The No. 1 boy is on top once again.
Jeremy Strong took home his first Tony award Sunday night, winning the Best Actor in a Play Tony for his role as Doctor Thomas Stockmann in “An Enemy of the People.” The play — originally produced in the 1880s — centers on a whistleblower who discovers that there is poison in the town’s water supply. His brother (Michael Imperioli) and the town want him to be quiet lest he hurt the burgeoning local economy. Needless to say, there are plenty of current real-world parallels about truth tellers, science, and health vs economy issues.
“I want to thank the ushers and the front of house staff who see me walking in every day looking like I’ve just been run over by a truck, and see me walk out somehow looking even worse,” Strong joked in his acceptance speech. “Sam [Gold] and Amy [Herzog], you guys, thank you. This is crazy. Sam, thank you for being everything an actor could hope for and a director and for bringing new meaning to the term ‘Ice Bucket Challenge.’ Amy, for your masterful work on this play. The last time I did a play of yours I met Emma, my wife, who I now have three beautiful children with. And now … real quick. This play is a cry from the heart and the next rotation to face up to the difficult truths that are staring us all down right now. It’s been a privilege to give its warning and its hope to audiences. … Mom and Dad, thank you for allowing me to imagine.”
Strong’s reference to the ‘Ice Bucket Challenge’ comes later in the show, when local townspeople are furious at Strong’s character for speaking the truth and literally pour buckets of ice on him. Naturally, the Method Actor fan apparently went through with that brutal bath each evening.
“A bitter satire of local politics that soon reveals itself as a slow-boil tragedy of human complacency,” The New York Times wrote in its review. “Its characters, too, are contemporary: doppelgängers of our own vicious demagogues, cowed editors, greasy both-sides-ists and defanged idealists. More than once, I thought Strong must have modeled his spectacularly accurate yet non-showy performance on Dr. Anthony Fauci, the embattled former infectious disease expert, including not just his messianic faith in science but also his barely mastered disdain, social weirdness and haircut.”
This is the first Tony win for Strong. He won an Emmy for his leading role as Kendall Roy in HBO’s “Succession,” among other honors, which wrapped its four-season critically acclaimed run in 2023. For his role in “An Enemy of the People,” Strong was also nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award and a Drama League Award.
Strong made his Broadway debut in 2008 in “A Man for All Seasons.” Post-“Succession,” Strong most notably portrayed Roy Cohn in “The Apprentice,” a film about Donald Trump’s early days co-starring Sebastian Stan, that premiered at Cannes in May 2024.
Check out other Broadway highlights of the season.
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