Jean Smart Eyes a Perfect Emmy Run No Actress Has Ever Achieved
Jean Smart has won the Emmy for lead comedy actress for every eligible season of Hacks. Four trophies, no losses. Now the HBO Max series has ended after its fifth season, and Smart is nominated one final time. A fifth consecutive win would complete a flawless run across the show's entire lifespan — something no woman has ever done in an acting category at the Emmys (Variety).
Smart's Hacks wins came in 2021, 2022, 2024, and 2025. At the 77th Emmy Awards on 14 September 2025, she beat a field that included Quinta Brunson, Ayo Edebiri, Elle Fanning, and Lisa Kudrow to take home her seventh career Emmy and her fourth for playing Deborah Vance (Deadline; People).
The history here is sparse. Only Bill Cosby has won an acting Emmy for every season of a scripted series that lasted at least three seasons, sweeping all three installments of I Spy from 1966 through 1968. Blythe Danner managed the feat for Huff, but that Showtime drama ran just two seasons. Thirty-nine performers have earned Emmy nominations for every eligible season of a show's full run — but nominations are not wins (Variety).
The closest comparison is Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who won six Emmys across the seven-season run of Veep — dominant, but not perfect. Zendaya won the lead drama actress Emmy for the first two seasons of Euphoria in 2020 and 2022, becoming the youngest two-time Emmy winner in history, but the show has not yet given her a third eligible season to test the streak (Variety).
A fifth Hacks win would also be Smart's eighth career Emmy, tying her with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Cloris Leachman for the second-most acting Emmys won by a female performer (Variety).
What makes this stand out is the finality. Hacks is over. There are no future seasons to extend or repair the record. Smart either wins again and enters territory no actress has reached, or the streak ends on the last possible night. The Television Academy's own Hacks page still hosts her thank-you camera clip from the 2025 ceremony (Television Academy) — a reminder that, for now, the streak is alive.
The outcome sits with the voters.
