Major contenders in the Emmy races for Outstanding Drama Series, Comedy Series and Limited Series won the trophies in the corresponding casting categories at the 2025 Creative Arts Emmy Awards, considered a relatively reliable — but not perfect — predictor of the top series winners.
Outstanding Comedy Series frontrunner, Apple TV+’s The Studio, won Casting For a Comedy Series (casting directors Melissa Kostenbauder and Francine Maisler), and Outstanding Limited Series frontrunner, Netflix’s Adolescence, won Casting for a Limited Series (Shaheen Baig).
There was intrigue in the drama category as the Casting For a Drama Series Emmy went to HBO Max’s The Pitt (Cathy Sandrich Gelfond and Erica Berger).
Apple TV+’s Severance (Season 2), the most nominated program this year with 27 nominations, is considered the frontrunner for Outstanding Drama Series, but that race is tighter than the other two, with freshman medical drama The Pitt (14 nominations) capable of an upset as it did in the casting category.
Severance was nominated for casting as were the current runner-ups in the Outstanding Comedy and Outstanding Limited Series races, HBO Max’s Hacks (14 noms vs. The Studio‘s 23) and HBO Max’s The Penguin (24 vs. Adolescence‘s 13).
All six walked away with wins from the Creative Arts Emmys, with Hacks and The Studio splitting the Guest Actor in a Comedy Series honors for Julianne Nicholson and Bryan Cranston, respectively.
Severance took Guest Actress in a Drama Series (Merritt Wever). We will update with the distaff category winner when announced.
Of the three Emmy casting categories, Casting for a Limited Series has been most closely aligned with Outstanding Limited Series.
Over the last two decades, only twice the winners for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series (and its predecessors, Outstanding Limited Series, Miniseries, Miseries Or Movie) didn’t also win the corresponding Casting category. The correlation has been spot on for the past five years with The White Lotus, The Queen’s Gambit, Watchmen, Beef and Baby Reindeer.
Casting for a Comedy Series used to be a reliable predictor for the Outstanding Comedy Series Emmy winner. Before 2022, the previous seven shows to take home the Casting For a Comedy Series statuette all went on to also win the Outstanding Comedy Series category a week later. But of the last three Casting winners, only one, The Bear in 2023, repeated as Comedy Series winner, with the Casting trophies going to Abbott Elementary in 2022 and The Bear again in 2024, while the Comedy Series Emmys were won by Ted Lasso and Hacks, respectively.
Casting for Drama Series has successfully predicted the eventual Outstanding Drama Series winner in five of the last six years, including Shōgun last year.
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