Apple Continues to Rack up Nominations for ‘The Morning Show’ Before the First Season Has Even Ended

Apple’s The Morning Show is continuing to receive more award nominations, with the announcement this week that it’s also been tagged as a potential recipient of several Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards for three members of its star-studded cast.

Steve Carell and Billy Crudup have both been nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series, while Jennifer Aniston gets the nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series. Reese Witherspoon, who plays the other powerful female lead, didn’t make the cut for this one, although she was nominated for a Golden Globe award in the same category earlier this week.

Among the five nominations in the Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor category, Steve Carell and Billy Crudup will be competing against each other, along with Sterling K. Brown of This is Us, Peter Dinklage of Game of Thrones, and David Harbour of Stranger Things. What’s particularly interesting is that many of these actors play in supporting roles, and in fact Billy Crudup was nominated for a Critics Choice award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series earlier this month. The Screen Actors Guild, however, doesn’t normally recognize lead actors in television shows in its awards; “Leading Role” awards are only given for feature films.

For Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor, Jennifer Aniston, who also executive produces The Morning Show, will be up against Helena Bonham Carter and Olivia Colman of Netflix’s The Crown, Jodie Comer of Killing Eve (BBC America), and Elisabeth Moss of Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale.

Early Recognition

The SAG Awards are decided on by the Screen Actors Guild members and are viewed as one of the major awards events in Hollywood, and while Apple is up against some pretty serious competition from more established shows, even being nominated is a huge win for Apple’s and its television ambitions, especially when you consider that The Morning Show has only been “on the air” for about six weeks.

By contrast, the next newest show in the running, Killing Eve, wrapped up its second season last spring, while others like The Crown and The Handmaid’s Tale have already started production on their fourth seasons. So needless to say that it’s pretty unusual to see a series nominated for prestigious awards like this before it’s even finished its first season run, and it speaks to both the quality and star power behind The Morning Show.

As we heard earlier this week, The Morning Show has also received a Golden Globe nomination for the Best Television Series in the drama category, where it’s also up against The Crown and Killing Eve, along with HBO’s Big Little Lies and Succession. Both Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon have also been nominated for a Golden Globe award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Seriesin the drama category, again competing against Olivia Colman (The Crown) and Jodie Comer (Killing Eve), plus Nicole Kidman of Big Little Lies.

Although The Morning Show is the only series by Apple to have received any award nominations so far, the lack of nominations for Apple’s other headline shows like Dickinson, See, and For All Mankind shouldn’t automatically be seen as a negative mark against those shows — it’s actually really surprising that any of Apple’s TV shows have gotten this kind of extremely early recognition.

The SAG Awards are scheduled to be held on Sunday, January 19, 2020.