Maybe this time they’ll be lucky. Josh Groban and Sara Bareilles hosted the 2018 Tony Awards and sang jokingly about how neither of them has ever won a major award, despite both earning nominations at the Grammys and Tonys. More than a year later that’s still true, but they’ve got two chances to take home Emmys this year. Are the odds in their favor?
The Tony Awards telecast is nominated for Best Variety Special (Live), and since hosts are now honored in that race too, Groban and Bareilles will take home Emmys if the show wins there, just like past Tonys hosts Neil Patrick Harris, Sean Hayes and James Corden. And the Tonys have a pretty stellar track record at the Emmys, winning Best Variety Special in 1998, 1999 and 2005, and then claiming Best Special Class Program in 2007, 2008, 2010-2014 and 2017.
Then the Emmys reconfigured their awards in 2018, getting rid of the Special Class category and splitting Best Variety Special into live and pre-recorded races. The Tonys weren’t even nominated in 2018, but that’s because the show wasn’t submitted for consideration at all; that was when Kevin Spacey hosted the event, and by the time Emmy voting started he was already disgraced by sexual misconduct allegations. Groban and Bareilles, of course, don’t have that kind of baggage, so will the Tonys go right back to winning?
Groban and Bareilles are also nominated a second time for the Tonys: Best Music and Lyrics for the original song they co-wrote and performed, “This One’s For You.” That was their opening number, and it was the very song in which they declared, “We are your hosts / And we’re perfectly suited to be / Because, did you know? / Neither one of us has ever won anything.”
Yep, that’s right. Bareilles has been nominated at the Grammys (for multiple songs and albums), Tonys (for her “Waitress” score) and Emmys (last year for “Jesus Christ Superstar” before her two current bids), but she hasn’t won any of them. Similarly, Groban has lost all of his Grammy nominations and his Tony nom (for starring in “Natasha, Pierre and The Great Comet of 1812”); now these are his first Emmy noms.
So Bareilles and Groban are three-quarters of the way to losing EGOT. But Emmy voters in this category have shown a fondness for Tonys, which won three years in a row from 2012-2014 for “It’s Not Just for Gays Anymore,” “If I Had Time” and “Bigger,” respectively. And the academy might be especially drawn to a tongue-in-cheek tune that’s all about losing awards; since most Emmy categories only have one winner, at least 80% of voters can relate to not hearing their names called when the envelope opens.
Will they not be losers anymore, like the last time and the time before? Maybe this time they’ll win.
Be sure to make your Emmy predictions today so that Hollywood insiders can see how their TV shows and performers are faring in our odds. You can keep changing your predictions as often as you like until just before winners are announced on September 22. And join in the fun debate over the 2019 Emmys taking place right now with Hollywood insiders in our television forums. Read more Gold Derby entertainment news.
