Billy Crudup has been knocking it out of the park with his Emmy Award-winning performance on The Morning Show, and while costars Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon are pleased for him, it’s becoming a problem for bosses.
“The Emmys were a happy event for The Morning Show team because of the sheer number of nominations they got and because they are firmly in the prestige drama conversation going forward,” a show insider exclusively tells In Touch. “People take the show seriously.”
Overall, the show — which stars Jennifer, 55, and Reese, 48, as journalists Alex Levy and Bradley Jackson, respectively — was nominated for 27 Primetime Emmy Awards. Billy, 56, has won two Emmys for his performance as scheming news division head Cory Ellison on the Apple TV+ hit.
While it’s “huge for Reese and Jen” that the show has received so much love, the source says “it’s still a little weird that the biggest awards draw for the whole series — the one contributor who actually converts his nominations into wins — is Billy.”
The insider adds, “The show is supposed to be about women in a high-pressure, challenging workplace, and the breakout character is one of the only white males in the cast?”
This season, Jennifer and Reese were both nominated for the coveted Outstanding Lead actress award, but they lost to Shogun‘s Anna Sawai.
The Morning Show also scored Emmys for hair and makeup, but Billy was the standout winner, which has been a hard pill to swallow for the executive producers and stars, especially since Jennifer has been down this road before.
The actress finally won her long-awaited Emmy for Friends in 2002 after eight seasons and five nominations.
“To Jen’s credit, she is a patient person about the whole awards process and has already been through this to some extent with Friends — it was a long wait before Jen finally won her first Emmy for that show, and she understands that these awards organizations are sometimes slow to come around,” the insider says. “With that being said, Jen and Reese would both like to win Emmys at some point for this show and will probably keep making it until they do.”
Adds the source, “It’s just been a little frustrating to see Billy be the one who actually scores the touchdown every time while Reese and Jen are stuck cheering on the sidelines. It’s inherently not what they set out to do when they put this show together in the first place.”
After the show received 16 Emmy nominations for the third season, Jennifer was thrilled. In fact, a source told Life & Style in August that she loves being an executive producer on the show.
“Jen is once again in the position of being a little blown away by her own brilliance when it comes to this show,” the insider said. “Especially the incredible number of acting nominations Season 3 got — nine in total — because she is extremely involved in picking the actors who join the massive ensemble.”
“It’s just been a huge pat on the back and a big reversal from two years ago, when Jen was fighting tooth-and-nail just for the chance to do a third season,” the source added. “But now the show is a hit with both audiences and the TV Academy, and critics are catching onto it too.”
When reached by In Touch for comment, a rep for Jennifer Aniston said, “This is completely absurd and 100 percent fabricated.”
