Jon Hamm has lost all 13 of his Emmy bids over the years. We are predicting he will finally win his first Emmy at Saturday’s Creative Arts ceremony. However, it won’t be for his long-running role of Don Draper on “Mad Men.” Rather, he is favored to win Best Comedy Guest Actor for a recurring role on “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.”
Hamm contended in this same category three times for “30 Rock,” which was also produced and written by “Kimmy” creator Tina Fey. He has endured seven consecutive losing bids as Best Drama Actor for “Mad Men” and contends again next week one final time. He also has a chance as that show’s producer for Best Drama Series.
Related: Watch our editor Emmy slugfests predicting all four guest acting races
On the Netflix freshman comedy, Hamm played Rev. Richard Wayne Gary Wayne, leader of a religious cult. His submitted episode “Kimmy Makes Waffles,” marks his fourth of four appearances. Kimmy (Ellie Kemper) and her fellow Indiana Mole Women revisit the bunker where they were held captive for 15 years in the hopes of finding evidence against the Reverend. They discover a videotape in which the cult leader advertises his party DJ services, auditions for “The Apprentice” and practices his karate moves, but they don’t realize until they confront him on the witness stand that the tape disproves his claims about the apocalypse. When his deception is revealed, he is found guilty and dragged kicking and screaming out of the courtroom.
According to exclusive Gold Derby odds, Hamm is the clear frontrunner with 1/1 odds. All of his riva nominees are already Emmy winners for other shows. Of these, Bradley Whitford (“Transparent“) is in second place with 9/4 odds. His submission “Best New Girl” marks his fourth of four appearances as Marcy in the first season of this Amazon series.
Bill Hader, who contended in 2012 and 2013 for his final two seasons on the show as a supporting player on “Saturday Night Live” earned a bid for his first-time hosting and has odds of 10/1.
Paul Giamatti (“Inside Amy Schumer“) is in fourth place at 25/1 for an appearance on “Inside Amy Schumer” as Juror #10. He appeared last season on the show in a different role, but was not submitted for Emmy consideration.
EGOT champ Mel Brooks (“The Comedians“) is in fifth at 33/1 for playing a version of himself in the “Celebrity Guest” episode of “The Comedians.”
Louis C.K. has been nominated for all three of his “SNL” hosting gigs and is at 50/1.
Related: Watch interviews with Ellie Kemper, Tituss Burgess and Jane Krakowski
Will Hamm actually win this weekend for Best Comedy Guest Actor? Make your own Emmys picks now to the right or at the bottom of this post, and you could win one of our three prizes ($500, $300 and $200 Amazon gift certificates) as well as a place of honor on our leaderboard and a starring role in next year’s Top 24 Users (the two dozen folks who do the best predicting this year’s Emmys line-up).
Last year, our Experts had an accuracy rate of 58.62% when it came to predicting the Emmy winners. That score tied them with both Gold Derby’s Editors and the Top 24 Users (those two dozen folks who did the best at predicting last year’s Emmys). Our Users scored 51.72% (Click on any of these groups to see what they got right and wrong last year.)
Which group will be victorious this year? Meet the guy who won our contest to predict the Emmys last year — and learn how he did it and how you can be our next Gold Derby superstar.
As some of our Users turn out to be our smartest prognosticators, it’s important that you give us your predictions. Your picks influence our Users racetrack odds, which also factor into our official combined odds.
Photo: Jon Hamm in “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.” Credit: Netflix
