The AACTA Award for Best Guest or Supporting Actress in a Television Drama is an accolade given by the

Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) is a professional organisation of film and television practitioners in Australia. The Academy's aim is "to identify, award, promote, and celebrate Australia's greatest achievements i ...

(AACTA), a non-profit organisation whose aim is to "identify, award, promote and celebrate Australia's greatest achievements in film and television." The award is handed out at the annual

AACTA Awards The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards, known as the AACTA Awards, are presented annually by the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA). The awards recognise excellence in the film and television industr ...

, which rewards achievements in

feature film A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

documentaries A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in term ...

and

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

s. From 2000 to 2010, the category was presented by the Australian Film Institute (AFI), the Academy's parent organisation, at the annual Australian Film Institute Awards (known as the AFI Awards). When the AFI launched the Academy in 2011, it changed the annual ceremony to the AACTA Awards, with the current prize being a continuum of the AFI Award for Best Guest or Supporting Actress in a Television Drama. The award was first presented in 2000 as Best Performance by an Actress in a Guest Role in a Television Drama Series until 2002, when the title was changed to Best Guest or Supporting Actress in a Television Drama. In the following year, the title was changed to Best Actress in a Supporting or Guest Role in a Television Drama or Comedy. By 2006, a separate comedy accolade was established, and the name changed to the current one. The AACTA Award for Best Guest or Supporting Actress in a Television Drama is given for performances in television

drama series In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-ge ...

, miniseries, telefeature, children's animation or children's drama series. Candidates for this award must be human and female, and cannot be nominated for best lead actress in a television drama in the same year, for the same production.

Sacha Horler Sacha Horler (born 1971) is an Australian actress. Her parents were lawyers, but co-founded Sydney's Nimrod Theatre Company in the early 1970s. Career Sacha Horler graduated from Sydney's National Institute of Dramatic Arts in 1993 and made ...

and

Magda Szubanski Magdalene Mary Therese Szubanski ( ; born 12 April 1961) is an Australian comedy actress, author, singer and LGBT rights advocate. She performed in ''Fast Forward'', '' Kath & Kim'' as Sharon Strzelecki and in the films ''Babe'' (1995) and ' ...

have received two nominations each, more than any other actress in this category, with Szubanski winning one in 2000.

Winners and nominees

In the following table, the years listed correspond to the year that the television programme aired on Australian television; the ceremonies are usually held the following year. The actress whose name is emphasised in boldface and highlighted in yellow have won the award. Those that are neither highlighted nor in bold are the nominees. When sorted chronologically, the table always lists the winning actress first and then the other nominees.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Guest Role in a Television Drama Series

Best Actress in a Supporting or Guest Role in a Television Drama

Best Actress in a Supporting or Guest Role in a Television Drama or Comedy

Best Guest or Supporting Actress in Television Drama

Notes

:B: Natalia Novikova is currently known as Natasha Novak, but was credited under the aforementioned name in ''

SeaChange ''SeaChange'' is an Australian television program that ran from 1998 to 2000 on the ABC and in 2019 on the Nine Network. It was created by Andrew Knight and Deborah Cox and starred Sigrid Thornton, David Wenham, William McInnes, John Howar ...

''.

References

{{Australian Film Institute Awards AACTA Awards Television awards for Best Supporting Actress