2016 Emmy Predictions: Guest Actor and Actress in a Drama and Comedy Series

Erik Anderson August 30, 2016

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The winners of the Guest acting categories, as usual, will be handed out during the Creative Arts ceremony being held a week before the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards. And as is custom, the winners here are usually chosen as presenters for the main show.

This year sees a huge number of returning winners as nominees, many for the very same roles they won for. Reg E. Cathey (House of Cards), Allison Janney (Masters of Sex and Mom), Margo Martindale (The Americans), Bradley Whitford (Transparent) and Carrie Preston (The Good Wife) have all won Guest Acting Emmys and are looking for more. Michael J. Fox, Hank Azaria, Amy Schumer, Laurie Metcalf, Ellen Burstyn, Tina Fey and Melissa McCarthy are also all Emmy winners in previous/other categories looking to add to their range of wins. First-time nominees like Mahershala Ali (House of Cards), Max von Sydow (Game of Thrones), Paul Sparks (House of Cards), Peter Scolari (Girls), Molly Parker (House of Cards) and Melora Hardin (Transparent) are looking to upset those chances.

Here are the winner predictions from the Emmy Experts in the Guest Acting categories on August 30th.

A tight match between last year’s winner (Reg E. Cathey, House of Cards) and Max von Sydow (Game of Thrones) with the edge to von Sydow. Each actor has mostly limited screentime and for both it’s near the end of the episode but each with moments the Emmys will love. Watch out for multi-Emmy winner Michael J. Fox (The Good Wife) as a possible spoiler.

Another really tough battle here. Laurie Metcalf was the pre-nomination favorite to win here until Horace and Pete flailed with just three nominations. Still, Metcalf’s episode has the camera locked on her face for a brutal and devastating monologue that seems hard to miss. Burstyn, however, chose her best House of Cards episode and the two-time Emmy winner (and don’t forget that 14-second Emmy-nominated role) is loved by the Television Academy. But always lurking is Margo Martindale (The Americans), a previous winner for this role in this category.

Will sympathy pay off for Tracy Morgan (Saturday Night Live) here? That looks like a strong possibility with 3/5 Emmy Experts picking him to take home his first trophy for his triumphant return to television after a near-fatal car crash. But Larry David’s SNL hosting gig that featured Bernie Sanders himself is a prime candidate for a win.

5/5 across the board, our Emmy Experts are united in thinking that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler will take home Emmy gold for their dual hosting turn of Saturday Night Live. This nomination marked the first time two performers were nominated together and if they win it will be Poehler’s first after a whopping 17 nominations. A win for her here will be one of the night’s best moments. It doesn’t feel like there’s much of a spoiler but hey, it’s the Emmys, we see shocking wins all the time. Look out for Melissa McCarthy (a three-time nominee in this category for SNL) or Amy Schumer (also SNL). Emmy-winner Laurie Metcalf (The Big Bang Theory) could shock all and pull it off.

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.