John Oliver asked the soap-opera world for a ridiculous name, a dramatic close-up and something juicy—preferably involving murder or a slap.
He got all three.
Now there may be one more item for the Last Week Tonight host to add to his daytime wish list: a Daytime Emmy nomination.
Or, because this entire adventure has already escalated well beyond Oliver’s original pitch, two Daytime Emmy nominations.
Oliver completed his three-episode run on General Hospital earlier this month, playing Z, the mysterious WSB boss, and he’ll get another opportunity to demonstrate his daytime range next month, when his three-episode arc on Days of Our Lives begins streaming on Peacock.
Those episodes are set to arrive August 11, 12 and 14, completing a soap-opera doubleheader that began with Oliver discovering Stephen A. Smith’s recurring role on General Hospital, publicly begging daytime producers to cast him and somehow receiving offers from two different shows.
The question now is whether Daytime Emmy voters will be the next group to reward his persistence.
Oliver’s performances won’t be eligible for the Daytime Emmy Awards being presented this October. The 53rd annual ceremony, scheduled for October 30, covers programming released between January 1 and December 31, 2025. Oliver’s 2026 appearances would instead fall into the following awards cycle.
That gives him plenty of time to campaign—or, more realistically, produce an elaborate Last Week Tonight segment ridiculing the entire concept of campaigning while accidentally mounting a very effective campaign.
The likeliest category would be Outstanding Guest Performance in a Daytime Drama Series. Under the current Daytime Emmy rules, a guest performer is someone who appears in no more than 19 percent of a show’s episodes during the eligibility year. Three appearances on each soap would put Oliver safely below that threshold.
The rules leave the door open for Oliver to compete against himself.
Actors may submit more than once when they appear as different characters on different programs. So, Oliver could theoretically be entered separately for General Hospital and Days of Our Lives—giving him two chances to reach the same category.
Whether he would actually earn one (or two) of those spots is another matter.
Oliver’s celebrity and the attention surrounding his appearances would undoubtedly help make the entries noticeable, but the guest-performer category is not simply a collection of famous people who briefly wandered through daytime television. This year’s nominees include Jasmine Burke, Jeff Kober, Eva LaRue, Christopher Sean and Ray Wise, several of whom played characters with substantial connections to their shows’ ongoing storylines.
Still, General Hospital gave Oliver a remarkably efficient potential submission reel. Current rules allow performers to enter up to 15 minutes of material, and Oliver’s arc supplied him with spy intrigue, a tense confrontation, attempted flirtation, multiple dramatic reaction shots and, yes, that slap.
The Days of Our Lives performance remains the wild card. Until those episodes stream, it’s impossible to know whether Oliver’s Salem character will receive an equally Emmy-friendly showcase.
Oliver does have some experience with the Daytime Emmys. He was previously nominated in 2011 as part of the writing team for The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, which competed for Outstanding Special Class Writing.
An acting nomination would be new territory, though Oliver’s broader Emmy history is formidable. The Television Academy currently credits him with 31 Primetime Emmy nominations and 23 wins, including two nominations awaiting decisions at this year’s ceremony.
Considering this began with Oliver expressing jealousy over Stephen A. Smith’s side job and has now led to him playing two different daytime characters in a matter of weeks, a pair of acting nominations would be a perfectly reasonable next plot twist.
