Can anyone stop Niecy Nash-Betts or Claire Danes from winning supporting actress Emmy?

All season long, the Emmy race for Best Movie/Limited Supporting Actress has been a battle between two front-runners: Niecy Nash-Betts (“Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story”) and Claire Danes (“Fleishman Is in Trouble”). Can anyone stop them from winning the trophy? Based on the combined odds at Gold Derby, the rest of the category is likely to be a mix of actresses from popular series like Maria Bello and Ashley Park (“Beef”), and beloved favorites from series not as much on the radar like Olivia Colman (“Great Expectations”) and Cherry Jones (“Five Days At Memorial”). But it’s still anyone’s game.

After all, recent history has shown us that the television academy has leaned more toward checking off numerous actors from the same series if it has enough buzz. One needs to look no further than last year in this very category, when only two limited series made up the entire field: two actresses from “Dopesick” and a whopping five from “The White Lotus.” Since the popular vote system was enacted in 2016, a pattern has developed at the Emmys, evident in the limited acting races the last few years where the field has been narrowed to a multitude of actors from a small number of series. Examples include eight actors selected from “The White Lotus,” seven actors from “Hamilton” in 2021, and eight from “When They See Us” in 2019.

Granted, all those aforementioned acting nominations were picked out from an unlimited ballot where voters could check off as many names as they pleased. This year with a new voting system, they are now only restricted to the set number of nominees in each category (seven in the case for Best Limited Supporting Actress), but that does not take away the fact that the voters still like the shows they like.

As it currently stands according to Gold Derby’s combined odds, Nash-Betts leads the pack with 9/2 odds, followed by Danes with 11/2. The other five predicted nominees in order are Bello at 8/1, Colman at 9/1, Lena Headey (“White House Plumbers”) at 21/2, Jones at 11/1 and Park at 15/1.

“Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” and “Beef,” top contenders in the series category, are sure to do well with the acting branch, which if the voters tend to repeat history and go down the line, could benefit actors like Michael Learned for the former and Patti Yasutake for the latter. Learned is ninth in the odds with 25/1, while Yasutake is 16th with 100/1. Other actors from high-profile series include Lily Rabe (“Love & Death”) at eighth with 18/1 odds and Camila Morrone (“Daisy Jones & The Six) at 12th with 68/1 odds. Both women have their fellow co-stars getting nominations, so it will be dependent on how much the actors like their respective series.

While Colman and Jones are beloved at the Emmys and previous winners, it is unclear how well “Great Expectations” and “Five Days at Memorial” will perform. If either gets in, it will most likely be the only substantial mention for their respective series. That’s not to say it hasn’t happened recently in the past, prime examples being John Leguizamo in 2018 being the only major nomination for “Waco,” or Octavia Spencer for “Self Made” in 2020, when neither were predicted those years.

The same goes with Headey to a lesser extent as “White House Plumbers” is also a bit up in the air and it is to be determined how much passion the show has or the number of nominations it will get above the line. But it is led by recognizable stars in Woody Harrelson and Justin Theroux and Headey is a multiple nominee for “Game of Thrones.”

In essence, this category has more uncertainty than ever with the nominations and it is yet to be seen what will happen as a result of the new restricted voting system and whether academy members will stick to the series they adore or spread the wealth and perhaps go rogue with some selections. Nominations will be announced July 12.

PREDICT the 2023 Emmy nominees through July 12

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