Julia Louis-Dreyfus won the Lead Actress in a Comedy Emmy for six consecutive seasons of Veep, then lost on the seventh. If Jean Smart wins for the final season of Hacks, she will become the first actress in the category's history to sweep every season of her own show.
Smart is four-for-four on Hacks so far. She won for Season 1 in 2021. Season 2 in 2022. Season 3 in 2024. Season 4 in 2025. The 2023 Emmys were the only year Hacks did not compete, because the writers strike delayed Season 3 by a year.
Louis-Dreyfus had a similar streak going on Veep. She won for Seasons 1 through 6. Then Phoebe Waller-Bridge won at the 2019 ceremony for Fleabag, taking the prize for Veep's seventh and final season. Louis-Dreyfus did not win for the season the show ended on.
What I keep coming back to is what makes the Hacks run unusual. Smart had been working in professional television since 1986. She had won three Emmys before Hacks, all in guest or supporting categories. She did not win Lead Actress in a Comedy Series until age 70.
A fifth win would also tie her with Louis-Dreyfus and Cloris Leachman at eight total acting Emmys, which is the all-time record across all categories.
She has the chance, on the final season of a show that arrived in her seventies, to do something no actress has managed in the category's seven-decade history.
The chokehold this song had over Filipinos lol
I remember hearing this on the radio YEARS later and asking Siri what it was called cause the chorus tune was sooo familiar but I never knew what it was called 😅
Never stop saying "dozen" and "half dozen". Never stop using the word you read in an old novella. Never stop using your regional jargon. Don't succumb to an internationalized English stripped of its whimsy and romanticism in the name of streamlining global commerce.