Beyond the Gates Takes Four Emmys as All Five Soaps Win

Four awards for a first-year soap. That's the headline number from the 2027 Daytime Emmys, where Beyond the Gates converted its record 15 nominations — the most ever for a soap in its first year of Emmy eligibility — into four statuettes, including Best Lead Actress for Tamara Tunie. Every one of the five nominated soaps went home a winner Friday night at the Hollywood Palladium.

The previous first-year benchmark belonged to The Bold and the Beautiful, which earned six nominations in 1988 and won three, all in Creative Arts categories. Beyond the Gates smashed that record and closed the gap between nomination count and hardware.

Who won the acting races?

Tunie won Best Lead Actress for her role as Anita Dupree, submitting scenes from Anita's breast cancer story. "It's been incredible to have more than two Black actors on a show," Tunie told Gold Derby on the red carpet. "We're able to tell many stories and delve into different issues and situations."

Beth Maitland won Best Supporting Actress for Traci Abbott on The Young and the Restless — her second Emmy for the same role, 41 years after her first in 1985. "It is a representation of the feeling of relevance," she said. "You can still be seen and heard."

Scott Clifton took Best Lead Actor for Liam on The Bold and the Beautiful. He has actually won five Emmys but owns only four statuettes. His first, for Best Younger Actor in 2011, rattled. NATAS (the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, which administers the Daytime Emmys) sent a replacement and promised a return box for the defective award. The box never came. "The [first Emmy] is sitting in my attic, gathering dust," Clifton said.

How did the reel rules shape the race?

Clifton's storyline aired in the first half of 2025, but actors submit reels from the full eligibility period the following year, so timing within the window doesn't determine eligibility. "Daytime protects us," Clifton said, contrasting that with films released just after the Oscars.

The rules cap submissions at 15 minutes. Clifton used roughly half. "I wanted to keep it under eight minutes," he said. His reel covered Liam's "fatal" brain tumor diagnosis, his collapse in scenes with his father Bill (Don Diamont), and Liam and Hope (Annika Noelle) admitting they both know he is dying.

Death storylines carried the writing and directing categories too:

• General Hospital's writing team won for episodes on the death of Monica (the late Leslie Charleson), and the show took its sixth consecutive Best Daytime Drama Series award.
• Days of Our Lives' directing team won for the memorial episodes for John Black (the late Drake Hogestyn), ending the General Hospital directors' six-year winning streak.

"What you saw was also a real-life celebration of [Drake's] life," said co-executive producer and director Noel Maxam, who noted his wife Abby and Hogestyn both died of pancreatic cancer. He also teased what's ahead: "We have introduced, I think, one of the greatest supervillains to ever hit daytime."

What about the craft and lifetime honors?

General Hospital casting director Mark Teschner won his 12th Emmy for Best Casting. His reel featured 15 actors new to Port Charles in 2025, opening with Erika Slezak (ex-Viki, One Life to Live), plus Rory Gibson, Carlo Rota and Chris McKenna. "This cast is amazing," Teschner said.

Genie Francis received the Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by her husband, Jonathan Frakes (Star Trek: The Next Generation). Francis won Best Supporting Actress in 2007. The tribute covered Laura Spencer plus her roles on Days of Our Lives, All My Children, The Young and the Restless and North and South. Jonathan Jackson, Mary Beth Evans and Parker Stevenson sent tributes, and the package included early scenes with her late TV mother, Denise Alexander.

Frakes recalled Anthony Geary's 1982 acceptance speech: "Genie Francis! Half of this is yours!" Francis admitted the tributes caught her off guard. "It got to me," she said.

Ambyr Michelle became Beyond the Gates' first acting winner, taking Best Emerging Talent for Eva Thomas. "I don't just see an award. I see every audition, every rejection, every promise fulfilled," she said. Backstage, she added: "I want the show to go on for 100-plus years. I feel like this is just the start."

One scheduling note: the ceremony landed in late October, honoring programming from the previous calendar year — late by some fans' reckoning, but mild at 71 degrees, a relief after summer's sweltering Pasadena heat.