Branden Jacobs Jenkins on the Importance of the Play 'Purpose' | Tony Awards 2025 - video Dailymotion

The Hollywood Reporter

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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00:00Congratulations on all the success for Purpose.

00:03How does it feel to kind of, you know, be here representing this show?

00:07Amazing. I mean, I'm here with five of my actors.

00:09You know, it's a little story that started in Chicago last year.

00:12We really feel like a family, so it feels like a family affair.

00:15I'm just really moved. I'm so moved to be here again.

00:17I really, if you asked me last year if I'd be back at the Tonys,

00:21I would have called the cops, right? So it's good.

00:24Why is it so important that people see Purpose

00:26and it be a part of this Broadway season?

00:28Gosh. I mean, for me, Purpose is a family story

00:31that's trying to transcend to be about the universal.

00:34I think if there's one lesson for me that I want people to take away from,

00:37it's the absolute inappropriateness of shame inside the family, you know.

00:41It's a play that's really trying to, like, connect people.

00:42And I'm very moved that people are bringing back,

00:44coming back with their moms or coming back with their cousins.

00:47You know, it really is about sort of taking stock of the community

00:49immediately around you and figuring out how to love deeper and better.

00:53Sure. And a lot of people have been calling this theater season

00:56special and thrilling, especially more than others.

00:59Why do you think that is?

01:00I think, well, just the diversity of offerings is wild.

01:03I mean, between myself, O'Mary, John Proctor is a villain,

01:06English is Closed, Yellow Faced, every show has been so different.

01:10Each cast is more stellar than the last.

01:12It's been, and even, like, celebrities are turning crazy performances out.

01:15Usually celebrities show up and just, like, park themselves.

01:17But if you see Sarah Snook, and, I mean, she's all over the place.

01:20Like, it's a really, I mean, especially after the post-COVID years,

01:24it does feel like we're kind of back and alive in a different way.

01:27Yeah.

01:27As far as your fellow nominees, I know you've brushed shoulders with a lot of them

01:31in the past few weeks and months.

01:32Is there someone that you have yet to talk to or congratulate here tonight

01:35that you're really looking forward to seeing?

01:37I mean, the truth is I have been in everyone's faces at all these events.

01:41I love that.

01:41Yeah, I mean, I guess, God, that's a great question, actually.

01:46I've not actually said congratulations to George Clooney.

01:49I think he really needs it.

01:51Yeah.

01:51That guy is working really hard.

01:53Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:53I love that.

01:54And outside of your own, of course, what is one production this season

01:58that you have truly been wowed by?

01:59Oh, my God, Sunset Boulevard.

02:01I went back on Thursday night, and it is an incredible piece of theater.

02:05Nicole Scherzinger's performance is, will be talked about for ages.

02:10It is an amazing, run, don't, literally run, don't walk,

02:13because I think they're not going to, they only send it through July.

02:16It's an incredible piece of theater.

02:17Very, very happy to be back.

02:18I've seen it twice, yeah.

Branden Jacobs Jenkins on the Importance of the Play 'Purpose' | Tony Awards 2025

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