50+ Performers Nab 14 Key 2024 Emmy Nominations

Kristen Wiig, 50, Palm Royale

Wiig plays a divorcée trying to break into 1969 Palm Beach high society in a terrific miniseries with the most illustrious comedy cast of the year: fellow nominee Carol Burnett, 91 (nominated for best supporting comedy actress), Laura Dern, 57, Allison Janney, 64, Julia Duffy, 73, Josh Lucas, 53, and Ricky Martin, 52. Wiig’s bravura performance of “Is That All There Is?” after her character discovers her husband just impregnated her friend won high praise from costar Burnett, who told The Hollywood Reporter, “It was a master class in acting, with being funny, with being in tears, with losing it. It was Oscar worthy — and definitely Emmy worthy.”

Lead Actor, Comedy

Steve Martin, 78, Only Murders in the Building

Martin not only created and starred in a highly original spoof of our (and his) craze for true-crime podcasts, he managed to keep it fresh and interesting, imaginatively adding brilliant new costars and keeping the mirth and madcap mayhem logical, in a silly way. He got snubbed by Emmys last year, but bounced back, reinvigorating his character and his show.

Don’t miss this: Steve Martin and Martin Short Spill the Secrets of the First Season of Their True-Crime Spoof

Martin Short, 74, Only Murders in the Building

Short got his third Emmy nomination in a row for this crime comedy that also features plenty of addictive drama. The key to the show’s success is the bantering repartee Short and Martin perfected over decades of performing together, and the audience’s positive expectations. “Now when they see Steve and me come out, they go, ‘There they are!’” he told AARP. “We’ve already won them over with our careers up to that point. So that’s nice.” And their winning streak keeps getting hotter.

Don’t miss this: Martin Short and Steve Martin’s Best Collaborations

Matt Berry, 50, What We Do in the Shadows

Berry’s nomination as the dapper, magniloquent, three-century-old vampire Laszlo on the macabre comedy was the biggest surprise this Emmy season. But he is the standout on a highly original show, and his kudos is welcome. Given the grueling stunts the role requires, Berry told Bleeding Cool, “I might be getting a bit too old for that. But you know I’m supposed to be undead, so the rules don't apply, do they?”

Larry David, 77, Curb Your Enthusiasm

One of the most-snubbed hits in Emmy history, the show that startled everyone by being as good and innovative as Seinfeld (which he and Jerry Seinfeld, 70, created) gave him a nod in its final season. The improvisationally intensive comedy has won only two Emmys, one for directing, one for editing. At last honored for acting, David characteristically said, “This is a sad day for actors everywhere. See? Anyone can do it!”

Don’t miss this: Everything You Need to Know About ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ as It Bids Farewell

Lead Actor, Drama

Gary Oldman, 66, Slow Horses

Oldman, who won his first Oscar (plus AARP’s Movies for Grownups Award) at 60 for Darkest Hour, took a slow road to Emmy honors too (though he got a 2001 nomination for guesting on Friends). He couldn’t be better as the sourpuss boss of a misfit team at MI5, kind of like Britain’s FBI, whose appalling slovenliness is exceeded only by his stinging wit.

Hiroyuki Sanada, 63, Shogun

The second non-English language series ever nominated for an Emmy for best drama scored 25 nominations, more than any other show this year. Sanada’s triumphant performance as the heroic 17th-century Japanese Lord Toranaga equals the legendary Toshiro Mifune’s performance in the 1980 smash-hit TV adaptation — and unlike Mifune, this version doesn’t make Toranaga play second fiddle to the English sailor Blackthorne (Richard Chamberlain in 1980, young fellow Emmy nominee Cosmo Jarvis in 2024).

Walton Goggins, 52, Fallout

Goggins, who made a huge splash 13 years ago as a charismatic Kentucky career criminal on Justified, is back in the Emmy spotlight in a show adapted from a hit video game. After apocalyptic bombs devastate the world, it’s overrun with mutant creatures and pragmatic bounty hunters, but none is cooler than his noseless character, the Ghoul.

Idris Elba, 51, Hijack

Few expected Elba to nab a nomination in this thriller about a corporate negotiator whose skill comes in handy when his Dubai to London flight gets hijacked, even though he’s been repeatedly honored for playing the sleuth John Luther. Hijack is more generic suspense and less interesting than Luther — but it highlights Elba’s extreme strength as an actor. He keeps the narrative aloft.

Dominic West, 54, The Crown

When West turned 50 in 2019, he told AARP, “It makes me feel like I can start all over. You feel like, OK, now what do I want to do with the rest of my life?” One thing turned out to be earning his first-ever Emmy nomination for playing Prince Charles. He conveyed Charles’ deep dedication to the nation, his smart, progressive ideas for reforming royal traditions and his tortured experience with Diana both in life and in death.

Lead Actress, Drama

Jennifer Aniston, 55, The Morning Show

The Friends star keeps proving she’s got talents way beyond cracking us up, giving her TV anchor character an interesting blend of sheer ambition and unease about what it might do to her. Her romance with a tech mogul (Jon Hamm, 53) infused the character with a new energy. And she’s still as irresistibly adorable as she was on Friends.

Imelda Staunton, 68, The Crown

The first woman to play Queen Elizabeth over 50 on the grownup-beloved royal hit got to depict her in a particularly dramatic time, after the death of Princess Diana. “I think her sense of duty at that time was to the immediate family,” Staunton told NPR. “And it was puzzling, I think, to her, why it should be so public.” Staunton knocked it out of the park, and when the Emmy is awarded, she may well take the crown.