Season 3 may or may not be the final installment of “Ted Lasso,” but either way, Jason Sudeikis could do something that hasn’t been done in 35 years: win three consecutive Best Comedy Actor Emmys.
Only three men have accomplished this feat in the category: Don Adams for “Get Smart” (1967-69), Carroll O’Connor for “All in the Family” (1977-79) and Michael J. Fox for “Family Ties” (1986-88). You could also could count Dick Van Dyke, who won for “The Dick Van Dyke Show” from 1964-66, but the first two were prior to the standardization of the comedy actor category. His 1964 win was under a discontinued lead actor category that was not genre specific, while 1965 was the year the Emmys experimented with just four categories and awarded five people, including Van Dyke, with a generic performance prize. O’Connor and Fox both have four comedy actor Emmys total, sharing the category record with Kelsey Grammer and Jim Parsons.
Several men have won two in a row, including Grammer and Parsons, but a hat trick has proven elusive since Fox achieved it. Prior to Sudeikis’ victories in 2021 and ’22, Bill Hader took home back-to-back trophies for the first two seasons of “Barry” in 2018 and ’19, but production delays (and then COVID-19) took him out of the running for a three-peat in 2020. He returned last year with the third season of “Barry” and lost to Sudeikis. Unlike “Ted Lasso,” we know for sure the upcoming fourth season of “Barry” is the final one, so the former “Saturday Night Live” stars will face off one last time.
SEE Jason Sudeikis says ‘Ted Lasso’ Season 3 is ‘the end of this story that we wanted to tell’
Sudeikis has long said that he’s envisioned “Ted Lasso” as a three-season story, but all parties involved with the two-time Best Comedy Series winner have been evasive when asked if Season 3, which premiered on Wednesday, is in fact the final one. “This is the end of this story that we wanted to tell, that we were hoping to tell, that we loved to tell,” Sudeikis told our sister site Deadline. “The fact that folks will want more and are curious beyond more than what they don’t even know yet — that being Season 3 — it’s flattering. Maybe by May 31, once all 12 episodes of the season [have been released], they’re like, ‘Man, you know what, we get it, we’re fine. We don’t need anymore, we got it.’ But until that time comes, I will appreciate the curiosity beyond what we’ve come up with so far.”
At the very least, you could assume that if the Apple TV+ hit were to continue, it’ll very likely be without its titular character, so voters could send Sudeikis off with one last win. The two-time defending champ currently leads the odds, but he has potentially stiff competition in Jeremy Allen White, who swept the Golden Globe, Critics Choice and Screen Actors Guild Awards for “The Bear.” The freshman FX series is also an industry favorite, having won the Producers Guild and Writers Guild of America Awards over the widely predicted “Abbott Elementary.” Hader is in third place, followed by “Only Murders in the Building’s” Steve Martin and Martin Short, and former champ Donald Glover, who’s in contention for the final season of “Atlanta.”
If Sudeikis pulls off the rare three-peat, he’ll join Adams, John Lithgow and Tony Shalhoub with three Best Comedy Actor trophies.
Make your predictions at Gold Derby now. Download our free and easy app for Apple/iPhone devices or Android (Google Play) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. See our latest prediction champs. Can you top our esteemed leaderboards next? Always remember to keep your predictions updated because they impact our latest racetrack odds, which terrify Hollywood chiefs and stars. Don’t miss the fun. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our famous forums where 5,000 showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Everybody wants to know: What do you think? Who do you predict and why?
