When it comes to the race to win an Emmy, there will be a collective buzz surrounding the award’s more than 60 categories until September 15, when we find out who gets the gold.
Perhaps one of the most competitive awards won’t be presented during the main event, but the weekend before during the Creative Arts ceremony. That’s when the winners in the four guest artist categories (which include guest actors and actresses in both comedy and drama genres) are awarded for a one-off or recurring role. (Think of Jamie Lee Curtis’ appearance in two episodes of FX’s “The Bear” — a likely candidate.)
Looking back at its early predecessors, this award has quite a checkered past with numerous category name changes and stunning groups nominated over the years. For example, in 1977 the series was called an outstanding single performance in a comedy or drama series. There was no separation by genre, so nominees included Eileen Heckart on CBS’s “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and Nancy Walker for CBS’s “Rhoda” opposite Cicely Tyson, Sandy Duncan and Olivia Cole from ABC’s “Roots,” with Cole joining to took home the trophy. That category iteration ended in 1978. When it returned in 1986, it was retitled Outstanding Guest Artist.
At that time, while genre was segregated, gender was not. That meant that when John Lithgow won in the drama category for NBC’s “Amazing Stories” in 1986, he beat Edward Herrmann (NBC’s “St. Elsewhere”), James Stacy (CBS’s “Cagney & Lacey”), Peggy McCay (“Cagney & Lacey”) ‘) and Peggy McCay (‘Cagney & Lacey’). Lacey”) and Whoopi Goldberg (ABC’s “Moonlighting”). That version of the award lasted until 1989, when genre and gender became separated, and has remained so ever since.
Eligibility changes are constantly shifting to this day. “It was one of those situations where the board was constantly refining things,” recalls former TV Academy senior vice president of awards John Leverence.
Despite the behind-the-scenes drama surrounding the category, it remains fascinating because of the eclectic mix of talent it attracts. According to Bradley Whitford, guest actor winner for Amazon Prime Video’s “Transparent” in 2015 and again for Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” in 2019, the call for the performer to get the chance to “season some chili that’s already hot ‘. he says, referring to shows that are at the top of their creative game.
“The experiences I had, and why this category is often very tough, is that these are shows that really work,” he says.
Case in point: Top talents over the years who walked away with trophies after a brief stop on a critically acclaimed show include Sally Field (2001, NBC’s “ER”), Gene Wilder (2003, NBC’s “Will & Grace”) and Sharon Stone ( 2004, ABC’s ‘The Practice’).
“It’s always the Awards which everyone assumes just goes to the biggest name, in general,” says Carrie Preston, who competed in the 2013 drama guest category against Jane Fonda (HBO’s ‘The Newsroom’), Joan Cusack (Showtime’s ‘Shameless’), Diana Rigg (HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’), Linda Cardellini (AMC’s ‘Mad Men’) and Margo Martindale (FX’s ‘The Americans’). Ultimately, Preston took home the award for playing Elsbeth Tascioni on CBS’s “The Good Wife.”
“I still don’t feel like my feelings have hit the ground… and it’s been 11 years already!” she says. That win clearly helped Preston’s character become the gift that keeps on giving, as the strong-willed attorney continued to return on “The Good Wife” along with the Paramount+ spinoff “The Good Fight” and successfully launched in her own series. aptly titled “Elsbeth” on CBS. “Maybe that 2013 episode was a way to see what it would be like to center a show around Elsbeth,” she says.
Career boosts also come from a guest win, especially for someone who is not particularly well known to the television audience. That’s hard to imagine when you think of Lithgow, who has 13 Emmy nominations and six wins to date. However, when he won his first Emmy in 1986 for NBC’s “Amazing Stories,” the actor was more known for his Broadway and Oscar-nominated roles in “The World According to Garp” (1983) and “Terms of Endearment” (1984).
“I was still a newcomer to Hollywood,” he says of that time, although receiving TV’s biggest honor changed his status. “It’s just a matter of adding up the number of prizes. You got a Tony and an Emmy, so from then on people throw that phrase around and that’s fun to carry with you. It’s like a merit badge that you’ve won,” he says. (Lithgow won this category again in 2010 with Showtime’s “Dexter.”)
Also useful is going against type, as Nick Offerman, the most recent winner of the drama category, can attest. Best known for comedic roles as the beloved Ron Swanson on NBC’s “Parks and Recreation,” he took on something completely different in the 2023 heavy post-apocalyptic drama “The Last of Us.”
Offerman played Bill, a man contentedly living a lonely life until he meets and falls in love with another man, Frank (Murray Bartlett). Their love story, spanning the years until their shared deaths, struck a chord with the public and the industry. “The reaction to the episode was a crazy tsunami,” Offerman fondly recalls, adding that he has seen a spike in scripts and job offers since his Emmy win. “It’s like I’m still driving the same truck, but this time they put a special wax on it at the car wash.”
The only thing more compelling than the award itself is the fact that “this Awards is something that has [always] There is an influx of changes,” says Leverence.
For example, in 2015, the Academy’s eligibility was limited to guest starring in a series for no more than 50% of the total episodes. Additionally, the minimum amount of ‘stand-alone and continuous screen time’ to qualify was set at 5% of the total running time of the submitted episode.
While 5% doesn’t seem like a lot, it did impact Netflix’s “The Crown” for potential nominees who appeared in the 72-minute final episode. Under this new rule, guest Claire Foy (Queen Elizabeth II in the drama’s first two seasons) is eligible based on her screen time, while fellow guest Olivia Colman (the queen of seasons 3 and 4) had a total screen time below that 5 % Remained. Ironically, if this rule had been in effect in 2021 when Foy won in this category, she would have gone home empty-handed due to insufficient screen time.
Going forward, we can expect that there will continue to be changes in award categories across the board, but they will inevitably be overshadowed by our insatiable interest in who takes home an Emmy and sees the impact of their career – or, in the case of six-time winner Lithgow, whose trophy comes in handy at home. “I needed six doorstops on the second floor of our house,” he says, smiling. “I have to have a sense of humor about these things.”
