Be our guest: Cherry Jones is on the cusp of making Emmy history with another win for ‘Succession’
Cherry Jones is only in fourth place in the Best Drama Guest Actress odds for “Succession,” but she can be the first to do something no one’s done before: win the category three times.
The three-time Emmy champ is currently tied with Patricia Clarkson, Shirley Knight, Margo Martindale, Amanda Plummer and Alfre Woodard at two drama guest actress wins apiece. Jones, who took home a Best Drama Supporting Actress trophy in 2009 for “24,” won back-to-back awards in 2019 and 2020 for her stints on “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Succession.” If she prevails this time around, she’ll join Clarkson (“Six Feet Under,” 2002, 2006) and Martindale (“The Americans, 2015-16) as the only people to win this category multiple times for the same performance on the same show.
After being MIA in Season 3 of “Succession,” Jones reprised her role as PGM owner Nan Pierce in the Season 4 premiere, “The Munsters,” which featured Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Roman (Kieran Culkin) and Shiv (Sarah Snook) visiting Nan at her California estate to try to buy PGM before Logan (Brian Cox) can close his own deal with her. Nan, via Naomi (Annabelle Dexter-Jones), plays the kids like a fiddle and gets them to say the biggest number.
It was Jones’ only appearance in the fourth and final season, and given everything that transpired in the subsequent nine episodes, most notably in “Connor’s Wedding,” it’s easy for Jones to feel like an afterthought. The actress, who’s the only Emmy winner in this category, is nominated against two co-stars, Harriet Walter, who’s in first place, and Hiam Abbass, who’s in third, both of whom appeared later in the season and were part of more impactful and memorable moments. The other three nominees are also from one show, “The Last of Us,” which fielded Melanie Lynskey, who’s in second, Anna Torv (fifth) and Storm Reid (sixth).
But voters can play fast and loose with the guest categories and make some head-scratching choices. While few would take issue with Jones’ victory for “Succession,” her win for “The Handmaid’s Tale” even left her perplexed. Her two scenes in “Holly,” an orphaned Season 2 episode that was eligible a year after the rest of the season, clocked in under two minutes and a half minutes. That is slightly longer than Martindale’s 2016 winning turn on “The Americans,” which was about 90 seconds. Don’t worry, Jones’ appearance in “The Munsters” is a comparably hefty four and a half minutes.
Sometimes voters just check off a familiar name and someone they like, and with only two shows represented in drama guest actress, the margins could be very slim, which could be enough for Jones to enter the record books.
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