MI-6 agent Eve Polastri and English professor and department chair Ji-Yoon Kim share virtually nothing in common, except of course Sandra Oh. The 12-time Emmy nominee plays these characters on BBC America’s “Killing Eve” and Netflix’s “The Chair,” respectively, with both shows airing just six months apart in an impressive display of her incredible range. With both series eligible at the upcoming Emmy Awards, could Oh land dual nominations?
In these early days of the Emmy race, Oh looks like she could pull off this impressive feat. In our current combined odds, Oh ranks in sixth in the race for Best Drama Actress, right behind her Emmy-winning co-star Jodie Comer. She’s a bit further behind in Best Comedy Actress in eighth place, two slots outside of the likely six-person lineup but certainly within striking distance.
It makes perfect sense that Oh looks stronger for “Eve” because she has a killer track record for the series. She has received an acting nomination for each of the show’s first three seasons — she was the sole nominee for the series for its acclaimed first year — and she has an additional two bids as an executive producer of the series; she also won a Screen Actors Guild Award for the role. Oh may be on a bit shakier ground this time around, though, since the fourth and final season has earned mixed reactions from critics: It currently has a middling 55 score on Metacritic and a 62 percent freshness score on Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest rankings of the entire series. Despite this critical slump, Oh has thus far had the best material of the final season, as Eve distances herself from the pseudo-reformed Villanelle and pursues her personal mission to take down the leaders of the nefarious organization known as the Twelve.
She certainly shouldn’t be counted out for “The Chair” either. The six-episode comedy series chronicles Professor Kim’s breakthrough as the first female chair of the English department at the fictional Pembroke University, an unappreciated position in which she must immediately douse both petty grievances from and serious allegations of misconduct against the professors, all while the department’s enrollment numbers plummet. For her work, Oh received her seventh SAG nomination — though she lost to reigning Emmy champ Jean Smart (“Hacks”) — plus a Critics Choice TV Award bid. Her ability to get in for the series with the acting branch in particular bodes well for her Emmy prospects, although the home stretch to the eligibility cutoff will introduce a slew of new and returning contenders.
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If Oh does score Emmy bids for both “Killing Eve” and “The Chair” this year, it will be an unprecedented feat. In the 57 years of separate drama and comedy acting categories at the awards, no actress has ever earned nominations for Best Drama Actress and Best Comedy Actress in the same year. It’s certainly not uncommon for a performer to score nominations in multiple categories: Oh did this herself in 2019 for “Eve” and in Best Comedy Guest Actress for hosting “Saturday Night Live,” and Laurie Metcalf’s three nominations in one year for comedies “Getting On” and “The Big Bang Theory,” and drama “Horace and Pete” immediately comes to mind. But to score nominations for two different series regular roles, and leading ones at that, is a much trickier and grander achievement that would be another feather in Oh’s cap as she strives for her first win.
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