That’s how much TV actor Jeff Kober spent on his self-funded campaign to get a Primetime Emmy nomination against big name stars including previous Emmy winners Bradley Whitford and Jeff Hiller, Oscar nominees Colman Domingo and Jonathan Pryce and his co-star from “The Pitt” Ernest Harden Jr.
At 72, Kober has mostly been a journeyman thespian and “General Hospital” regular, whose long list of credits include 57 episodes of ’80s hit “China Beach,” 18 episodes of “Sons of Anarchy,” and a bunch of guest roles on shows including “Highway to Heaven,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and the various editions of “NCISs” and “CSIs.” But these days, he has a lot to celebrate.
In the last week, he also scored a Daytime Emmy nod for a guest appearance on “General Hospital,” to add to his Primetime Emmy nod as motorcycle guru Duke on “The Pitt.” (He’s in good company: Chad Allen, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Tommy Lee Jones and Cynthia Nixon have also accomplished the feat of simultaneously having Daytime and Primetime Emmy noms.)
Kober wasn’t included in HBO’s batch of official Emmy submissions, so he self-submitted and campaigned on his own.
The star, who teaches meditation and exudes calm even via Zoom, tells us of his Zen approach: “It’s hard to be alive. Life is challenging. Meditation is the thing that makes it doable, because what meditation really does is allow you to open up to this deeper truth inside each of us.” (His chillness seems at odds with the frenetic pace of “The Pitt,” as he jokes that every doctor on the show could use some meditation lessons.)
“To be fair, the bet was only a 225-buck submission fee and a little work,” Kober tells Page Six Hollywood with a laugh. “But I knew that it was work that was going to get seen, and it was work that I stood behind and that I was happy with. It was just kind of a no-brainer to me. Coming from soaps, I self-submitted in that world. I don’t know if everyone does; I just know that I had to. So it was just kind of like, “Oh, okay, I’ll do it again!’”
Kober’s fellow “The Pitt” guest star Brittany Allen also scored a nod after self-submitting for her role as a cancer patient.
“All of us have to work at getting behind ourselves and supporting ourselves and offering ourselves the opportunity to have the biggest life we can have. If not now, when? I’m 72 years old!” Kober says. Besides, he adds, “I’m not doing anything else in September!”
After the nod, Kober says HBO did indeed reach out: “They sent me a lovely gift basket and cards that said they were happy I was part of the HBO family. Very nice.”
There’s no bad blood between Kober and HBO for not backing his awards push — he’d jump at the chance to return for another season. “I would be there today if they had a space for me. Of course, I would come back. I want to know what happens to Duke. And I want to finish up that conversation with Robby and see how he did out on the road,” Kober says. “There’s absolutely unfinished business there. When I inquired about that possibility, I was told to tell anyone, ‘Well, I’m still alive, so the possibility is still there.’”
Kober’s Daytime Emmy recognizes his surprise return to “General Hospital” in December 2025, where he appeared as the ghost of his former, deceased villain character Cyrus Renault, who he had played on the show since 2020.
“I have friends who have done the soap operas, and have run screaming from the room,” he says of acting on daytime TV. “It is such a challenge to do all those words. I did 55 pages in one day on ‘General Hospital.’ You wind yourself up and let it fly and hope for the best, and you have one time through.”
Kober’s now-nominated “The Pitt” performance saw him as the flannel-clad Duke who seems to be the only person who understands just how troubled Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle) is as he deals with suicidal ideation.
“Duke is someone who’s been through some darkness in his life, but has found a way to be useful anyway, and to live a fair, full life in spite of where he’s been and what he’s done. He probably comes from some 12-step background,” Kober says. “It’s not that you get over where you’ve been in life. It’s that you know that where you’ve been in life can be useful to someone else, and that’s clearly what Duke is doing there.”
“Those of us humans who have been in that place, or near that place … it’s seconds and inches. It’s like the weight of a feather on the scale: don’t do it today. Come back just one more day. I think it had an impact. In Dr. Robby’s dark night of the soul, it might be enough to just bring him back,” says the two-Emmy nominee.
Kober sees the humor in earning two nominations for hospital-set series that couldn’t be more different, and takes any soap snobbery in stride.
“Life is too short for anyone to put down the way anyone else is doing it. That’s to cover up some shortcoming they feel in themselves. Turn that lens around, brother,” he said.
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