The following article is an excerpt from the new edition of “IndieWire’s The Lead Up,” a weekly newsletter in which our Awards Editor Marcus Jones takes readers on the awards trail, interviewing key figures responsible for some of the most compelling stories of the season, and offering predictions on who will win. Subscribe here to receive the newsletter in your inbox every Tuesday.
Consider this the calm before the storm.
For any newcomers who are familiar with IndieWire’s awards coverage through The Lead Up, I wanted to venture outside the world of Emmy predictions for a second, and give a brief look at how we have covered the Primetime Emmys in the past, as a way to preview what we have planned to publish at least once every weekday through Emmy nominations voting in June.
Our first recurring feature is called My Favorite Scene. In it, we speak to actors or performers behind a few of our favorite television performances about their personal-best onscreen moment this past TV season, and how it came together.
That sometimes takes form in an interview with Sam Rockwell about his infamous monologue from “The White Lotus” Season 3 that had everyone talking (and earned him an Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series nomination). But it also can result in “Only Murders in the Building” star Martin Short, a perennial Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series nominee, going on a roll that leads him from complimenting guest star Melissa McCarthy to explaining the science behind his Jiminy Glick interviews.
Another feature we’ve rolled out the past few Emmy seasons is called It’s a Hit, where we speak to creators and showrunners behind some of the buzziest television programs of the season about the moment they realized their show was breaking big.
Last season provided a huge pool of new shows to choose from, leading to interviews with the creatives behind “The Pitt,” “Paradise,” and “Nobody Wants This,” which are all already back in the running this Emmys season. But the concept also extends to something like eventual Outstanding Television Movie winner “Rebel Ridge,” which shifted the narrative around what caliber of films could be eligible for that category, and “Stranger Things” Season 4, which became an even bigger phenomenon coming back after a years-long hiatus (the show’s final season is also back in contention this year).
Finally, a new series of interviews we started last year is called Pour One Out and is about celebrating the characters we said goodbye to this past season, whether it be because they died, their show concluded, or both. Expect more interviews this season, considering all the shows that are in the midst of their final season.
But there are five days in a week, and a lot of stories to mine from the Emmys race, so expect more dispatches from For Your Consideration events, where the main takeaway last year was how meaningful it was to voters for a show to have shot in Los Angeles. Plus, trend pieces like how the success of series like “Slow Horses” ushered in several more spy shows last year, and how internet series are becoming more like traditional late night TV shows as late night TV shows start producing more short form content distributed on the internet.
Ultimately, we pride ourselves on providing the clearest picture of how the Primetime Emmys race is going at any given point in time, so even when there are wins that comes as a big surprise, like Jeff Hiller winning Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for the final season of “Somebody Somewhere,” or Lamorne Morris winning Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for the most recent season of “Fargo”— to use two recent examples — we always have an article we can point to that gives you the context for why and how that happened.
See IndieWire’s full list of 2026 Emmy predictions, complete with frontrunners, contenders, and long shots on our website. As a reminder, my email is majones@indiewire.com if you’d like to share any feedback.
