Ron Howard Earns His First-Ever Acting Nomination at the 2025 Emmys for Guest Starring Role as Himself in “The Studio”

Seth Rogen's Apple TV+ comedy series earned a whopping 23 nominations total, with six of them coming from the guest star category

NEED TO KNOW

  • The Studio had an impressive showing at the 2025 Emmy Awards nominations
  • The Seth Rogen-led comedy series earned a whopping 23 nominations this year, including six nods in the guest star categories
  • Ron Howard was among the nominees and it marks his first-ever acting nomination

The Studio made a splash amongst the list of nominees for the 2025 Emmy Awards, and even Ron Howard made the list in an acting category.

On Tuesday, July 15, Brenda Song and Harvey Guillén announced this year's nominations and the Seth Rogen-helmed Apple TV+ comedy series earned a whopping 23 nominations.

Among those are nominations for Rogen himself for outstanding lead actor in a comedy series, as well as his costars Kathryn Hahn and Catherine O'Hara for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series. Ike Barinholtz also scored a nomination in the outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series category.

The series' penchant for bringing in A-list stars to play fictionalized versions of themselves proved to pay off, too, as six nominations were earned from guest star appearances.

Howard — who began his career in Hollywood as a child star and famously played Richie Cunningham on Happy Days — earned his first-ever Emmy nomination for acting. His performance in The Studio garnered him a nod for outstanding guest actor in a comedy series. The nomination is the acclaimed director's 14th ever at the Emmys, and he has won three times — for the documentary Jim Henson Idea Man last year, Arrested Development in 2004, and From The Earth To The Moon in 1998.

Apple TV+ Ron Howard, Anthony Mackie, Chase Sui Wonders, Seth Rogen and Catherine O'Hara in "The Studio"

The other guest stars from The Studio joining him in the category are: Dave Franco, Martin Scorsese, Bryan Cranston and Anthony Mackie.

Mackie, 46, and Howard, 71, overlapped in episode 3 as they worked together on the fictional film Alphabet City, which Franco also "starred" in.

During the episode, Howard broke down crying during a meeting with Rogen's studio head Matt Remick over his critique of the film — and things really crashed and burned when Rogen fell into and destroyed a bar cart after Howard threw his signature baseball hat at him in anger.

Rogen praised the legendary director for being "so game" and up for anything in his cameo.

Rogen, who co-created the series with Evan Goldberg, told PEOPLE that the director was "so game and so good and really tried so hard" during his days on set.

"[He] worked really hard on the performance and the role and yeah, he was very impressive," he recalled.

Apple TV+ Seth Rogen and Ron Howard in "The Studio"

Howard also brought some of his own ideas to the scenes, Rogen shared.

"It was his idea to throw his patented Imagine hat at me, which I thought was a true stroke of genius," Rogen said. "For him to weaponize his trademark look was a really miraculously funny idea."

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The Studio is now streaming on Apple TV+. The 77th Emmy Awards will air live on Sunday, Sept. 14 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on ABC.

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