20 Couples Nominated for Emmys in the Same Year
Amid the annual rush of snubs and surprises to emerge from the 2024 Emmy nominations, there was one other feel-good takeaway: Those who make great TV often come in pairs. At the 2024 Emmys, at least four real-life couples are nominated alongside one another. Naomi Watts and Billy Crudup, who are nominated in the limited series and drama series categories, wed in June 2023. Longtime couple Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor were both recognized this year, as were HBO mainstays Carrie Coon and Tracy Letts. Plus, Hacks cocreators Paul W. Downs and Lucia Aniello received joint nominations—for the third time—for their show’s latest season.
Upon learning of her first-ever Emmy nod, Watts said that she “squealed and immediately asked if Billy got nominated too. He did, which makes today even more special.” Coon tweeted a photo of Letts’s nomination with the caption: “His & Hers.” Ahead, a look back at some of the other romantic partners who have been nominated for Emmys in the same year, from Bill Hader and Ali Wong to Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt.
Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/Getty Images.Naomi Watts and Billy Crudup (2024)
Watts earns her first Emmy nomination for playing the indomitable Babe Paley on FX’s Feud: Capote vs. the Swans, while Crudup earns his third nod for outstanding supporting actor in a drama series for the AppleTV+ drama The Morning Show. He won for playing the often-smarmy network executive Cory Ellison in 2020.
James Devaney/Getty Images.Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor (2024)
Paulson and Taylor, who have been linked since 2015, have a fair share of Emmy recognition between them. Taylor won a supporting-actress trophy for 1999’s The Practice and was a frequent nominee for Two and a Half Men. Paulson took home the award for playing Marcia Clark in 2016’s The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story and is regularly nominated for her work in other Ryan Murphy projects. But this is the first year in which they’re both nominated: Taylor for her supporting work on The Morning Show, and Paulson in the guest-acting category for her role as a therapist on Mr. & Mrs. Smith.
Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images.Carrie Coon and Tracy Letts (2024)
Showbiz is a small world. Letts, who was once engaged to Sarah Paulson, received his first Emmy nomination this year. Carrie Coon, whom he wed in 2013, was nominated this year as well. Both are recognized for prestige HBO dramas—she in the lead-actress category for The Gilded Age and he in the guest-acting race for Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.
CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images.Paul W. Downs and Lucia Aniello (2021, 2022, 2024)
Downs and Aniello, who worked on Broad City before helming Hacks, join a rich legacy of real-life couples turned TV titans, from The Good Wife’s Robert and Michelle King to Tina Fey and Jeff Richmond of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images.Bill Hader and Ali Wong (2023)
After making their red-carpet debut as a couple at the Golden Globes, Hader and Wong sat side by side for the Emmys, where he was nominated for HBO’s Barry and she won for her lead performance in Netflix’s Beef.
Gilbert Flores/Getty Images.Kaley Cuoco and Tom Pelphrey (2022)
Before welcoming a daughter together in March 2023, the couple celebrated their newfound romance on the Emmys red carpet. Cuoco was nominated for leading the Max comedy series The Flight Attendant, while Pelphrey earned a nomination for his guest appearance on the final season of Ozark.
Jeffrey Mayer/Getty Images.Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys (2016, 2017, 2018)
For three straight seasons, Russell and Rhys–who fell in love while playing married Russian spies on FX’s The Americans—were nominated for concurrent Emmys. In 2018, Rhys won for the show’s final season and thanked Russell during his acceptance speech. “And to the woman who truly got me to this award, who stands in front of me every day and puts up with me,” he began, “she said, ‘If you propose to me, I’ll punch you clean in the mouth.’ I don’t have the words. I don’t have the time. Neither of which would do you justice, except thank you, more to come.”
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images.Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons (2016)
Before earning their first Oscar nominations together in 2022 for The Power of the Dog, Dunst and Plemons became Emmy honorees in the same year for season two of Fargo—the project on which they met while playing a married couple.
Jeffrey Mayer/Getty Images.Imelda Staunton and Jim Carter (2013)
Staunton, who is nominated this year for her role as Queen Elizabeth II on Netflix’s The Crown, received her first nod for a supporting role in the HBO TV movie The Girl. That same year, Carter, who has been her husband since 1983, was nominated for his role on Downton Abbey. Another bit of TV history? The couple’s daughter, Bessie Carter, now stars on Netflix’s Bridgerton.
Frazer Harrison/Getty Images.Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon (2009)
The couple of more than 15 years were both recognized by the TV Academy in 2009—Sedgwick for her leading role on TNT’s The Closer, and Bacon for fronting the HBO limited series Taking Chance.
Mathew Imaging/Getty Images.Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy (2005, 2007, 2015, 2016, 2017)
Here’s a wild bit of Emmys trivia: Each year that Huffman was nominated for an Emmy for her work on Desperate Housewives or American Crime, her husband of more than 25 years was also recognized—either for Shameless or for a limited series.
Michael Caulfield Archive/Getty Images.Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt (2002)
The same year that Aniston won an Emmy for playing Rachel Green on Friends, her then husband was nominated in the guest-acting category for his bit of stunt casting on the same series as a character who hated Rachel in high school.
Vince Bucci/Getty Images.Bradley Whitford and Jane Kaczmarek (2001, 2002, 2003)
Where else but a list like this would one remember that Whitford, star of The West Wing, and Kaczmarek, leading lady on Malcolm in the Middle, were perennially nominated during the early years of their marriage, which ended in 2010. When Whitford won the 2001 Emmy for supporting actor in a drama series, he thanked Kaczmarek, telling her, “You have brought such color and laughter and sweet life to me. My heart is so full of you.”
Ron Galella/Getty Images.Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan (2000)
Fox and Pollan, who have been married for 36 years, first met when she played his character’s love interest on Family Ties in 1985. In 2000, they were both recognized at the Emmys for separate projects. He won his fourth trophy for lead actor in a comedy series, but his first for Spin City, while she was nominated for a guest spot on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
Ron Galella//Getty Images.Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks (1999)
The longtime couple, who was married from 1964 until Bancroft’s death in 2005, both walked away from the 1999 Emmys with statues. She won the award for best supporting actress in a miniseries or movie for her role in CBS’s Deep in My Heart, while he earned his fourth trophy for his guest role on the NBC sitcom Mad About You.
Ron Galella/Getty Images.Helen Hunt and Hank Azaria (1998)
Travel back to the late ’90s, an era in which Helen Hunt won an Oscar and called her then husband, Hank Azaria, “the very best man I know” during her acceptance speech. That same year, they each won an Emmy—her for leading NBC’s Mad About You and him for his voice work on The Simpsons. Azaria still stars on the animated series, but he and Hunt separated in 2000.
Ron Galella/Getty Images.Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Brad Hall (1992)
A decade after they joined the cast of Saturday Night Live together in 1982, Hall and Louis-Dreyfus received their first Emmy nominations. He was nominated as a producer on the short-lived CBS comedy series Brooklyn Bridge, while she earned the first of many supporting nods for playing Elaine on Seinfeld.
NBC/Getty Images.Rhea Perlman and Danny DeVito (1983)
A year after marrying in 1982, Perlman and DeVito were nominated for their supporting roles on two of NBC’s hottest comedies—Cheers and Taxi, respectively.
Ron Galella/Getty Images.Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman (1981, 2005)
The couple of 50 years, who were also Oscar-nominated in the same year, crossed paths during two separate Emmy seasons. They were each recognized for work on network TV specials in 1981—him for directing ABC’s The Shadow Box, and her for starring in Crisis at Central High on CBS. More than two decades later, each were nominated for their performances in HBO’s Empire Falls (and Newman won his category).
FPG/Getty Images.Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz (1953, 1954, 1955)
For three straight years, the real-life couple was recognized for their work bringing to life a fictional husband-and-wife duo on the landmark CBS sitcom I Love Lucy.
