Paul Walter Hauser (‘Black Bird’) would continue winning streak for rookie Emmy nominees

Luca Giliberti
·4 min read
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After sitting in second place ever since our predictions center launched, Paul Walter Hauser (“Black Bird”) recently dethroned Richard Jenkins (“Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story”) from the top spot in our limited series/TV movie supporting actor Emmy odds. If he indeed prevails, he will continue the trend of this award going to a first-time nominee.

Hauser would be the seventh out of eight actors under the popular vote system — which was introduced in 2016 after the TV academy did away with the preferential ballot — and the fifth in a row to win this category on his maiden Primetime Emmy nom. Under this system, the rookie contender-turned-champ trend was started by Sterling K. Brown with his victory for “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story” in 2016. It survived another year, thanks to Alexander Skarsgard (“Big Little Lies”), before getting intercepted by Jeff Daniels (“Godless”) in 2018 — at which point Daniels already had three bids and a win for “The Newsroom” to his name. But the trend quickly resumed the following year with Ben Whishaw (“A Very English Scandal”) and has remained uninterrupted since, with the category producing consecutive wins for first-timers Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (“Watchmen”), Evan Peters (“Mare of Easttown”) and Murray Bartlett (“The White Lotus”).

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SEE How ‘people-watching’ helped Paul Walter Hauser prepare to play a serial killer on ‘Black Bird’ [Exclusive Video Interview]

Six of the last seven champs being first-time nominees is, of course, likely more a coincidence than a reflection of voters’ preferences in this specific category. What’s notable, however, is that five of these six victors came from shows that were up for not just Best Limited Series but also at least three other actors, and the shows ended up either winning the series prize or sweeping all its acting categories — or in the cases of Brown and Skarsgard, both. The only exception is Whishaw, who had just one fellow shortlisted castmate in Hugh Grant and whose show was neither nominated for series nor also victorious for Grant.

So the bottom line is that your show probably needs to have either a series citation or at least one other acting bid in order for you to be competitive for the win in this category. The good news for Hauser is that “Black Bird” is expected to have both. According to our current odds, the Apple TV+ crime drama sits in third place for limited series and in second place for Hauser’s co-star Taron Egerton in limited series/TV movie actor.

But even if “Black Bird” underperforms, Hauser should still be in a good position to, uh, lock up the Emmy statuette. He’s already proven that his winning chances aren’t reliant on the show’s overall strength after prevailing at both the Critics Choice and Golden Globe Awards as “Black Bird’s” only victory at each. At the former, he was one of just two bids for the series, with the other being for the late Ray Liotta in the same category. What’s more, even as the show got the cold shoulder from the major guilds over the winter, he still managed to land a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination alongside Egerton as the only supporting player in the sole limited series/TV movie actor lineup. Ultimately, all Hauser, whose baity turn as suspected serial killer Larry Hall on the series is catnip for actors, probably needs to triumph is for enough voters to have actually seen his performance. And considering his six-part show came out last summer and is a quick watch, that shouldn’t be a tall order for TV academy members.

SEE ‘Black Bird’ poised to make Emmy history for Apple TV+

Worth noting is that there is one other person from the top seven in our odds who can also continue the recent limited series/TV movie supporting actor trend — Domhnall Gleeson, who ironically also plays a serial killer, albeit a fictitious one, on “The Patient” and is in fourth place. The other five predicted men — Jenkins, Liotta (No. 3), Jharrel Jerome (No. 5) and Dennis Quaid (No. 7) for “Full Circle,” and Bartlett for “Welcome to Chippendales” (No. 6) — have all already either been nominated for or won at least one Emmy.

PREDICTthe 2023 Emmy nominees by July 12

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