3 Emmy Upsets to Watch For at the 2025 Ceremony

The Emmy Awards are tonight, with plenty of stars and surprises ahead.

This is one of the more hotly contested ceremonies, where anything can happen. For example, no past winners are nominated for the night’s top prize of Best Drama and only one of the current nominations (Slow Horses) has even been nominated before.

Here are three potential upsets that could be more likely than you think.

Lead Actor in a Drama Series

While Severance has dominated the playing field when it comes to nominations, don’t count out The Pitt‘s Noah Wyle. Wyle, previously a five-time nominee but never a winner for ER, is the beating heart of the HBO medical drama, which was the year’s biggest word-of-mouth hit.

Lead Actor in a Comedy Series

Jeremy Allen White has run away with this award in years past thanks to his performance in FX’s The Bear, but Apple TV’s The Studio leads all comedies in terms of number of nominations. Could Seth Rogen win for his role as a troubled studio executive? We all know Hollywood loves hearing about itself, so it’s a very real possibility.

Best Drama

Again, only Apple TV’s Slow Horses has been nominated in this field (and probably won’t win). Severance, the sci-fi hit that was clearly the year’s most unavoidable and obsessed-over series, is the obvious frontrunner. But The Pitt feels like classic TV in a way that most TV shows of the last decade haven’t, and it seems foolish to count out word-of-mouth success. If there’s an upset tonight, it will be in this category.