Emmy Noms: The Biggest Snubs

Erik Anderson July 16, 2019

Julia Roberts in ***Homecoming*** (Amazon)

While there was much rejoicing to be had if you were worked on Game of Thrones, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel or Chernobyl, plenty of programs and performances were surprisingly left off the Emmy nomination list this morning, including a trio of Oscar winners tipping their toes into television.

Oscar doesn’t equal Emmy

Julia Roberts (Homecoming), George Clooney (Catch-22) and Emma Stone were among some of the most high-profile snubs this morning and in most cases, they were heavily predicted to get in. For Roberts, Homecoming managed only a single nomination – for Cinematography. While the show’s 4:3 ratio certainly caught the eye of voters, it was a surprise that a megawatt star like Julia Roberts couldn’t find a spot among the seven women nominated for Lead Actress in a Drama Series that included two first-timers (Killing Eve‘s Jodie Comer and Mandy Moore from This Is Us). Also left out were Stephen James and Jeremy Allen White, along with show creator Sam Esmail (Mr. Robot).

George Clooney brought Catch-22 to Hulu and many thought he’d score a Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or TV Movie nod but alas, the show woefully underperformed with just two nominations. Emma Stone (Maniac) found herself, and her show, completely snubbed. Not even Sally Field managed to sneak in. It goes to show how intense and packed the Limited Series race was this year.

Four is the magic number

With Supporting Actress in a Drama Series wide open this year (only one returning nominee from last year, GOT‘s Lena Headey) you’d think there would finally be room for Better Call Saul‘s Rhea Seehorn despite voters finding a place for four of its male actors. Susan Kelechi Watson received stellar reviews for a standout season for her performance on This Is Us, a show that earned seven acting nominations, but was left off. The main reason? Game of Thrones, which broke the all-time record for most nominations for a drama series in a single season, is why. Four actresses took up four of six spots, leaving spare little room.

Lead Actress in a Comedy Series saw a huge overall with four nominees from last year not making the cut this year: Lily Tomlin (Grace and Frankie), Pamela Adlon (Better Things), Tracee Ellis Ross (black-ish) and Issa Rae (Insecure) were all replaced with brand new acting nominees like Catherine O’Hara (Schitt’s Creek) and Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag) and the return of Christina Applegate (Dead to Me). Adlon and Tomlin had been nominated for every season of their shows until today. Only the last two winners in this category, Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) and Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Veep) remained.

Despite some heavy campaigning from CBS All Access for Christine Baranski in The Good Fight (“Gay rights!”), the previous Emmy winner was left off the Drama Actress list today. Despite earning six supporting actress nominations for playing the same role on The Good Wife, she’s never been able to translate that over to the show she leads. Golden Globe nominee Jim Carrey (Kidding) found himself like he finds himself on Oscar nomination morning, empty-handed.

Deadwood: The Movie earned a healthy eight nominations but not a single one for acting, writing or directing. Chalk it up to Limited Series being so overwhelmingly strong but it was still a surprise to not see Ian McShane, Robin Weigert and Gerald McRaney make it in.

While Hulu managed a very healthy 11 nominations for three hanging episodes from season 2 of The Handmaid’s Tale and the wonderful surprise writing nomination for PEN15, two of its most acclaimed comedies – Ramy and Shrill – came up with nothing this morning. Ramy Youssef and Aidy Bryant missing out on lead acting nominations or writing nods were especially disappointing.

Succession and Bodyguard both earned Drama Series nominations and each landed in Writing and/or Directing but received no acting nominations. For Bodyguard, that meant snubbing Golden Globe winner Richard Madden as well as Keeley Hawes. For Succession, it meant Golden Globe nominee Kieran Culkin sat out alongside co-stars Brian Cox and Jeremy Strong.

GLOW, which had a good Emmy run its first season that included a Comedy Series nom, came in with just a Betty Gilpin nomination for Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series with its Makeup, Hair and Costume mentions. The show made room for the first season’s of other Netflix hits Russian Doll and The Kominsky Method.

Comedy Central couldn’t get Broad City’s final season a nomination but did find its creators and stars a place in the Short Form categories. Their freshman breakout hit The Other Two was sadly snubbed across the board, even in Music and Lyrics.

Check out the full list of Emmy nominations from this morning right here.

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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.