Emmys So White Part 2: No Actors of Color Win Major Acting Prizes on TV’s Biggest Night — SkimNews
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- 78th Emmy Awards saw all 12 lead and supporting acting winners across drama, comedy, and limited series go to white performers — 10 on the main show and 2 at the Creative Arts ceremonies — the first such repeat since the 2021 #EmmysSoWhite field.
- Hiro Murai became the first Asian director to win the comedy directing Emmy for Apple TV+'s "Widow's Bay," only the third Asian director to win an Emmy in any category, after Lee Sung Jin for "Beef" and Hwang Dong-hyuk for "Squid Game."
- Matthew Rhys won two lead acting trophies in a single ceremony — for Netflix's limited thriller "The Beast in Me" and the comedy "Widow's Bay" — becoming the first performer ever to take two lead Emmys in one night.
- Jean Smart won lead comedy actress for HBO Max's "Hacks" for the fifth consecutive time, matching each of the show's five seasons and becoming the first woman to win every season of a series.
- Allison Janney collected her eighth career acting Emmy for "The Diplomat," tying Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Cloris Leachman for the most acting Emmys ever won by a performer — a mark Smart also hit on the same night.
- Ernest Harden Jr. (guest actor in a drama for HBO Max's "The Pitt") and Octavia Spencer (narrating "Lost Women of Alaska") were the only performers of color to win on-camera or voice Emmys this cycle, both at Creative Arts.
- 17 performers of color were nominated in the lead and supporting acting races this year, down 39% from 28 a year ago; the Academy pulled nominees from 555 program submissions across 14 categories, down 7.5% from 600.
Why it matters: Performer-of-color acting nominations fell 39% year-over-year (28 to 17), shrinking the pipeline that feeds the Emmys' main stage rather than reflecting an isolated unlucky night. The Academy drew from 555 program submissions across 14 categories, down 7.5%, while its roughly 20,000-member voting body across 30 peer groups stayed intact — meaning the bottleneck sits inside the nominating machinery, not the final round.
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