2024 Emmys: Jean Smart (‘Hacks’) Has Never Lost a Comedy Emmy – Will That Streak Continue This Year?

When it comes to the Emmys, there are few forces as formidable as the great Jean Smart.

Since her first Emmy appearance in 2000, she has amassed 13 nominations, including five wins – two in Comedy Guest Actress (Frasier), one in Comedy Supporting Actress (Samantha Who?) and, most recently, two in Comedy Lead Actress (Hacks). It’s a remarkable run, in part notable because Smart has never lost an Comedy Emmy, yet has also never won a Drama prize, falling short in her bids with The District, 24, Harry’s Law, Fargo, Watchmen and Mare of Easttown.

This year, with another Comedy Lead Actress bid, again for her turn as legendary stand-up comedian Deborah Vance on Hacks, Smart is looking to extend this perfect streak of Comedy victories. Should she pull it off, she will match a highly elusive record in this category that has only been achieved by Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Veep) – winning for the first three seasons of her series.

There are other performers who have scored three or more Emmys in this category – five-time winner Candice Bergen (Murphy Brown), four-time winner Helen Hunt (Mad About You) and three-time winners Mary Tyler Moore (The Mary Tyler Moore Show), Jean Stapleton (All in the Family) and Jane Wyatt (Father Knows Best). These wins, however, were scattered across their series’ runs and did not encompass all of the first three seasons.

Will Smart pull this off and, alongside Louis-Dreyfus, tower over Comedy Lead Actress history? Let’s dive into this year’s field.

To say Comedy Lead Actress is among this year’s most competitive acting races would be an understatement –arguably, it may just be the most suspenseful. You have last year’s winner, Quinta Brunson (Abbott Elementary), as well as last year’s Comedy Supporting Actress winner, Ayo Edebiri (The Bear). There’s also Kristen Wiig, who scored her 10^th, 11^th and 12^th career Emmy nominations this year as star and producer of Palm Royale, with a Comedy Guest Actress bid for Saturday Night Live to boot. Speaking of Emmy mainstays, five-time winner Maya Rudolph is also a nominee here for Loot and has a trio of bids happening elsewhere, in Comedy Guest Actress (Saturday Night Live), Original Music and Lyrics (also Saturday Night Live) and Character Voice-Over Performance (Big Mouth). Rounding out the lineup is Selena Gomez, finally scoring a nomination here for Only Murders in the Building, which scored lots of Emmy love (21 nominations) this year.

This category is, simply put, an embarrassment of riches – and exceedingly challenging to forecast a winner in.

In for the steepest climb to victory are Gomez and Rudolph.

While Only Murders in the Building has scored four Emmy wins to date, all of them have been on the Creative Arts side. While it’s possible Meryl Streep could break this dry spell on the main show and triumph in Comedy Supporting Actress, wins in other acting categories seem more elusive, particularly for Gomez, who’s been snubbed twice prior and faces a field of proven Emmy favorites.

This year, earning her 12^th, 13^th, 14^th and 15^th career nominations, Rudolph is, to put it mildly, Emmy royalty. Her series Loot, however, did not earn any other recognition this year. The last and only actress to win this category as the lone nomination for her show? Shirley Booth for Hazel in 1963. This will be quite the daunting feat but, thankfully, Rudolph has three other opportunities to add trophies to her crowded mantle.

If there’s a dark horse to keep an eye on here, it might be Wiig. Palm Royale scored more nominations than anticipated, with a healthy 11 total bids, and Wiig somehow has yet to score an Emmy win. Her hurdle will be the reviews for Palm Royale itself, which were decidedly mixed. If, however, voters are warmer on the series than critics were, it’s possible that affection, coupled with overdue sentiment, is enough to put Wiig over the top for an upset.

More likely than not, however, this race is poised to be a barnburner among the other three contenders.

With nine nominations this year, its most to date, the love for Abbott Elementary remains strong among Emmy voters. Brunson triumphed last year and this category has a storied history of repeat winners, with 12 performers scoring consecutive Comedy Lead Actress wins. It should be noted, however, that Brunson prevailed last year over an entirely different field of nominees. She faced and fell short to Smart at the Emmys in 2022 and also recently lost to Edebiri at the SAG Awards, Critics’ Choice Awards and Golden Globes.

That awards run, coupled with The Bear scoring a sky-high 23 nominations this year – the most of any comedy program in Emmy history – sends Edebiri into Comedy Lead Actress with heaps of momentum. Should she prevail, Edebiri will mark the second performer in Emmy history, alongside Carol Kane (Taxi), to score both Comedy Lead Actress and Comedy Supporting Actress trophies for the same series. Jennifer Aniston earned a Lead win for Friends but only Supporting nominations, while Allison Janney’s turn on Mom scored two Supporting wins but no victories on her three Lead bids. Agnes Moorehead, the fifth performer to surface in both categories for the same series (Bewitched), sadly never triumphed in Lead nor Supporting.

With Edebiri overwhelmingly running the board on awards thus far and The Bear poised for a stellar Emmy night, it’s tough to fathom her falling short and yet, she is vulnerable against the juggernaut that is Smart. Hacks sports 16 nominations this year – no The Bear, but still no slouch – and Smart recently scored her second Individual Achievement in Comedy prize at the Television Critics Association Awards, over both Edebiri and Brunson.

Ultimately, it’s all but impossible to predict a winner in this category with any real confidence. It would be odd for The Bear to steamroll on Emmy night without an Edebiri victory among the wins. Yet, it would be just as strange for Smart to lose her first Comedy Emmy when Hacks is hot as ever. And it’s entirely plausible both of these happen and Brunson repeats, just as a dozen other Comedy Lead Actress winners have done in the past.

Regardless of who prevails, this Comedy Lead Actress lineup is an all-around delight and whoever wins will be someone we can all celebrate.

Jean Smart is Emmy-nominated in the category of Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for Hacks. Her episode submission was not known at the time of this article’s publication.