Jenna Ortega & Pedro Pascal Make Emmy History For Latino Actors In Main Acting Categories

Jenna Ortega and Pedro Pascal are making Emmy history for Latino actors following their respective nominations in leading acting categories announced this morning for the 75th Annual Emmy Awards.

Jenna Ortega is nominated for lead actress in a comedy for her portrayal of Wednesday Addams in the Netflix hit series Wednesday Season 1. Ortega is the third Latina to ever be nominated in a leading actress category following Rita Moreno in 1983 for ABC’s 9 to 5 and America Ferrera for Ugly Betty in 2007.

Additionally, Wednesday was nominated for 12 awards including Outstanding Comedy Series where they will face off with Abbott Elementary, Barry, Jury Duty, Only Murders In The Building, Ted Lasso, The Bear and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Pedro Pascal is the first Latino nominated for best lead actor since 1999 when Jimmy Smits earned a nod for his portrayal of Bobby Simone on ABC’s NYPD Blue. Pascal stars as smuggler Joel Miller in HBO’s The Last of Us, based on the video game from Naughty Dog of the same name.

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Additionally, Pascal was nominated for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his hosting duties on Saturday Night Live and Outstanding Narrator for CNN’s Patagonia: Life On The Edge Of The World.

The Last of Us is also making history as the first live-action video game adaptation to be nominated in major categories including Best Drama Series—they earned a total of 24 nominations.

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Although Ortega and Pascal are making strides for Latino actors, the community remains severely underrepresented in Hollywood even as a recent SAMBA report revealed content featuring diverse casts is in demand.

One of the report’s key takeaways after examining viewing patterns for households of different ethnicities is that audiences are much more likely to engage with content where they see themselves represented. More specifically, the study found a positive correlation of 43% among households of diverse ethnicities watching programs with higher percentages of non-white stars.

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Samba reports that Black households saw the strongest correlation, with 67% watching programs with a higher percentage of Black leads. For Asian and Hispanic households, this correlation was lower, which Samba conjectures may be impacted by a more “sporadic” representation of these groups on screen.

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Noticeably omitted from nominations on Wednesday morning were Selena Gomez for her portrayal of true crime junkie Mabel on Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building and Diego Luna for his starring role in the Star Wars series Andor in which he portrays the titular character.

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Last year, The TV Academy also came up short in recognizing Latino and Hispanic performers, with Oscar Isaac (Lead Actor Limited/Anthology Series, Scenes of a Marriage) and Colman Domingo (Guest Actor Drama, Euphoria) being the only two nominees.

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