Link: https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/emmys-so-white-part-2-no-actors-of-color-win-emmys-2026-1236862434/

On Monday at the 78th Emmy Awards, in the lead and supporting races for drama and comedy, in addition to lead actor and actress in a limited series, all 10 actors who crossed the stage came from outside an underrepresented community. The other two, supporting actor and actress in a limited series, which were handed out a week earlier at the Creative Arts ceremonies, shifted off the main show this year in a reshuffling of five categories that drew Hollywood’s guilds’ ire, but did not change the math.

The only performers of color to win an on-camera or voice Emmy this cycle also did so at the Creative Arts. Ernest Harden Jr. won guest actor in a drama for the medical series “The Pitt” on HBO Max, and Octavia Spencer won for narrating “Lost Women of Alaska.”

It should be noted that behind the camera, the comedy directing prize went to Japanese American filmmaker Hiro Murai for Apple TV’s horror comedy “Widow’s Bay,” making him the first Asian director to win the category and only the third Asian director to win an Emmy in any category, after Lee Sung Jin for “Beef” and Hwang Dong-hyuk for “Squid Game.”

By Variety’s count, 17 performers of color were nominated in the lead and supporting acting races this year, down from 28 a year ago, a 39% decline. The figure for actors and hosts of color peaked in 2021 at 49, the last time the field produced #EmmysSoWhite.