On Sunday night, he became the first Black actor to secure an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama series.
This Emmy Award is not Tillman’s sole pioneering achievement; in 2014, he was the first Black man to earn an MFA in acting from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Acting marked a career pivot for Tillman, who had been a pre-med student in college, pursuing a path to become an orthopedic surgeon.
Currently, he is recognized for a role in a show centered around a different kind of surgical procedure. In the acclaimed series Severance, Tillman plays a , where employees have implants that allow them to function as one identity at work and transform into an entirely different person outside of work.
This year, Tillman competed directly against another Severance co-star, Zach Cherry. Other Black actors nominated in this category in recent years include Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad), Jeffrey Wright (Westworld), and Greg Morris (Mission Impossible).
The 2025 Emmy win concludes an eventful year for Tillman, who also shared the screen with Tom Cruise in the summer blockbuster Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning.