Jon Hamm, Billy Crudup and Holland Taylor Break Down ‘The Morning Show’ Season 3’s Avalanche of Emmys Love

Season 3 of “The Morning Show” marked a major sea change for the watercooler drama series — and it appears the Emmys have taken notice.

Following a high-profile showrunner swap in 2022, with Charlotte Stoudt taking the reins from cocreator Kerry Ehrin, who headed the first two seasons and took on a consultant role for its third, the Apple TV+ series came into its own as a rich, multifaceted issue drama that, while heavy on the soap, tackled of-the-moment politics impacting any viewer with a pulse and internet access. By and large leaving the #MeToo drama of Steve Carrell’s embattled morning news anchor Mitch Kessler in the rearview mirror of his fatal, Italian-countryside car crash, Season 3 amped up the interpersonal dramas of its deep-bench cast, led by EPs Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon; introduced a new Big Bad (and ill-advised love interest) in Jon Hamm’s media-minded tech billionaire Paul Marks; and even dramatized the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. And that’s all after sending Witherspoon’s Bradley Jackson to space in Episode 1.

Firing on all cylinders while being entertaining as hell, the feat is in no small part thanks to its storied ensemble cast that going into the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards landed a whopping 10 acting nominations across lead, supporting and guest categories. It’s no wonder casting director Victoria Thomas also notched a nom for her work on the Apple TV+ series, which itself scored its first Outstanding Drama Series recognition.

A remarkable seven of those nominations came in the Outstanding Supporting Actor and Actress in a Drama Series categories, where the show scored three of the seven male nominees and four of the seven female ones.

“I use an athlete analogy, since we’re all watching the Olympics,” Karen Pittman, who received her first Emmy nomination for playing Bradley’s news producer Mia Jordan in Season 3, told TheWrap. “When you’re playing with or running against or are surrounded by people who are really reaching for the best they have, in every given moment, it just ups your game. And so as an artist from Season 1 to Season 2 to Season 3, with the work I’ve been able to do on the show, I feel like we have gotten better every season.”

Billy Crudup, who stars as WBN network president Cory Ellison and scored his third Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series after winning for Season 1, lauded the show’s writers’ room and singled out Stoudt and the team’s “extraordinary” storytelling of “everything that’s happening in the universe at once in our tight little 10-part drama.”

“That takes some dramaturgical skill, to be able to say, ‘All right, how much can the audience take? How believable can it be? And what do our characters actually get to experience in a way that continues our enthusiasm for them?’” Crudup said. “And somehow, through everything that they have approached throughout the years, they’ve maintained integrity with who the characters are. That then gives the actors unparalleled opportunities to exploit dynamic characters who are being put in the most ridiculous circumstances possible. Every world calamity befalls the people at UBN.”

In terms of the ridiculous, it’s Crudup’s live-wire Ellison who brings Hamm’s Paul Marks into the fold as a potential network buyer in Season 3, not only echoing real-world concerns of monopolistic mergers and tech money’s control of the news industry but also inviting events like Bradley in space and a network-wide data breach.

“From a personal standpoint, but also from a narrative standpoint, you’re kind of the disruptor in a lot of ways — you’re the new guy, but the way that my character in ‘The Morning Show’ was brought in was a very big, seismic event,” Hamm said. “That’s a fun thing to play.”

Hamm’s supporting nomination was one of his two this year, with the actor also receiving an Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie nod for “Fargo” Season 5. “You can’t get much of a better ensemble than this, so it’s a tremendous honor to be invited to play in that sandbox,” Hamm added of “The Morning Show.”

And while there were many narrative bright spots triggered by the network’s Paul-induced data breach, a far-and-away high point comes in Episode 3 when Holland Taylor, playing board chairman Cybil Richards, is given a scenery-chewing bit that may be remembered as one of the 81-year-old actress’ best. Nicole Beharie ’s freshman host Chris Hunter brings Cybil to task live on air for leaked, racist emails. It’s a six-minute scene that surely helped clinch both actresses’ supporting Emmy nods. (They both submitted it to voters as their Emmy episode.)

“It was like being on a tightrope,” Taylor said of the encounter. “I think the show is remarkable in the face of the different themes that it’s dared to take on. And it was rewarded, I think, for its daring, as well as for the artistry involved in the daring.”

It is often then Mark Duplass’ executive producer Chip Black left to clean up the mess from other characters’ dramas — and be a doormat for Aniston’s volatile anchor Alex Levy. From his vantage point as a Day 1 ensemble player who, outside of “The Morning Show,” produces his own acclaimed work across indie film and TV, Duplass said the key to the series lies in the creators’ ability to mix timely issues and melodrama to allow the all-star cast to bring the material to another level.

“I like to think of it as really expensive, artisanal, organic soap,” Duplass said of the show’s larger-than-life, occasionally histrionic tone. “We have embraced the gloss and the scale of the show. And that has brought the show to a massive audience. And then as they tackle more controversial issues, to have women like Reese and Jen with all the trappings of that soap, with that wardrobe, with that lighting, with that snappy dialogue, that’s big. I really appreciate the show’s ability to navigate that. I think the soap helps the delivery mechanism.”

With production on Season 4 of “The Morning Show” underway between New York and Los Angeles as the presidential election looms, the series has plenty of material to tackle substantive issues from real life, all for its well-honed cast to play with.

A version of this story first ran in the Down to the Wire Drama Series issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine. Read more from the Down to the Wire Drama Series issue here .

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