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    How Jon Bernthal Became Hollywood’s Most Dependable Bruiser

    When Jon Bernthal was cast as a petty drug dealer in “The Wolf of Wall Street,” Martin Scorsese’s 2013 white-collar crime epic, the actor wasn’t even supposed to have many lines. But Bernthal went into that film intending to take his shot. So he came in for a wordless B-roll scene in which the script had him lifting weights in a backyard, asked the second-unit director to mic him and riffed for 45 minutes. Scorsese wasn’t there that day, but here’s what he saw in the footage: a shirtless Bernthal curling dumbbells, tormenting some teenage boys with a baseball bat and peacocking his virility. “Bring some of them chicks around here sometime,” he says. Then Bernthal makes a brilliant little decision about his tough guy’s whereabouts. “Hey, Ma, we got chicken or what?” he yells toward the house. “Ma!” There was no “Ma” in the script. No one even said he lived with his mother.The role introduced Bernthal as an excellent character actor. Since then, he has become the guy who shows up onscreen unexpectedly, delivers the most memorable performance in a scene or two and then vanishes. This is perhaps why he’s so often playing dead men in flashbacks. He’s the dramatic center of gravity in FX’s “The Bear,” appearing just once or twice per season as the deceased family patriarch, and the tragic romantic in the 2017 Taylor Sheridan film “Wind River.” Bernthal was so good in “The Accountant,” an improbable 2016 Ben Affleck-led movie about an autistic accountant turned gunslinger, that the filmmakers made this year’s sequel a two-hander.Bernthal has had leading roles too, most notably in “We Own This City,” the HBO miniseries about Baltimore police corruption in which the actor’s performance was criminally overlooked. But for the most part, he has carved out a career of supporting roles. So it made perfect sense when he told me that one of his favorite movies is “True Romance,” Tony Scott’s 1993 adaptation of Quentin Tarantino’s first script. Christian Slater may have been the lead, but it was the supporting characters played by Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt and Dennis Hopper who stole the film. “There are so many people who are in it for a scene or two,” Bernthal said, “but you could have made a movie about any one of those characters.”We were having breakfast in Ojai, Calif., where Bernthal lives. The previous day, he returned from New York where he was promoting “The Accountant 2.” Before that he was in Greece and Morocco, filming a role in “The Odyssey” with Christopher Nolan, which is perhaps the greatest honor that can be bestowed on a dramatic actor these days. In front of him was a pile of egg whites, spinach, fruit and gluten-free toast. “I’m like a gorilla,” he said. “I eat a lot.”Most actors, once they get lead roles, are advised to turn down anything smaller. But Bernthal is allergic to strategizing about how to become a leading man or listening to agents and managers who want to find him a “star vehicle.” The only real mistake he made in his career, he told me, happened because he let that sort of thinking get in his head. But he has switched agents since then. He knows he has become the guy who everyone calls for a favor, but then again “The Bear” was a favor. And that turned into one of the most rewarding experiences of Bernthal’s career. The intensity he brought to the role won him an Emmy, and now he has even co-written an episode in the upcoming season. “I can’t imagine deciding what you’re going to do in this super-tenuous field while being so dependent on some businessman’s strategy,” he said.Jon Bernthal, right, with Jeremy Allen White and Abby Elliott in the 2023 episode of “The Bear” that earned him an Emmy.Chuck Hodes/FX, via Everett CollectionWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    “Hamilton” Original Cast: Where Are They Now?

    Lin-Manuel Miranda and others reunited for a medley at the Tonys on Sunday, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the show’s opening.It has been nearly 10 years since the original cast of “Hamilton” hit Broadway, igniting an international frenzy and becoming the biggest phenomenon the Great White Way had seen in years.On Sunday, 28 members from that cast reunited on the Tonys stage to perform a whirlwind medley of the show’s biggest numbers. They performed portions of “Non-Stop,” “My Shot,” “The Schuyler Sisters,” “Guns and Ships,” “You’ll Be Back,” “Yorktown,” “The Room Where It Happens” and “History Has Its Eyes on You.”At the 2016 Tonys, “Hamilton” earned 16 nominations and won 11 prizes. Soon after, many of its cast members left the show to take time off or to pursue other projects.Here is a rundown of where everyone has been since that momentous opening run.Lin-Manuel MirandaMiranda transformed Broadway with “Hamilton,” which he wrote and starred in, playing the founding father Alexander Hamilton. Miranda’s rise to the top of Hollywood began after he left the show in 2016. That year he contributed to the score of “Moana,” the animated feature, earning an Academy Award nomination for the original song “How Far I’ll Go.” Years later he earned another Oscar nomination for the original song “Dos Oruguitas” from the animated film “Encanto.” He also wrote for other musical films including, “Mufasa: The Lion King” and “The Little Mermaid,” the live-action remake starring Halle Bailey.He played Jack in “Mary Poppins Returns” opposite Emily Blunt in 2018 and starred as the piragüero in the 2021 film adaptation of “In the Heights,” the Broadway show he and Quiara Alegría Hudes created.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Nicole Scherzinger and Other Tony Winners Party After the Awards

    On Sunday night, after all the Tonys had been handed out, the comedian Alex Edelman took the stage during the official after-party at the Museum of Modern Art.“One day more,” he sang, waving his arms, trying to recruit others to join him behind the microphone in a rousing one-man rendition of a song from the musical “Les Misérables.”“Another day, another destiny … ”Mr. Edelman, who received a special Tony Award last year for his one-man show “Just for Us,” slowly gathered his army of fellow performers: Betsy Wolfe, Jessica Vosk and Casey Likes. Soon, more than half a dozen stars were belting not just their own parts, but every part.A cabaret moment is a familiar scene for any theater party, even on a night celebrating an unusual Broadway season.It has been a banner year on the district’s 41 stages, thanks in large part to a flurry of shows with screen stars on the marquee: “Good Night, and Good Luck” (George Clooney), “The Picture of Dorian Gray” (Sarah Snook, who won a Tony Award for playing 26 different characters), “Othello” (Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal) and “Glengarry Glen Ross” (Bob Odenkirk, Bill Burr and Kieran Culkin), among others.Many actors were making their Broadway debut.“I’m so lucky to get to do it,” Sadie Sink, best known for her role as the tomboy Max in Netflix’s science fiction drama series “Stranger Things,” said at the MoMA party, celebrating her first nomination.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Nicole Scherzinger, Sarah Snook and Other First-Time Tony Winners Discuss Their Victories

    Here’s what Sarah Snook, Nicole Scherzinger, Cole Escola and four other Tony Award newbies had to say about their wins.At the 78th Tony Awards on Sunday night, there was much excitement about the Broadway actors who won their first Tonys — including stage veterans like Natalie Venetia Belcon and newcomers like Cole Escola. Here’s what those seven actors had to say about winning their first Tony Award, in speeches delivered from the ceremony or in the press room.Best Leading Actress in a PlaySarah Snook, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’Snook, already an Emmy winner for “Succession,” won a Tony for playing all 26 roles in the stage adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” Now, she can sit her Tonys statuette next to her Olivier award, which she won in 2024 — just after having her first child — for the same performance in London’s West End.It’s a thing that I guess all working moms and fathers have is that the hope is by pursuing your dreams and also the ways that you can remain present with your family, you encourage your children and the people who you love most in the world to also remember who they are and who they want to be when they grow up, and that it is OK to pursue that.Best Leading Actor in a PlayCole Escola, ‘Oh, Mary!’Cole Escola, accepting their Tony for best leading actor in a play for the comedy “Oh, Mary!”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesEscola, an alt-cabaret performer who wrote and stars in the comedy “Oh, Mary!,” became the first nonbinary performer honored with a Tony in this category. In the show, which they developed for over a decade, they play a drunken, cabaret-aspiring Mary Todd Lincoln. It is their Broadway debut.Trust that voice that says I think I’m right, actually. I actually think I do have something. I think I can do this. It might take 12 years to put the pen to paper, but that voice is right.Best Leading Actress in a MusicalNicole Scherzinger, ‘Sunset Boulevard’Nicole Scherzinger, who won for best leading actress in a musical for “Sunset Boulevard,” said: “Just keep on giving and giving because the world needs your love and your light.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAfter a powerful performance of “As If We Never Said Goodbye” earlier in the ceremony, Scherzinger, the former lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls, received her first Tony, for playing the washed-up silent film star, Norma Desmond, in a revival of “Sunset Boulevard.” Like Snook, she also won an Olivier in 2024 for her London performance in the role.Growing up, I always felt like I didn’t belong. But you all have made me feel like I belong. And I have come home at last. So if there’s anyone out there who feels like they don’t belong or your time hasn’t come, don’t give up. Just keep on giving and giving because the world needs your love and your light.Best Leading Actor in a MusicalDarren Criss, ‘Maybe Happy Ending’We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Cole Escola Wins the Tony for Best Actor in a Play

    In “Oh, Mary!,” Escola plays a drunken, melodramatic Mary Todd Lincoln who yearns to return to cabaret.Cole Escola won the Tony for best actor in a play for their performance in the outlandish, ahistoric comedy “Oh, Mary!” This is Escola’s Broadway debut, and first Tony.Escola, who is nonbinary, plays a self-indulgent, scheming Mary Todd Lincoln, who aspires to become a chanteuse. As a result, her boredom — which includes pining to perform her “madcap medleys” of yesteryear — drives her to all kinds of antics. (With Cole prancing around in a hoop skirt, hilarity ensues.)The New York Times chief theater critic, Jesse Green, called “Oh, Mary!,” which Escola also wrote, “one of the best crafted and most exactingly directed Broadway comedies in years.”Directed by Sam Pinkleton, the show opened at the Lyceum Theater last summer after a sold-out and twice-extended Off Broadway run. The play has also been extended multiple times since it transferred to Broadway. (It was the first show in the Lyceum’s 121-year history to gross more than $1 million in a single week.)Escola, known for their roles in Hulu’s “Difficult People,” TBS’s “Search Party” and sketches on YouTube, came up through New York’s cabaret and alt comedy scenes. The premise for “Oh, Mary!” began with an idea, which Escola sat on for more than 12 years: “What if Abraham Lincoln’s assassination wasn’t such a bad thing for Mary Todd?”The Tony Awards, like the Oscars, use gendered categories for performers, and Escola agreed to be considered eligible for an award as an actor. Escola isn’t the first nonbinary actor to win a Tony Award.In 2023, J. Harrison Ghee became the first out nonbinary performer to win a Tony for best leading actor in a musical, for “Some Like It Hot,” and Alex Newell became the first out nonbinary performer to win for best featured actor in a musical for “Shucked.” More

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    Nicole Scherzinger Wins the Tony for Best Actress in a Musical

    In “Sunset Boulevard,” Scherzinger plays Norma Desmond, a former screen star who descends into madness.Nicole Scherzinger won the Tony Award for best actress in a musical for her performance in a revival of “Sunset Boulevard,” a high-tech, minimal-scenery staging from Jamie Lloyd about a washed-up silent film star, Norma Desmond, who haunts a grand, ghostly Los Angeles mansion. This is Scherzinger’s first nomination and win.This latest run of “Sunset Boulevard” — based on the 1950 film by Billy Wilder — is dramatically scaled back compared to previous revivals of the Andrew Lloyd Webber show. Instead, the show relies on technology to modernize it for a new audience. It is the type of show that demands vocal and choreographic athleticism, something that Scherzinger — the former lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls — takes on with confidence.It first opened in London in 2023, winning Scherzinger praise and an Olivier. It then moved to Broadway last fall, and Jesse Green, the chief theater critic for The New York Times, wrote that Scherzinger delivered an “exciting yet exceptionally weird and counterintuitive performance.”Speaking to The Times in 2023, Scherzinger described her turn as Norma as “grueling.”“But for many years I have been saying I am using a fraction of my potential, and now I feel I have really tapped into that,” she said.Before joining the show and after the Pussycat Dolls disbanded in 2010, Scherzinger pursued a solo career with modest success — dropping two solo albums and working as a judge on “The X Factor” and “The Masked Singer.”She later performed “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” (from Lloyd Webber’s “Evita”) as part of a TV special celebrating Lloyd Webber, who, along with the director Trevor Nunn, asked her to join the cast of the 2014 revival of “Cats” in the West End. More

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    Tony Award Winners 2025: Updating List

    The Tony Awards are underway at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.Follow the latest live updates and photos from the Tony Awards.The 78th Tony Awards are here, and it’s a close race in several categories.“Buena Vista Social Club,” “Death Becomes Her” and “Maybe Happy Ending,” all musicals, lead with 10 nominations each. “Dead Outlaw,” “John Proctor Is the Villain,” “Sunset Boulevard” and “The Hills of California” are close behind, with seven apiece.The ceremony, hosted by Cynthia Erivo, began at 8 p.m. E.T. at Radio City Music Hall and is being broadcast on CBS and available to stream on Paramount+. Several awards were announced at a preshow ceremony, hosted by Renée Elise Goldsberry and Darren Criss, who is nominated this year for best actor in a musical.Expect a night of energetic performances, including from “Gypsy,” “Operation Mincemeat,” “Sunset Boulevard” and “Buena Vista Social Club” — as well as a live number from “Hamilton.”An updating list of winners is below.Sarah Snook won a best leading actress Tony for her role in “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” in which she plays all 26 roles.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Mara Corday Dead: Actress and Pinup Model Was 95

    She appeared in magazines like Playboy and sci-fi films in the 1950s. Later, in Clint Eastwood’s “Sudden Impact,” she was a hostage until he uttered five famous words.In the 1950s, Mara Corday — a nightclub showgirl and popular pinup model — was a star of three science-fiction thrillers, including “Tarantula” (1955), in which she fled from a 100-foot-tall spider that had escaped from a laboratory.“The whole world is after him,” Ms. Corday told the gossip columnist Hedda Hopper that year about the terrifying arachnid. “He’s a pretty unhappy spider, I can tell you. I’m a lady scientist, and Leo Carroll and John Agar are playing two top roles.”At a time when sci-fi cinema was focused on subjects like alien invasions, space exploration and nuclear paranoia, Ms. Corday was cast in B-movie tales about nasty, gigantic creatures.In 1957, Ms. Corday played a mathematician in “The Giant Claw,” in which a gigantic bird tears down buildings and foments panic.Columbia Pictures, via LMPC/Getty ImagesIn 1957, she played a mathematician in “The Giant Claw,” in which a gigantic bird (first thought to be a U.F.O.) tears down buildings and foments panic. She returned that year to outsize insects, as a rancher in “The Black Scorpion,” about giant scorpions threatening the countryside after rising out of a volcanic eruption in Mexico.Ms. Corday was a rancher in “The Black Scorpion” (1957) about giant scorpions that threaten the countryside in Mexico.Warner Bros, via LMPC/Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More