Jean Smart Wins Fifth Emmy, Ties All-Time Category Record

Jean Smart Ties All-Time Emmy Record With Fifth Hacks Win

The Outstanding Lead Actress trophy gives Smart her eighth Emmy overall, matching Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Cloris Leachman, as Hacks closes out its final season on top.

By Reel to Reel15 Sept 20262 min read

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Jean Smart has done it again. For the fourth year running, she's taken home the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, this time for the final season of Hacks. It's her eighth Emmy now, which pulls her level with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Cloris Leachman for the most wins ever in the category's history.

The field wasn't thin this year, either. Lisa Kudrow was in the mix for The Comeback, chasing a win she's now been nominated for across three different decades. Elle Fanning showed up fresh off a Supporting Actress loss at the Oscars for Sentimental Value, riding the buzz around Margo's Got Money Troubles. And two former winners, Quinta Brunson and Ayo Edebiri, were both back in the race, looking to add a second statuette apiece.

But Smart has more or less owned this category since Hacks premiered. Since 2020, only Catherine O'Hara, for Schitt's Creek's last run, and Brunson, for Abbott Elementary in 2023, have managed to stop her. Everyone else has watched Deborah Vance take the trophy home. This year, with Season 5 wrapping up Deborah's arc and clearly playing as a farewell to the character, the win landed more like a formality than a fight. Collider's review of the final season called Smart's work in it a case of effortlessly nailing Deborah's cold exterior while letting the cracks show through her scenes with Hannah Einbinder's Ava, and voters plainly agreed.

Hacks didn't just win the top acting prize. It walked into the ceremony with 24 comedy nominations, a record for the category and five clear of this year's next-closest show, Widow's Bay. That's a staggering number for a series in its final season, and it says plenty about how the industry views the show's place in HBO Max's comedy lineup over the past five years.

Einbinder, nominated alongside Smart for her role as Ava, didn't get her own statuette this time, but the show's haul makes clear the Academy wasn't done rewarding it before it closed the book. With Hacks now finished, the conversation shifts to what fills that gap in next year's comedy field, and whether any show can match the nomination count Hacks just set. For now, Smart leaves the category as the actress every future nominee will be measured against.