars Sarah Snook and Dakota Fanning, is a breakthrough on a different level — proof that Peacock really can shepherd shows that hit with audiences and voters alike. You can pretty much count on more reality wins for The Traitors and host Alan Cumming, but what if Snook and Fanning win, too? What if a limited series win — as mentioned above, that race is very up in the air — is within reach? It’s an exciting prospect for a streamer that’s still searching for an identity and might just help it find one.
A Showdown of Overdue VeteransBeing a beloved star who is obviously overdue for a win is a great path to Emmy victory — but what if there are two of them in the same category? That’s the dilemma driving several of the most fascinating acting races to watch. Pluribus star Rhea Seehorn got two Emmy nominations for Better Call Saul, but the show famously never won a single statue; she’s got big competition in the best actress in a drama series race from two-time winner Zendaya, but also from The Diplomat’s Keri Russell, who now has six acting Emmy nominations but zero wins. Over in supporting actor in a comedy series, by far the most thrillingly chaotic of last year’s races, you’ve got Harrison Ford, an icon who has never won an Oscar or an Emmy, nominated for Shrinking for a second time. It seemed like he might cruise to victory, but now that Stephen Root has snagged a nomination for Widow’s Bay, might voters realize he somehow criminally never won for Barry and be ready to reward him, too? Finally, I’ll be keeping a close eye on the race for guest actress in a comedy series, where Hacks has five of the nominees, including two overdue TV legends: Kaitlin Olson, nominated for a third time for playing Deborah’s daughter, DJ, and Lauren Weedman, earning her first-ever Emmy nomination for playing blowsy Mayor Jo. Maybe they cancel each other out, and it goes to another overdue veteran, Betty Gilpin, whose nomination for Widow’s Bay is her fourth. Honestly, if I were a voter, I wouldn’t know what to do either.
The Nominees SpeakSometimes you get lucky and get to celebrate your Emmy nomination alongside your colleagues, as much of the cast of The Pitt did yesterday. And sometimes you’re just living your life, trying to take it all in at the same time. Yesterday, I caught up with three different Emmy nominees to ask them how they were handling the news and what they might do next. I assumed Sepideh Moafi, nominated for supporting actress in a drama series alongside three of her colleagues on The Pitt, was there on set with the rest of the crew. But instead, “I’m having crazy FOMO because I’m not on set,” she tells me. Freshly back from a writing retreat and other travel, Moafi returned to the set of The Pitt today, but during Wednesday morning’s nomination announcement, she was at home in the company of her parents, a very deliberate choice. “I knew I wanted them here regardless of what happens with these nominations,” says Moafi, 40, who was born in a German refugee camp after her parents fled Iran in the 1980s. “I owe everything to them. They sacrificed so much for me and my sister, and they instilled so many qualities that I consider incredible.”
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| TWO OF A KIND Sepideh Moafi, left, and Wyle both landed Emmy nominations for The Pitt season two. HBO Max |
I spoke to Moafi back in April about how her character, Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi, evolved over the course of The Pitt’s second season, and how she felt about the character’s big revelations in the final episode. Unlike many of her costars who started in season one and had no idea how big the show would become, Moafi knew exactly how visible her work was in the discourse — and she tells me that since our last conversation, it’s only gotten more rewarding to see how people have responded to her. “I’ve had several messages from people who were not interested in humanitarian aid work before they saw this character,” says Moafi, who, like Dr. Al-Hashimi, is deeply involved in international aid work. “Or people who were not convinced about medicine now saying, ‘I want to be a doctor like Dr. Al-Hashimi.’ It’s not just about inspiring the next generation of actors who come from my region of the world — it’s just about people. I wish she existed when I was a kid, so I could look up to her.” This is Moafi’s first Emmy nomination after a decade-long career in television, an industry that she says “can break you” but in a way that “can actually make you realize your potential in a way that is incredibly life-affirming and empowering.” She continues, “I think the only preparation that I’ve had is just being here, showing up, and doing the best work I can possibly do.”
A full ocean away, enduring a heat wave in France while on vacation with his wife, Slow Horses nominee Jonathan Pryce was also reflecting on the long career that led him to his second Emmy nomination for guest actor in a drama series and fifth nomination overall. “I only started doing television with Game of Thrones, and then on to The Crown and Slow Horses — I’m incredibly fortunate that these shows are made at such a high standard,” Pryce, 79, tells me. With Slow Horses about to head into its sixth season, he adds, “You’d think people would have moved on and forgotten about it. So it’s just a testament to the strength of the show that it’s consistently good, and it’s a great show to be a part of.”
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| PRYCE IS RIGHT Jonathan Pryce in Apple TV’s Slow Horses. Apple TV |
Every time he receives the scripts for a new season of Slow Horses, Pryce tells me, “It’s like reading a novel — not knowing where the character was going to go, and being pleasantly surprised.” Playing retired MI6 agent David Cartwright, whose relationship with his spy grandson River (Jack Lowden) as well as his struggles with dementia are key elements of the series, gives Pryce the opportunity to follow the advice his agent gave him long ago: “Looking at a role, whether it was big or small, [ask yourself] ‘can the story exist without this character or does the character move the story along?’” He admits he hasn’t always successfully taken that advice. He says he was persuaded to return for his third and final Pirates of the Caribbean film, At World’s End, with the promise of a bonus scene between him and Bill Nighy. At the film’s Disneyland premiere in 2007, he remembers, the scene was nowhere to be found — “and nobody had told me. I turned around to look at [director] Gore Verbinski, and he resolutely stared straight ahead, not looking at me.”
I wrapped up my day of phone calls by catching up with Karolina Wydra, who admitted she was having a very L.A. day of driving around town running errands, specifically planned for nominations day “so if it goes the wrong way, I’m going to be busy.” Instead, the Pluribus star, 45, is now a first-time Emmy nominee for her supporting turn on the sci-fi series as Zosia, the human representative of the hive mind that has taken over nearly everyone on Earth except for Rhea Seehorn’s Carol. Like Moafi, Wydra had a long career in television leading to this breakthrough moment and spent part of her day celebrating with family: “I hugged my husband, and we kissed and cried together, and my sons were like, ‘What is going on?’”
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| COFFEE TALK Karolina Wydra, left, with Seehorn on Apple TV’s Pluribus. Apple TV |
Nearly everything about the heady new series from Breaking Bad’s Vince Gilligan was kept under wraps before it premiered, including Wydra’s entire character. She says it gradually began to sink in last fall that the show had struck a nerve following its Nov. 7 premiere on Apple. “People saying they’re having Pluribus dinners to talk about it — that was truly something that touched me,” Wydra says. “I said to Vince, ‘Thank you for creating a show that makes people think.’” Of course, sometimes those people are also just excited to see someone they know from TV. “During Christmas I got to this hotel, and these two young guys go ‘Oh my… Pluribuuuuuuus!!!’ That was also a moment.” |
