2023 Emmy Predictions: Will the Television Academy Make Emmy History with Lead Actor in a Drama Series?

The Lead Actor in a Drama Series Emmy race has burned up quite a bit of virtual ink over the past few months. It isn’t necessarily about the depth of the category. In fact, while there are undoubtedly tremendous eligible performances this year, there are truly only 10 or so strong contenders for the six available slots.

No, the spilled ink has been all around placement drama with three men from HBO’s Succession.

Jeremy Strong, Lead Actor winner for Succession season two, will remain in lead, and that makes complete sense. You could look at the entirety of Succession as a story primarily told about “eldest boy” Kendall, Icarus who received his glorious wings only to fly too close to the sun. His is a tragic arc, and you really can’t imagine him competing in any other category. For this final season, Kieran Culkin’s career-best work as Roman Roy, particularly the scenes in which Roman unexpectedly tapped into a deep emotional reservoir of pain, elevated his performance far above his previous Succession Supporting Actor competition. It makes sense that Culkin and HBO would want to distinguish his work from that of Matthew Macfadyen (last year’s Supporting Actor winner) and Nicholas Braun in addition to probable category newcomers Alan Ruck and Alexander Skarsgård.

And then there’s the case of Brian Cox.

Coming into the final season, everyone expected Logan Roy to compete in the Lead Actor race because no one new that Logan Roy would die in episode three. As I’ve written about before, I never expected him to drop all the way down to a Guest Actor Emmy category. Turns out, thanks to pre-recorded videos, he performs in too many episodes to be eligible for the Guest Actor race. So, I, like many, assumed he would campaign in the Supporting Actor race, which he would likely win. Not so much for his Season Four work but for the breadth of his work across the series. It would be a fantastic way for Succession fans to recognize both Culkin or Strong AND Cox for their body of work.

And then Cox pulled the ultimate Logan Roy move by opting to remain in Lead Actor.

I’m not here to debate that choice (again), but it did dominate a lot of ink around the Lead Actor race. As has Succession. In fact, a graphic went around Twitter this week showing just how significantly Succession dominated the news cycle.

None of this is a surprise. Succession has never been a broadly popular series despite two Drama Series wins. It’s is prestige, niche programming that largely doesn’t appeal to a mass audience. Granted, I personally know many “average Americans” (however you define that) who do watch and love the series. But I also know many who find the content boring, the characters disgusting, and the plight of the obscenely wealthy not worth their time. Journalists (and awards prognosticators) would not agree. So, you see the dichotomy illustrated above.

But the real disadvantage of Succession sucking up all the air out of the room comes at the expense of truly newsworthy content. Not that Succession discourse isn’t newsworthy. Of course it is. It’s one of the best shows, in my opinion, to air in the 21st century so far. 1,000 articles? I dunno. I’m not exactly sure where this graphic came from as it’s been shared and retweeted ad nauseam, but whoever built it obviously has an agenda. Why compare coverage of a cable / streaming series against series primarily watched on network television? What is Succession‘s coverage metric compared to Game of Thrones? Better Call Saul? Severance? The White Lotus? Someone is clearly trying to make a statement about the media elite not serving the “average American” who likely watches NCIS or Young Sheldon, clearly the biggest news stories of the decade.

No, what becomes buried in something like Succession are the real stories that matter. And here I go burying the meat of this story into another several paragraphs about Succession.

It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem. It’s me.

Anyway, the Lead Actor in a Drama Series Emmy race holds far more significance — cultural significance — than the Succession actors. It was brought to my attention this week that not since Jimmy Smits received five consecutive nominations (from 1995-1999) in the category for NYPD Blue has a Latino actor received an Emmy nomination. This year, not one but two actors have a real shot at ending that drought: Pedro Pascal for The Last of Us and Diego Luna for Andor. Both actors give broadly acclaimed performances. Both actors have decades within the industry. Neither actor has received an Emmy nomination previously. Not even Pascal’s much discussed work in The Mandalorian would push him into the top six actors, granted he did wear a helmet for 90% of the series.

But his work in The Last of Us features some of his most emotive work to date. Again shepherding a young child across a dangerous landscape, Pascal’s storylines give him huge moments of suppressed emotion thanks to the abundance of loss in his life. When he finally begins to express that emotion toward the end of the first season, the significant impact shows great shading within his character and his performance. it’s a great role, and Pascal is very good in it. He likely will be nominated because the HBO series is beloved by critics and audiences, and it aired within the last half of the 2023 Emmy cycle. He could make history by being the first Latino actor nominated in the Lead Actor category in nearly 25 years.

But why stop at one when there are two equally great, nomination-worthy performances?

Diego Luna’s work in Disney+’s Andor likely holds an even greater degree of difficulty. Having played the character previously in the film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Luna and writer Tony Gilroy needed to expand upon the character of Cassian Andor. They needed to eliminate everything you knew about him from Rouge One, reset him, and allow the audience to understand how this average man became a dedicated Rebel fighter who would ultimately die for his cause. Through the series’ first of two seasons, Luna takes us on this character’s journey from reluctant bystander / criminal to a growing leader valiantly fighting for a just cause. Luna and Gilroy deliver one of the most fascinating characters on television. He, too, deserves a nomination.

Now, will he get there?

The three Succession guys will likely take up half of the available slots. Pascal, thanks to a huge reaction to The Last of Us and to his other work in The Mandalorian. So, that’s four slots likely taken. Then, there’s long-time nominee Bob Odenkirk for Better Call Saul, another acclaimed series that ended its run this Emmy cycle. He also likely takes a nomination slot as the last opportunity to recognize him for his decades-spanning work as Saul Goodman / Jimmy McGill. He’s likely a spoiler to win as well given the potential for a 3-way split between Strong, Culkin, and Cox.

So who remains? Luna remains a strong contender. He likely contends for the sixth slot with Paddy Considine for House of the Dragon (probably too subtle and quiet of a performance), Jeff Bridges for The Old Man (did anyone actually watch this show), Harrison Ford for 1923 (Ford’s nomination will come in comedy for Shrinking, not for a series stemming from the Emmy-ignored Yellowstone universe), or maybe Antony Starr for The Boys (giving a series-best performance that many have been talking about since last summer). And then there is HBO’s recent announcement that Perry Mason would not return for a third season. Does that adamantly preclude Emmy-winner Matthew Rhys (The Americans) from returning to the Lead Actor line-up? Or will the voting members of the Television Academy care about the cancellation and give him their support anyway? He was previously nominated for Season One back in 2021, so he’s definitely in contention here. But that late-breaking cancellation does feel as if it’s taking the winds out of a Season Two campaign.

As I said, it’s not an incredibly deep field, but that doesn’t take away from the truly great work offered by many actors in contention. At the end of the day, it’s worth spilling some virtual ink to talk about a potential history-making moment for Latino actors. They need the attention far more than others in the hunt.