Last winter, 20-year-old “The Last of Us” performer Storm Reid made history as the all-time youngest recipient of a guest acting Emmy. By appearing in almost two-thirds of her submitted episode, she also boasted more proportional screen time than 93% of her fellow 2023 continuing series acting nominees and went on to similarly outpace all of those who triumphed alongside her. The same distinction will not apply to the next Best Drama Guest Actress winner, as every candidate has less than half the physical screen time Reid had.
The five current drama guest actress contenders submitted performances that last for an average of nine minutes and 20 seconds, or 22.16% of their single episodes. This data was calculated using a simple definition of stand-alone screen time, which is any time a given performer can be seen on screen or heard off screen. Since the TV academy now counts them in this category, contiguous moments of silent and non-visible scene time are separately noted where applicable.
This category’s new lineup is only the second in 15 years (after 2021) to consist of just five nominees, a majority of whom are first-time guest hopefuls. Unlike last year, this quintet’s screen time average is higher than that of the corresponding male group, thanks primarily to said newcomer subset.
The actresses who deliver the three longest performances in this bunch all hail from the new Prime Video series “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.” At the top of the list is the lineup’s lone general first-time nominee, Parker Posey, who appears in 15 minutes and 54 seconds (or 38.01%) of the episode entitled “Double Date.” In terms of physical screen time, she is directly followed by Sarah Paulson (12:26 in “Couples Therapy (Naked & Afraid)”), whose proportional time of 30.51% is about one-eighth of a point lower than that of Michaela Coel (11:45 in “Infidelity”).
Claire Foy, who was honored here three years ago for a three-minute and 54-second appearance on “The Crown,” is now nominated for her three minutes and 20 seconds of work in the same show’s final episode, “Sleep, Dearie Sleep.” Although her actual screen time percentage is only 4.70%, she still meets the TV academy’s new 5% guest nominee minimum because her contiguous running time share is more than a full point higher. Trailing her by a mere four seconds is Marcia Gay Harden, whose second nominated “The Morning Show” performance takes up 6.94% of her sole third season episode, “Update Your Priors.”
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