Two records that had stood for decades fell on the same evening at the Peacock Theatre at LA Live, where the 2026 Emmy Awards were held on Monday. One belonged to Jean Smart, who completed a clean sweep of a category across an entire series run. The other went to Matthew Rhys, who walked away with two lead acting trophies before the night was over.
No woman had ever won a Lead Actress Emmy for every season of a show she starred in. Smart has now done it, closing out the run of HBO Max’s Hacks with a fifth consecutive win for her performance as ageing stand-up Deborah Vance.
The category was not a soft one. Smart was up against Lisa Kudrow for The Comeback, Quinta Brunson for Abbott Elementary, Elle Fanning for Margo’s Got Money Troubles and Ayo Edebiri for The Bear.
Zendaya read out the winner, and the room stood. Smart used the moment to poke fun at the ritual itself, riffing on how much work goes into getting dressed for an awards show and how little the audience wants to get back up once they have finally settled in.
She then turned to the people she said the series lived and died by - creators Lucia Aniello, Jen Statsky and Paul W. Downs - and described the five-season run as a ride she had loved being on.
The only performer to have previously won an acting Emmy for every season of a series was Bill Cosby, whose three trophies for I Spy came between 1966 and 1968.
Monday’s win was Smart’s eighth Emmy overall, putting her level with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Cloris Leachman at the top of the all-time acting list. Allison Janney reached the same figure later in the evening with a win for The Diplomat. Smart’s earlier trophies came from guest turns on Frasier and a supporting role on Samantha Who?.
Rhys arrived with two lead nominations in different categories and left having converted both - something no performer had managed at a single Emmy ceremony.
The first came in limited series, for Netflix’s The Beast in Me. The second arrived later in the night in comedy, for Apple TV’s Widow’s Bay.
Taken alongside his 2018 drama win for The Americans, the pair of awards leaves Rhys holding lead acting Emmys in all three formats - drama, comedy and limited series. Two actors had won a pair of acting Emmys in one night before him, but never both in lead categories: James Earl Jones combined a lead drama win with a supporting limited series award in 1991, and Stockard Channing took two supporting actress trophies in 2002.
Neither of Rhys’s categories was a formality. In limited series, he came out ahead of Oscar Isaac for Beef, Riz Ahmed for Bait, Jason Bateman for Black Rabbit and Charlie Hunnam for Monster: The Ed Gein Story. In comedy, the field included Yahya Abdul-Mateen II for Wonder Man, Steve Carell for Rooster, Jason Segel for Shrinking and Martin Short for Only Murders in the Building.
Going into the ceremony, The Pitt had led the nominations tally with 25. Hacks, Widow’s Bay and Beef were the other heavyweights of the season.
