“I feel like the guest categories have become: How many ‘Saturday Night Live’ actors can get in?” Luca Giliberti makes this remark to me and our fellow Gold Derby contributor Charlie Bright at the top of our first slugfest this Emmy season about the races for Best Comedy Guest Actor and Best Comedy Guest Actress (watch the video above), which are now available in our predictions center for you to log your picks. The three of us agree that John Mulaney and Eddie Murphy will represent the hosts on the actor side, with Phoebe Waller-Bridge most likely among the women, but we each pair her with someone different: Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Lopez or Kristen Wiig. RuPaul Charles is an additional prediction by Bright, but even his lineup is treating “SNL” conservatively after its six guest nominations last year.
The other shows that we all predict across both categories is “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” after it won both awards last year. “Something that will work in Judith Light and Bette Midler‘s favor is that the second season of ‘The Politican’ will be released in two weeks, which is right before Emmy voting starts and they will be the leads in that season, so that will give them the perfect push,” Giliberti explains about the nominations that are favored for that pair of co-stars in Gold Derby’s combined odds. Although I share this dual prediction, I caution about the rarity of a show receiving only two nominations above the line in the same category.
Bright is not predicting “The Politician,” but he has another comedy scoring multiple guest nominations instead, with the final season of the “Will and Grace” revival featuring Leslie Jordan and Molly Shannon, who respectively won for his role in 2006 and was nominated for hers in 2018. Giliberti adds, “Sometimes, we see shows randomly pop up in these guest categories; if it’s any categories where random shows pop up, it’ll be here.”
Who do you think will be nominated? Make your Emmy predictions so that Hollywood insiders can see how their shows and performers are faring in our odds. You can keep changing your predictions as often as you like until the nominations announcement on July 28. And join in the fun debate over the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards taking place right now with Hollywood insiders in our television forums.
