Only Four SNL Stars Have Won an Emmy for Their Work on the Show. Could Bowen Yang Be Next?

Bowen Yang could soon add “Emmy Award winner” to his resumé. 

Saturday Night Live nabbed a whopping 18 Emmy nominations on Wednesday, including Outstanding Scripted Variety Series. Yang was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor In a Comedy Series; this marks the fourth time the SNL star has been nominated for an Emmy, having previously racked up nods in 2019, 2021, and 2022. 

It’s no surprise that SNL continues to dominate the Emmys. As of 2024, the show holds the most Primetime Emmy Award wins of all time, clocking in at 89 wins and beating out Game of Thrones’ total of 59 Emmys. Of course, this can be partially credited to how long SNL has been on the air, but it’s still nothing to sneeze at.

Despite SNL’s impressive Emmys record, however, only four cast members have ever won an Emmy for their work on the show: Chevy Chase (1977), Gilda Radner (1978), Dana Carvey (1993), and Kate McKinnon (2016 and 2017). Could Yang be the next addition to this small but mighty list?

Yang has already made SNL history in multiple ways. The comedian—who first joined the writing staff for Season 44 in 2018 before being promoted to on-air cast status the following year—is the show’s first Chinese-American cast member, third-ever gay male cast member, and fourth Asian cast member overall. 

Yang’s first Emmy nomination came in 2019 when he was nominated for Outstanding Writing For A Variety Series. In 2021, he became SNL’s first featured player (versus repertory player) to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award—Outstanding Supporting Actor In a Comedy Series—a major milestone in the show’s history. He was then nominated for the category again in 2022. 

Outside of SNL, Yang has also had notable roles in numerous movies and TV shows. He appeared in The Lost City, Fire Island, Bros, The Garfield Movie, Awkwafina is Nora from Queens, and Girls5Eva, to name a few.

In an interview with Backstage in June, Yang opened up about how acting on SNL differs from his other projects. “I’ve had to unlearn almost everything about the way things work at SNL, just because the medium is so specific,” he said. “It’s a sketch, and you’re not really worried about people’s motivations, or it’s not too helpful to drill down into a behavior. I really had to let go of that paradigm when I would dip into other projects where more was being demanded of me in that sense, where you had to really examine people.”

“In sketch comedy, you are playing to a situation, and in everything else, you’re playing toward a person in a specific stage in their lives,” Yang continued. “But what’s nice is that, coming back this season, I’ve been able to take any lessons I’ve learned in the past couple years of doing more meaty stuff, acting-wise, and bring those lessons back here to SNL.”

The 76th Emmy Awards will air on Sunday, September 15 on ABC.

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