Everybody loves Jeremy Allen White. The star of “The Bear” has hardly lost any major awards since the show premiered in 2022. He’s two-for-two at the Critics Choice Awards, two-for-two at the Golden Globes, three-for-four at the SAG Awards (including ensemble cast awards) and two-for-two at the Gold Derby TV Awards, to name a few plaudits. He’s also the defending champion for Best Comedy Actor at the Emmys, and he’s far and away the front-runner to win that again this year too, according to the combined predictions of Gold Derby users. But there are a couple of elite awards pundits who are going out on a limb for someone else.
As of this writing, White is predicted to win by 15 out of 17 Expert journalists we’ve surveyed from major media outlets, all 11 Gold Derby Editors who cover awards year-round, all of our Top 24 Users who got the highest scores predicting last year’s Emmy winners and all of our All-Star Top 24 who got the highest scores when you combine the last two years’ prediction results. And it’s no wonder. “The Bear” is not only the favorite to win Best Comedy Series for the second year in a row, it also set a new record for the most nominations for a comedy in a single season (23). Combine that with White’s incredible awards track record, and you’ve got a pretty dominant candidate.
But two of the Experts are taking a big swing by betting on an upset. One says the award will go to D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai for his performance on “Reservation Dogs.” This is his first nomination, but it’s the last season of the show, so voters may wish to send him away with a parting gift. It doesn’t hurt that this is also the first and only year that “Reservation Dogs” has been nominated for Best Comedy Series, showing greater academy support than the show received previously in its run.
The last Expert thinks Steve Martin will upset for “Only Murders in the Building.” That’s perhaps surprising because Martin wasn’t even nominated last year for the show; his co-star Martin Short was the show’s lone Emmy representative in the category in 2023. That said, Steve Martin was the subject of an Emmy-nominated documentary that aired this past season, drawing more attention to the legendary comedian and actor’s life and career and perhaps galvanizing his fans within the television academy to vote.
But that’s still a risky prediction to make when you’re up against one of the most dominant awards forces in recent television history. When going up against TV’s top chef, everyone else might just be cooked.
