No Show Dominated the SAG Awards in the Early ’90s Like ER
Five-time Emmy winner The Pitt has earned three Golden Globe nominations and is a frontrunner for January’s Actor Awards presented by SAG-AFTRA, just as its predecessor ER did. The NBC series, in which Noah Wyle also played a physician, was the first medical drama to win SAG’s outstanding ensemble in a drama series award.
No series captured the early SAG Awards era the way ER did. The NBC juggernaut captured four straight wins for best ensemble in a drama series (1996–1999), along with four individual wins during that period — two for Anthony Edwards, who led the cast as Dr. Mark Greene, and two for Julianna Margulies, who portrayed head nurse Carol Hathaway.
The show stood out as a cornerstone of NBC’s Must-See TV lineup, helping propel George Clooney (pediatric resident Dr. Doug Ross) to A-list status and launching Noah Wyle’s career as a medical student, John Carter. The ensemble also featured stars such as Edwards, Margulies, Eriq La Salle, Gloria Reuben, Laura Innes, Sherry Stringfield, Alex Kingston, Maria Bello, and others.
Perhaps the strongest evidence of ER’s four-year SAG Awards dominance lies in the competition it faced. In its third straight triumph, in 1998, ER defeated Chicago Hope, Law & Order, NYPD Blue, and The X-Files, all regarded as top-tier 1990s television dramas.
THR noted in 1998 that, upon winning, “Wyle said the SAG award was ‘tailor-made’ for the cast of the Warner Bros. TV drama. ‘It’s the only award given to actors from actors. It’s a testament to the whole, which is really what our show is about.’”
Throughout its run, the series would receive three additional nominations for the drama ensemble trophy, tying it with The Sopranos and Game of Thrones for the second-most nominations in SAG history, behind Law & Order.
This story originally appeared in a standalone December issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To subscribe to the magazine, visit https://subscribe.hollywoodreporter.com/sub/?p=THR&f=saleb&s=IH1402HR20.
