Emmys 2026 Supporting Actress In A Drama Dream Nominees: Our 8 Favorites

The Emmys’ Supporting Actress in a Drama category is about to get a whole lotta new blood.

With HBO’s “The White Lotus” out of the running this year, a whopping four spots are now available come July 8. We expect to see at least a couple of ensemble members from HBO Max’s “The Pitt” in the mix — and indeed, two “Pitt” actresses have scored spots on our Dream Emmy ballot, including Season 2 addition Sepideh Moafi (aka new attending Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi).

Scroll down to check out all of our Dream Nominees for Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (remember, these aren’t predictions; they’re wish lists) and then tell us if our picks warrant a “Heck, yes!,” “Um, no,” or “How could you leave off so-and-so?!”

For the record, 2026 Emmy nominations will be voted on from June 11-22, and unveiled on July 8. The 78th Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony is scheduled to air on Monday, Sept. 14, on NBC.

WHY SHE DESERVES A NOD: Yasmin Kara-Hanani could easily be painted as a black-and-white villain, a woman so obsessed with self-worth and status that she ignores morality to keep her seat at the table. But thanks to Abela, we still want to root for the character despite her ugly ways (she’s in bed with extremists and uses minors as bait to get leverage over powerful men). Just when we thought we’d had enough, Abela’s last Season 4 scene hit like a wrecking ball: Yas sunk to the floor while listening to her abusive father’s old voicemail on repeat. Thanks to her cascading tears and the actress’ raw portrayal of her character’s scars, we can’t help but keep hope alive. Perhaps there’s some humanity left in Yas, after all. — Nick Caruso

WHY SHE DESERVES A NOD: Halliday is a relative newcomer to showbiz, but you’d never know it from the way she grabbed and held our attention in the “Handmaid’s Tale” spin-off. Her character, Daisy, had a lot of ground to cover in the Hulu series’ first season: the death of her parents, whom she learned had adopted her; the decision to become an undercover operative for a rebel group; the realization that life in Gilead carried sure and immediate danger. But Halliday has such a natural and winning way about her in the role that all of those beats weren’t just believable, they were compelling. Halliday’s spunky fire was perfect for Daisy, a character who may not be June’s biological daughter, but is certainly her spiritual heir. — Kimberly Roots

WHY SHE DESERVES A NOD: As Dana returned to work following her assault, LaNasa spent Season 2 portraying a woman determined to suppress just how deeply traumatized she remained. Whether Dana was comforting sexual assault survivors, protecting her nurses with full Mama Bear intensity, or locking horns with Robby — who was equally committed to denying what plagued him — LaNasa delivered career-best work filled with fury, exhaustion, vulnerability, and fear. And in the moments where Dana’s composure finally began to crack, LaNasa revealed the staggering emotional toll of trying to appear unfazed while slowly buckling beneath the surface. — Ryan Schwartz

WHY SHE DESERVES A NOD: Introduced as a hyper-efficient outsider obsessed with reform and A.I.-driven medicine, Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi initially felt designed to clash with the culture of PTMC at every turn. But once the truth about the temporal lobe seizures she’d been hiding came into focus, Moafi revealed the fear and vulnerability beneath the character’s carefully maintained composure. And in the finale, as Robby challenged Baran’s competency, Moafi more than held her own opposite Noah Wyle before delivering devastating work in a final, wordless scene where Baran put her car in park and allowed the emotional weight of her condition — and what it could mean for the future of her career — to wash over her. — R.S.

WHY SHE DESERVES A NOD: Drama series often delve into villains’ origin stories to deleterious effect: The character becomes less scary while their motivations become more important than the havoc wreaked. Not so in the Hulu drama, where Nicholson expertly maintained Sinatra’s badassery even while playing the character’s delusional, grief-fueled hope. In the show’s sophomore run, Nicholson imbued her character with a punishing drive that didn’t seem to care who it hurt — Sinatra included. But the actress is so deft that, as Sinatra literally tried to bend time to her will, we wound up kinda wanting that for her, too. — K.R.

WHY SHE DESERVES A NOD: We’d been jonesing for something meaty for Mia Jordan and the woman who plays her, and Season 4 of the Apple TV drama delivered as Mia’s long-simmering frustration with UBN’s leadership boiled over when she went out for an executive position. The character, by nature, is always pragmatic and sometimes cynical — toughened by years in TV news production — but Pittman gave us glimpses of Mia’s deeply held optimism that she might be the network’s next boss. She made Mia’s conviction and commitment to journalism into a beacon, which in turn made the character’s eventual and bitter defeat that much harder to stomach. Choking back tears of betrayal and hurt, Pittman was on fire as she pulled Mia back together yet again and announced her resignation — a baller move, pulled off in triumphant fashion by an actress at the top of her craft. — K.R.

WHY SHE DESERVES A NOD: We might have come to Derry for more of Bill Skarsgård’s devilish Pennywise, but we stayed for the HBO series’ enormously talented cast of youngsters, including Stack as the sweet and terrified Lilly Bainbridge. The traumas just kept piling on for poor Lilly, who — among other horrors — witnessed her friends’ gruesome movie-theater murder and was haunted by twisted images of her father’s untimely death. In turn, Stack’s performance was one of whole-hearted sincerity, her face communicating genuine terror and heartache at the evil events taking hold of her life. And when it came time for Lilly & Co. to become heroes in the fight against Pennywise, Stack reinforced her character with a convincing dose of chutzpah: This was a girl still desperately afraid, but resolute in the face of a sewer-dwelling nightmare. — Rebecca Luther

WHY SHE DESERVES A NOD: As ever-cheerful hive mind handler Zosia on Apple TV’s sci-fi series, it couldn’t have been easy for Wydra to display even a shred of individuality. (She had to represent the collective consciousness of seven billion people, after all.) But Wydra not only played the role of luxury concierge with a smile, catering to a grumpy Carol’s every whim with robotic efficiency, she also gave us the occasional glimpse at Zosia’s former self, like when she vividly recalled the sweet taste of mango ice cream she enjoyed as a child. In many ways, Zosia is the villain of the story, trying to seduce Carol into complying with the alien collective. But Wydra brought such texture and nuance to the role that we found ourselves rooting for Zosia to snap out of it and join Carol in the rebellion. — Dave Nemetz

Scroll down for links to our previous Dream Emmy categories:

Outstanding Drama Series — Our Dream Nominees
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series — Our Dream Nominees
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series — Our Dream Nominees