Saturday Night Live has a lengthy track record of success at the Primetime Emmy Awards. The long-running sketch comedy show has received 296 Emmy nominations since it debuted in 1975, winning 73 times. SNL has been nominated for at least one award at the Emmys every year for the past thirty-three years, and it has won at least one Emmy every year since 2007. Several famous actors have received Emmys for their work on Saturday Night Live in the recent past, including Tina Fey, Eddie Murphy, and Melissa McCarthy.
This year, Saturday Night Live has been nominated for 21 awards, which is more than any other comedy series. While the show received nominations in several categories, including Outstanding Variety Sketch Series, Outstanding Directing for a Variety Series, and Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series, the majority of its nominations were in the actor and actress categories. Here are the eleven performers from Saturday Night Live who were nominated for Emmys in 2021.
11 Kate McKinnon
Kate McKinnon is one of Saturday Night Live's biggest stars, known for her numerous celebrity impressions and original characters. She is nominated this year in the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series category. She has received a nomination in this category every year since 2014, and she has won the award twice (2016 & 2017). McKinnon's nomination this year officially puts her ahead of Tina Fey as the most Emmy-nominated performer in Saturday Night Live history.
10 Cecily Strong
Like her co-star Kate McKinnon, Cecily Strong is also nominated in the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series category. This is Strong's second-straight nomination in the category. She was hardly in the first six episodes of Saturday Night Live this season because she was busy filming Schmigadoon! for Apple TV+, but clearly she was still able to impress the voting body of the Television Academy with her performance in the final fourteen episodes.
9 Aidy Bryant
Aidy Bryant was also nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, meaning that three of SNL's leading ladies will be competing for the same award. Unlike her co-stars, however, Aidy Bryant was also nominated in the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series category for her performance on the Hulu original series Shrill. Bryant received her first Emmy nomination all the way back in 2014, when she was nominated for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics for co-writing the musical sketch "Home for the Holiday (Twin Bed)."
8 Kenan Thompson
Kenan Thompson was nominated in the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series category, making this the third year in a row that he has been nominated for that award. This year stands out, however, because he was also nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for his starring role in the brand-new sitcom Kenan. Thompson won his first and only Emmy Award in 2018. The award was for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics, which he received for co-writing the SNL song "Come Back Barack."
7 Bowen Yang
Bowen Yang made history this year with his nomination in the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series category. He is the first-ever Saturday Night Live featured player to be nominated for an Emmy Award. He is also the first Chinese American to ever be nominated in this particular category. If Yang wins the award, he will become the first SNL main cast member to ever win in the category (Alec Baldwin won for his role as Donald Trump in 2017, but he was never officially a main cast member on the show).
6 Maya Rudolph
Maya Rudolph was nominated this year in the Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series category, and it is important to note that she was nominated for her hosting performance on March 27 and not her recurring role as Vice President Kamala Harris. This is Rudolph's third nomination for guest acting on Saturday Night Live and her eighth nomination overall. In 2020, she won her first two Emmy Awards, including the Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series award for her role as presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
5 Kristen Wiig
Just like her good friend Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig was nominated this year in the Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series category. It is Wiig's third nomination in the category, her seventh nomination for Saturday Night Live, and her ninth nomination overall. Despite her nine nominations, however, Kristen Wiig has never won an Emmy Award.
4 Dan Levy
Dan Levy made Emmys history in 2020 when the sitcom he co-created and starred in, Schitt's Creek, swept all seven major awards categories. This year, however, he will have to settle for just one nomination: Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. If Dan Levy wins the Emmy this year, he will officially surpass his famous father (Eugene Levy) in total career Emmys – they both currently have four.
Related: Dan Levy's Famous Friends React To His 'SNL' Announcement
3 Dave Chappelle
Dave Chappelle won his first Emmy Award in 2017 for his first appearance hosting Saturday Night Live. He made his second hosting appearance on SNL this past November, and now he will have his second chance to win the Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series award. Chappelle didn't appear in very many sketches during the episode, but clearly he still impressed the voters enough to earn a nomination.
2 Daniel Kaluuya
Of everyone on this list, Daniel Kaluuya is the only one who had never been nominated for an Emmy before this year. He is also, however, the only person on this list to have won an Oscar – he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor earlier this year for his role in Judas and the Black Messiah. He was nominated this year in the Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series category, and if he wins he will be one of very few actors to have won both an Oscar and an Emmy in the same year.
1 Alec Baldwin
This is Alec Baldwin's third nomination in the Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series category, but his first for Saturday Night Live. While he was Emmy-nominated for his role as President Donald Trump in 2017 and 2018, he was considered a supporting actor for those seasons, and thus he was nominated in the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series category. If Baldwin wins this year, it will be his fourth Emmy win out of twenty career nominations.