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| CREATED BY GEMINI |
Let’s break down the wins, the behind-the-scenes power players, and the glaring omissions that have us scratching our heads.
Actors' noted
Our community showed up in major acting categories this year. Leading the pack is Riz Ahmed, who secured a Lead Actor nod for his powerful role in Bait.
Meanwhile, the second season of Netflix's smash hit Beef brought in major acting love: Oscar-winner Youn Yuh-jung and Charles Melton both scored Supporting Actress and Actor nominations for their respective turns in the anthological dramedy.
Over on the drama side, Sepideh Moafi clinched a Supporting Actress nod for her stellar performance in Max’s medical juggernaut The Pitt. playing Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi, a doctor taking over the ER as Noah Wiley's character prepares for a sabbatical. She is the first Iranian woman and woman from the Middle East to be nominated in the support actress in a drama series category, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
"I can’t imagine a more ideal world, show, character to have this sort of recognition with," Moafi said after she heard about her nomination.
"Playing this woman who carries so many worlds, so many of which I can identify with in my own way, and that I’ve heard over the last several months, so many people identify with, whether it’s with her chronic disease, her chronic illness, people with disability, people who are mixed race, people who are from the Middle East or Africa, women in medicine who are in similar positions and have to deal with certain male counterparts."
FYI: The 78th Primetime Emmy Awards will air live on NBC on Monday, September 14, 2026 at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT
Steven Yeun, who won an Emmy two years ago in the first season of Beef, landed a voice-over nomination for keeping things animated in Invincible.
True representation means having a seat at the table where decisions are made, and our behind-the-scenes creatives are dominating this year's Emmy ballot.
The Beef mastermind Lee Sung Jin, continues his historic streak, earning individual nominations for Outstanding Writing and Outstanding Directing for a Limited or Anthology Series, alongside a nod for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series as executive producer. He's joined in the executive producers' circle by Steven Yeun, Ali Wong, Kitao Sakurai and Anna Ouyang Moench.
Destin Daniel Cretton, the Japanese American director-producer, is nominated as the driving executive producer behind Marvel’s buzzy Wonder Man.
Hiro Murai & Claudia Shin: The powerhouse duo earned Executive Producer nods for Apple TV+'s freshman comedy hit Widow's Bay.
Chris Nguyen-Gia & Marian Wang: Nguyen-Gia scored a Best Drama Series nomination as a producer for the freshman drama Paradise, while Wang is back in the mix as a producer for the late-night champion Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
Yulin Kuang: Celebrated writer-director Kuang scored an Outstanding Television Movie screenplay nomination for adapting Netflix's People We Meet on Vacation.
You can't talk about the Emmys without talking about who got left behind, and the Academy dropped the ball on several standout AAPI performances.
Should have been nominated
Isa Briones (The Pitt): In what is arguably the most heartbreaking snub of the morning, Briones was completely shut out for her role as the sharp, headstrong Dr. Trinity Santos. What makes this a bitter pill to swallow is that The Pitt actually led the entire pack with 25 total nominations—including 13 acting nods for her co-stars. How voters completely bypassed Briones's polarizing, fiercely layered performance is beyond us.
Bowen Yang (Saturday Night Live): Despite delivering a highly celebrated final run on the sketch show before his mid-season departure, Yang missed out on a Supporting Actor in a Comedy nod. The Academy chose to shut out the entire regular SNL cast this year.
Industry Cast & Crew: HBO's financial thriller was entirely shut out by the Television Academy. This means no love for Ken Leung, who has consistently turned in a masterclass performance as the complex and shrewd management executive Eric Tao.
Young Mazino & Tati Gabrielle: Both actors missed out on highly predicted guest and supporting drama nominations for their impactful roles in The Last of Us.
View from the edge
We've come a long way from the days of absolute invisibility, but as these snubs show, the fight for the Academy to fully recognize the depth of our talent continues.
What is especially noteworthy, is none of the characters played by AAPI actors, are the stereotypes that pigeonholed generations of Asian actors in Hollywood.
But there is so much more room for improvement. That's why overlooking Briones' role as Dr. Trinity Santos in The Pitt is so disappointing. There were so many moments where we saw glimpses of the life of Santos beyond the ER -- such as a white-passing Filipino American -- makes us crave for more of her storyline to explore.
In fact, you can say that about all the acting AAPI nominees and the AAPI community as a whole. As two seasons of Beef have shown us, there's more complexity in us than Hollywood has been able to capture so far. Hollywood's creators and artists are only starting to scratch the surface of the multiple worlds we live in and start delving into those stories.
EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X, BlueSky or at the blog Views From the Edge. If you find this perspective interesting, please repost.
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