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Branden Jacobs Jenkins on the Importance of the Play 'Purpose' | Tony Awards 2025
The Hollywood Reporter
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6/9/2025
Branden Jacobs Jenkins chats with THR at the 2025 Tony Awards and shares why it's important for people to see Purpose and why it's important for it to be represented in this Broadway season.
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00:00
Congratulations on all the success for Purpose.
00:03
How does it feel to kind of, you know, be here representing this show?
00:07
Amazing. I mean, I'm here with five of my actors.
00:09
You know, it's a little story that started in Chicago last year.
00:12
We really feel like a family, so it feels like a family affair.
00:15
I'm just really moved. I'm so moved to be here again.
00:17
I really, if you asked me last year if I'd be back at the Tonys,
00:21
I would have called the cops, right? So it's good.
00:24
Why is it so important that people see Purpose
00:26
and it be a part of this Broadway season?
00:28
Gosh. I mean, for me, Purpose is a family story
00:31
that's trying to transcend to be about the universal.
00:34
I think if there's one lesson for me that I want people to take away from,
00:37
it's the absolute inappropriateness of shame inside the family, you know.
00:41
It's a play that's really trying to, like, connect people.
00:42
And I'm very moved that people are bringing back,
00:44
coming back with their moms or coming back with their cousins.
00:47
You know, it really is about sort of taking stock of the community
00:49
immediately around you and figuring out how to love deeper and better.
00:53
Sure. And a lot of people have been calling this theater season
00:56
special and thrilling, especially more than others.
00:59
Why do you think that is?
01:00
I think, well, just the diversity of offerings is wild.
01:03
I mean, between myself, O'Mary, John Proctor is a villain,
01:06
English is Closed, Yellow Faced, every show has been so different.
01:10
Each cast is more stellar than the last.
01:12
It's been, and even, like, celebrities are turning crazy performances out.
01:15
Usually celebrities show up and just, like, park themselves.
01:17
But if you see Sarah Snook, and, I mean, she's all over the place.
01:20
Like, it's a really, I mean, especially after the post-COVID years,
01:24
it does feel like we're kind of back and alive in a different way.
01:27
Yeah.
01:27
As far as your fellow nominees, I know you've brushed shoulders with a lot of them
01:31
in the past few weeks and months.
01:32
Is there someone that you have yet to talk to or congratulate here tonight
01:35
that you're really looking forward to seeing?
01:37
I mean, the truth is I have been in everyone's faces at all these events.
01:41
I love that.
01:41
Yeah, I mean, I guess, God, that's a great question, actually.
01:46
I've not actually said congratulations to George Clooney.
01:49
I think he really needs it.
01:51
Yeah.
01:51
That guy is working really hard.
01:53
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:53
I love that.
01:54
And outside of your own, of course, what is one production this season
01:58
that you have truly been wowed by?
01:59
Oh, my God, Sunset Boulevard.
02:01
I went back on Thursday night, and it is an incredible piece of theater.
02:05
Nicole Scherzinger's performance is, will be talked about for ages.
02:10
It is an amazing, run, don't, literally run, don't walk,
02:13
because I think they're not going to, they only send it through July.
02:16
It's an incredible piece of theater.
02:17
Very, very happy to be back.
02:18
I've seen it twice, yeah.
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1:16
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