Rachel Brosnahan (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) has a tall order at the Emmys. The reigning Best Comedy Actress champ will have to defeat the thus far undefeated “Veep” star Julia Louis-Dreyfus to retain her title. If Brosnahan does pull it off, she’d be the first non-JLD repeat winner for the same show since 2001.
That year, Patricia Heaton (“Everybody Loves Raymond”) nabbed her second straight Emmy during the twice-delayed, post-9/11 ceremony. For 10 years after that, the category saw 10 different winners for 10 different shows — including Louis-Dreyfus for “The Old Adventures of New Christine” — before she started her six-year “Veep” reign in 2012.
1. Jennifer Aniston, “Friends” (2002)
2. Debra Messing, “Will & Grace” (2003)
3. Sarah Jessica Parker, “Sex and the City” (2004)
4. Felicity Huffman, “Desperate Housewives” (2005)
5. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, “The New Adventures of Old Christine” (2006)
6. America Ferrera, “Ugly Betty” (2007)
7. Tina Fey, “30 Rock” (2008)
8. Toni Collette, “United States of Tara” (2009)
9. Edie Falco, “Nurse Jackie” (2010)
10. Melissa McCarthy, “Mike & Molly” (2011)
SEE You think ‘Game of Thrones’ is way harder to beat at the Emmys than Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Yeah, we know it’s hard to recall a time before last year when Louis-Dreyfus wasn’t winning Emmys for “Veep,” but it does exist. The streak of one-and-done champs followed the ’90s, a decade when Emmy voters were all about rubber-stamping in this category; Candice Bergen (“Murphy Brown,” 1990, ’92, ’94-95) and Helen Hunt (“Mad About You,” 1996-99) accounted for eight of the decade’s winners, with only Kirstie Alley (“Cheers,” 1991) and Roseanne Barr (“Roseanne,” 1993) being the outliers. Heaton then followed Hunt’s four-peat with her dual wins.
Trends tend to come in waves, and we were obviously in repeat mode for Louis-Dreyfus in “Veep” before the show skipped last year’s cycle. Voters could just pick up right where they left off with her, especially since this is “Veep”‘s last season. Or could Brosnahan start a win streak of her own? Or maybe we’ll go on a new run of one-off champs.
Louis-Dreyfus and Brosnahan have never faced off before, and the latter has dominated the awards shows in the former’s absence, scoring two Golden Globes, two Critics’ Choice Awards and a Screen Actors Guild Award in the former’s absence. Louis-Dreyfus is favored to go out on top in our odds, but Brosnahan is right on her heels in second place. One Expert, Robert Rorke (New York Post), has Brosnahan triumphing. Allison Janney (“Mom”), Natasha Lyonne (“Russian Doll”), Lily Tomlin (“Grace and Frankie”) and Pamela Adlon (“Better Things”) round out our predicted top six.
PREDICT the Emmy nominees now; change them until July 16
In the near future, you can check out how our experts rank this year’s Emmy contenders. Then take a look at the most up-to-date combined odds before you make your own 2019 Emmy predictions. Don’t be afraid to jump in now since you can keep changing your predictions until just before nominations are announced on July 16.
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