The Parker Posey vs. Carrie Coon Emmy face-off could follow a familiar trajectory
This year's Best Drama Supporting Actress Emmy race is shaping up to be a White Lotus face-off. Since the Season 3 finale of the HBO anthology series aired on April 6, Carrie Coon and Parker Posey have climbed into first and second place, respectively, in Gold Derby's odds, knocking early frontrunner Allison Janney (The Diplomat) down to third. Though Coon has been comfortably ahead of Posey in the charts all season long, the latter has been closing the gap ever since the Thailand-set third installment premiered in mid-February, making this a two-horse race between the castmates. So if both make the cut, who is likeliest to come out on top?
Had you asked any viewer before the finale, they probably would've said Posey. As Victoria, a wealthy matriarch with a lorazepam addiction, the Emmy nominee (for her guest turn on Mr. & Mrs. Smith in 2024) became an instant fan favorite, going viral for her pronounced North Carolina accent, memorable facial expressions, and zany one-liners. The idiosyncrasies of her character and broadly comedic nature of her performance made her turn the one that felt most similar to that of Jennifer Coolidge as Tanya McQuoid in the first two seasons, which earned Coolidge back-to-back supporting actress prizes (in limited for Season 1 and drama for Season 2).
But the momentum has shifted in Coon's favor following her character Laurie's standout monologue in the finale. During the final dinner of her rocky vacation with friends Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan) and Kate (Leslie Bibb), the New York lawyer and recent divorcée decides to lay it all bare after her travel companions try to talk up their Thailand trip. "I had this epiphany today," she shares after running through everything that's failed to give her life meaning, including work, marriage, and motherhood. "I don't need religion or God to give my life meaning, because time gives it meaning." Viewers quickly took to social media to heap praise on Coon for her work in this scene, clamoring, in post after post after post, for the two-time Emmy nominee (for The Gilded Age in 2024 and Fargo in 2017) to finally take home her first statuette.
Not only did Laurie's monologue swing the momentum to Coon's side, it also gave the Tony nominee an opportunity to flex her dramatic chops. This could give Coon the advantage in a tight battle with Posey, as Emmy voters typically gravitate more toward dramatic work and Posey is never given an outright dramatic showcase throughout the third installment's eight episodes. This is also where the comparisons between Posey's and Coolidge's performances fall short, as Coolidge was afforded plenty of dramatic beats to play amid all the comedy in both of her seasons.
In past instances in which a early populist pick was neck and neck with someone with more passionate support and a more Emmy-friendly performance, whether from the same or a different show, it was typically the latter who won out. Recent examples include Matthew Macfadyen beating his Succession castmate Kieran Culkin in Best Drama Supporting Actor in 2022, Julianne Nicholson (Mare of Easttown) triumphing over Kathryn Hahn (WandaVision) in Best Limited Series/TV Movie Supporting Actress in 2021, and Jodie Comer defeating her Killing Eve costar Sandra Oh in Best Drama Actress in 2019. Culkin, Hahn, and Oh were the odds-on favorites, so Coon is already ahead on that front. What these cases have in common is that all the shows were series nominees with multiple acting nominations — in Succession's case, the series winner — meaning members of the acting branch were likely paying close attention to them. So whether the potential match-up between Posey (the early populist pick) and Coon (the passion pick with the more Emmy-friendly performance) follows a similar trajectory hinges on whether voters are doing the same with Season 3 of The White Lotus.
For its first season, The White Lotus earned 20 nominations, eight of which were for acting, and 10 wins, including Best Limited Series and a second acting prize for Murray Bartlett in supporting. For its second season, it shot up to 23 bids overall, including Best Drama Series, and nine for acting, winning another five trophies. Following another round of critical acclaim, increased online chatter, and record-breaking viewership for its third season, it's expected to be a top series contender and dominate the acting categories once again this year. At the moment, Gold Derby's odds have it pegged for seven acting noms, including for Season 1 nominee Natasha Rothwell (No. 5) and Aimee Lou Wood (No. 6) in supporting actress, but you can expect that number to go up if the supporting acting categories meet the submission threshold for eight slots after failing to and dropping down to seven last year (we won't know until Emmy ballots are released on June 12, the start of voting).
That's all to say, there's no reason to believe Emmy voters aren't as checked into The White Lotus as they've always been. So if the drama supporting actress race winds up being a close contest between Coon and Posey, don't be surprised if history repeats itself and Coon gets the keys to the presidential suite.