Jodie Comer poses within the press room throughout The 76th Annual Tony Awards.
Cindy Ord/Getty Photographs for Tony Awards Professional
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Cindy Ord/Getty Photographs for Tony Awards Professional
Jodie Comer poses within the press room throughout The 76th Annual Tony Awards.
Cindy Ord/Getty Photographs for Tony Awards Professional
It is protected to say that choosing up the Tony for greatest lead actress in a play isn’t a case of newbie’s luck.
Who’s she? The 30-year-old British actress who hails from Liverpool is greatest identified for her performances on display, starring in reveals like Killing Eve, My Mad Fats Diary, and films like Free Man and The Final Duel.
- She’s greatest identified for her function in Killing Eve, the place she performs a lethal murderer named Villanelle.
- In April, she took to Broadway to carry out the lead function in Suzie Miller’s critically acclaimed drama, Prima Facie. This was after a stint in London final 12 months, performing the identical function.
What is the large deal? Comer’s one-woman depiction of Tessa, a lawyer defending males accused of sexual assault, was her first ever efficiency on an expert stage.
- The story follows Tessa, extremely profitable in her discipline and protection of her purchasers, as she herself turns into a sufferer of sexual assault.
- Comer obtained excessive reward throughout, for a efficiency that critics referred to as a tour de power
- Plus, competitors was fierce this 12 months, as Comer was up towards Jessica Chastain in her much-buzzed-about efficiency in A Doll’s House, in addition to different seasoned actors like Jessica Hecht and Audra McDonald.
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What’s she saying?
Here is a few of Comer’s acceptance speech on the awards Sunday evening:
I wish to thank Justin Martin, my director, for his relentless pursuit for discovery and for instilling in me a belief inside myself, continuously reminding me to belief myself.
She additionally thanked the playwright behind Prima Facie:
This girl and this play has been my best instructor, and I’ve to thank Suzie Miller for that, who wrote this magnificent piece. With out her, my efficiency wouldn’t be right here, so this feels simply as a lot Suzie’s as it’s mine.
Plus, Comer spoke with NPR’s Juana Summers again in April forward of her Broadway debut. Listed here are some highlights from that dialog:
On the bodily expertise of appearing within the play:
It was undoubtedly a problem. Nevertheless it was additionally unbelievable. I feel it actually fed into this incontrovertible fact that Tessa was in charge of each ingredient of this storytelling.
And that was what actually struck me after I first learn the piece. You realize, I might explored materials earlier than that offers with sexual assault, but it surely was by no means informed on this method. And I felt like she had a lot management over the narrative.
On portraying intense moments inside the story:
I at all times keep in mind that a part of the play — you actually really feel your complete viewers holding their breath. Like, I am at all times struck in that second by the silence within the room. What I liked about it and what I’ll say and what I take into consideration, once more, the facility of the play is that you do not see the perpetrator.
You do not see Julian. You do not see the bodily assault happen. Nevertheless it’s all about language and stillness and her telling you what it’s that she’s experiencing. You realize, it is extremely intimate and exposing. And I feel the way in which wherein the assault is depicted may be very uncommon. And I feel in a means, that is what makes it all of the extra highly effective.
So, what now?
- Comer will proceed her function in Prima Facie by July 2.
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