As if we needed another reason to order in a pizza and break out the champagne for a night celebrating all of our favourite TV shows, the 71
st Emmy Awards are shaping up to be a pretty historic event.Heading into Sunday’s broadcast (
8pm ET on CTV), the Academy has already made history twice at the
Creative Arts Emmys. There, 97-year-old Norman Lear won an award for Outstanding Variety Special for
Live In Front Of A Studio Audience, making him the oldest person to ever win an Emmy. (Sir David Attenborough previously held that title.) and
The Handmaid’s Tale (streaming on Crave) star Bradley Whitford made his own kind of history when he won Best Guest Star in a Drama for the show, making him the first person in Emmy history to win best guest star in a drama and a comedy (
Transparent). Blessed be, indeed.Come Sunday night, there are other stars we should all keep an eye on as they're poised to become not just winners but history-makers.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge
If our new girl crush, multi-hyphenate, supremely prolific Phoebe Waller-Bridge, happens to pull off a double win for
Fleabag (comedy) and
Killing Eve (drama), she’ll be the first female to ever pull off that feat after David E. Kelley—the producer behind everything from
Doogie Howser, M.D. and
Picket Fences to
Big Little Lies and
Boston Legal is the only person to have ever won Best Drama Series (
The Practice) and Best Comedy Series (
Ally McBeal) in the same year. Here’s hoping either way that she chooses to make a nod
that jumpsuit to celebrate, and maybe even brings along
the Hot Priest.
Billy Porter
Our favourite theatre-rat-turned-TV-lead is no stranger to making awards history—look no further than last year’s Oscars, when he became the first man to don
a gown on the red carpet. Come this weekend’s Emmys, he’s poised to make history in a whole new way: as the first openly gay black man to potentially win Lead Actor in a Drama. However, it should be noted that the
Pose star already made Emmy history by becoming the first openly gay black man to be nominated.Fierce.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
The legendary actress, who is basically the modern-day version of Carol Burnett with a dash of Lucille Ball, is going to be the talk of Hollywood on Sunday night given her high chances of taking home yet another Best Actress in a Comedy award for the final season of
Veep. You see, JLD has won the Emmy for every season of the show so far, so it’s pretty likely she’ll take it home a seventh time. Here’s the thing though: should she win, that will give her nine overall Best Comedy victories. That means she’d no longer be tied with Cloris Leachman at eight (the most for any man or woman), but she’d be the new leader of the pack. If you ask us that’s kind of a big deal.
Related: Everything Julia Louis-Dreyfus has worn to the Emmys[video_embed id='-1']Julia Louis-Dreyfus & Tony Hale on the emotional end of 'Veep'.[/video_embed]
Sandra Oh
We’ve got our fingers crossed for
Canadian queen Sandra Oh. The
Killing Eve star already made history last year, when she become the first woman of Asian descent to be nominated for Best Lead Actress in a drama series. She lost out then to Claire Foy for
The Crown, but Oh is up for the trophy again this year. Should she win, she’ll become the first woman of Asian descent to win the category. Like last year she’s facing some tough competition though, including her co-star Jodie Comer,
This Is Us’ Mandy Moore, and
Game of Thrones heavyweight Emilia Clarke, who seems to be riding a dragon of anticipation right into this thing.
The entire cast of Game of Thrones
Okay to be fair,
Game of Thrones has made Emmys history several times over. Not only did the final season break the single-year record for total
nominations (32), but it’s now poised to break its own record on Sunday night by becoming the most winning show in a season—after the Creative Emmys, all it needs are three more wins to break its previous record of 12. Furthermore, the cast and crew would join a pretty prestigious club if it were to win the Best Drama trophy (and let’s face it—we’re pretty sure it’s winning Best Drama). Doing so would give the show four wins in that category, tying with current record-holders
Hill Street Blues,
L.A. Law,
The West Wing and
Mad Men. Now that’s a club you want to be a part of.
The 71st annual Emmy Awards take place Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on CTV.
