Jean Smart, Allison Janney, Matthew Rhys and More Broadway Stars Win Big at the 2026 Emmys

Broadway stars traded the footlights for Emmy gold on September 14, when the 78th Emmy Awards, hosted by Every Brilliant Thing powerhouse Mariska Hargitay, handed out trophies to a slew of stage favorites.

Jean Smart continued her awards-show reign, winning Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for the fifth and final season of Hacks. She is the first woman to win an acting Emmy for every season of an ongoing TV show. Smart, who returned to Broadway last year in the solo play Call Me Izzy, now has eight Emmys, tying Cloris Leachman and Other Desert Cities star Julia Louis-Dreyfus' record for the most acting Emmy wins by a performer. She also pulled off the first ever perfect five for five, winning the category for every season of Hacks. Deborah Vance would expect nothing less.

Allison Janney made a little history of her own. The Tony-nominated Broadway veteran won Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for The Diplomat, bringing her career Emmy haul to eight and tying Smart, Leachman and Louis-Dreyfus atop the acting record books. Janney will be back on Broadway this fall alongside Louis-Dreyfus in Other Desert Cities.

The history-making doesn’t stop there. Matthew Rhys, who will star in Playing Burton off-Broadway this spring at Lincoln Center Theater, took home both the Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series award for The Beast in Me and the Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for Widow’s Bay. He is not only the first male actor to win two lead actor categories in the same year, but the first Welsh actor to ever win in the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series category. Along with his Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series win in 2018 for The Americans, Rhys is the first performer ever to win across all three lead acting categories.

Broadway veterans also ruled the supporting actor categories this season. Stephen Root scored the Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series award for Widow's Bay. His Broadway credits include So Long on Lonely Street in 1986, and All My Sons the following year. End of the Rainbow and Fool for Love alum Tom Pelphrey won Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for Task.

Rhea Seehorn, who was an understudy in 45 Seconds From Broadway in 2001, was crowned as the Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her performance in Pluribus. Then there was Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series, a category in which Broadway literally could not lose. Two-time Broadway.com Audience Choice Award winner and Tony nominee Sally Field scored for Remarkably Bright Creatures, beating Broadway alums Claire Danes, Carey Mulligan, Sarah Pidgeon and Tony winner Sarah Snook.

Field then took to the stage to pay tribute to the late Dolly Parton, introducing Reba McEntire as she sang Parton's "Appalachian Memories." More of Parton's music will be featured in her bio-musical, DOLLY: A True Original Musical on Broadway this winter. 

As if this night couldn't get better, Hargitay and Broadway.com Audience Choice Award winner Andrew Rannells broke out into song to say goodbye to some departing television shows. 

Check out the full list of winners here.