As the awards-show season cliché goes, “It’s an honor just to be nominated.”
Try telling that to these perennial losers.
At the 67th Emmy Awards on Sunday, more than two dozen winners will walk away with a statue representing the highest honor in the TV industry. For a select club of others, however, it will be yet another night of going home empty-handed.
The “always a bridesmaid, never a bride” phenomenon can be partly attributed to Emmy voting rules. Nominees are decided by a popular vote of Television Academy’s 18,500 members, while (until this year) the actual winners were decided by small volunteer panels, made up of predominantly older members. When those panels pick their favorites (see “Modern Family’s” five-year streak), their category stable mates are left to continuously plaster on their best gracious-loser faces.
“Sometimes actors who are popular enough to get nominated every single year, for whatever reason, they’ve never submitted an episode that has appeased that particular [voting] panel,” says Daniel Montgomery, senior editor at awards predictions site goldderby.com. “And those panels don’t seem to be sentimental. Being overdue has rarely helped.”
For some, getting snubbed has become almost hilariously predictable. In 2013, Jon Hamm (then an 11-time Emmy loser) and Amy Poehler (nine-time Emmy loser) poked fun at themselves by preplanning a “Losers Lounge” after-party at Soho House in West Hollywood, Calif. — with invitations that instructed no winners would be admitted without making a charitable donation.
Or take soap star Susan Lucci, who became the de facto symbol for the perennial Emmy loser in the 1980s and ’90s (even mocking herself in a “Saturday Night Live” monologue) after being nominated 19 times for ABC’s “All My Children” before finally garnering a Daytime Emmy win in 1999.
Her eventual victory after nearly two decades of being snubbed — her acceptance speech admitted she “truly never believed this would happen” — should give this year’s Emmy losers hope, too.
Jon Hamm
Category: Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
No. of losses: 14
Odds (as handicapped by GoldDerby): 2-9
After seven seasons of impressive work as the enigmatic Don Draper, could this finally be Hamm’s year? The star already lost one chance to take home a statue — as guest actor in a comedy series for his role as Rev. Richard Wayne Gary Wayne on “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” — during last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys (which followed three of his past losses for guesting on “30 Rock”). With a wave of sentimentality accompanying “Mad Men’s” final season, Hamm might at last nab the award for his cumulative work.
Amy Poehler
Show: “Parks and Recreation”
Category: Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series
No. of losses: 14
Odds: 11-2
Poehler’s talent and versatility as a writer, actor, host and producer just means she’s had more chances to lose: Two nominations for her ensemble role in “Saturday Night Live,” as well as her Golden Globes stints hosting (two nods) and writing (three nods) — plus six nominations as the irrepressibly optimistic Leslie Knope on “Parks” and additional nominations for producing (one nod) and writing (one nod) that show. Since the NBC comedy went off the air in February, it’s her final chance to win for the show.
Don Cheadle
Show: “House of Lies”
Category: Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series
No. of losses: 7
Odds: 100-1
Cheadle has won several Golden Globes and even an Oscar, but the Emmy has remained elusive, with past losses as guest actor on “ER” in 2003 and supporting actor in the Showtime movie “Things Behind the Sun” in 2002 and the HBO movies “The Rat Pack” and “A Lesson Before Dying,” both in 1999. He’s up again this year for his role as smarmy management consultant Marty Kaan in Showtime’s “House of Lies” — for the third time.
Matt LeBlanc
Category: Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series
No. of losses: 6
Odds: 100-1
LeBlanc is an Emmy veteran, having been nominated three times (from 2002 to 2004) for his role as Joey Tribbiani on “Friends,” and four times for “Episodes” — though, as the odds show, he seems unlikely to win for playing an exaggerated version of himself on that Showtime comedy.
Elisabeth Moss
Show: “Mad Men”
Category: Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series
No. of losses: 6
Odds: 16-1
After six nominations for playing spunky copywriter Peggy Olson on “Mad Men” — and one for starring in the Sundance Channel miniseries “Top of the Lake” (2013) — Moss has learned to manage disappointment like a pro. “It’s a mistake to ever go into any of these situations hoping that you will win,” she told the New York Times last month. “It’s just not healthy to do that. To be perfectly honest, I was more shocked to be nominated this year than any other year. The category is so overflowing.”
Kevin Spacey
Category: Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
No. of losses: 6
Odds: 20-1
Spacey is again nominated (his third time) for his portrayal of power-hungry politico Francis Underwood, as well as for being an executive producer of the Netflix series, which is up for best drama. His other previous losses came for two HBO movies in 2008: “Recount” (as an actor) and “Bernard and Doris” (as executive producer).
Jeffrey Tambor
Category: Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series
No. of losses: 6
Odds: 2-11
Previously nominated for his roles as the law-breaking Bluth family patriarch on “Arrested Development” and the sidekick on HBO’s “The Larry Sanders Show,” Tambor is the odds-on category favorite for his critically-praised, gender-bending turn as Maura Pfefferman in Amazon’s timely dramedy “Transparent.”
Christina Hendricks
Show: “Mad Men”
Category: Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series
No of losses: 5
Odds: 27-10
Though the Academy has bestowed four Emmys on “Mad Men” as a series, its actors have been uniformly snubbed — including Hendricks, nominated for her role as sassy office manager Joan Harris every year since 2010. “I never think it’s my year,” she told The Wrap in 2014. “We joke we’ve got the “Mad Men” curse — none of us has ever won. One of us has to break it at some point, right?”