#Will ‘Y&R’s Jason Thompson Nab His First Win at the 2020 Daytime Emmys?

Preview Sonja Flemming/CBS

The trophyfest celebrating the best in daytime TV, from The Kelly Clarkson Show to Jeopardy!, comes with firsts galore for 2020.

This is the show’s first time airing on a broadcast network (versus cable or streaming online) since 2011. The two-hour ceremony is the first virtual one, with nominees and special guests all scattered instead of in one glittering auditorium due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And Jason Thompson nabs his first nomination since he began playing The Young and the Restless‘ troubled Billy Abbott in 2016. (Also in the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series category: Days of Our Lives‘ Thaao Penghlis, General Hospital‘s Jon Lindstrom and Steve Burton and The Bold and the Beautiful‘s Thorsten Kaye.)

Thompson (above) has five nods under his belt for portraying GH‘s Dr. Patrick Drake from 2011 to 2015. Could No. 6 be the win? History has been kind to the Y&R character, whom Thompson describes as “damaged, full of vulnerabilities [but also full of] excitement and vitality.” In fact, four Emmy statuettes have gone to two previous Billys, David Tom (in 2000) and Billy Miller (2010, 2013, 2014).

A rich emotional storyline should also work in Thompson’s favor. Billy lost his 7-year-old daughter in 2013, but old wounds were reopened when devious Adam Newman (Mark Grossman)—the man driving the car that struck the little girl—returned to town. “Billy thought he was over certain things, but we all have those triggers,” Thompson explains.

As for the Daytime Emmys, awards shows—even the virtual kind—are “never not nerve-racking,” he adds, and while he waits to see if his name is called, he’s also itching to get back to work. (The soap shut down in mid-March.) “I really miss Billy,” Thompson says, “and there are so many people I can’t wait to see again.”

47th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards, Friday, June 26, 8/7c, CBS