Tony Award Nominees Preview The Big Night
CBS New York's Dana Tyler Talks With Tony Nominee Sophie Okonedo
She was an Oscar nominee for Hotel Rwanda. Actress Sophie Okonedo made her Broadway debut this spring in Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun," and now she's a Tony nominee. The British actress told Tyler at first she was nervous she wouldn't be able to pull off the part, but that "I had it in my heart to play her."
CBS New York's Dana Tyler Talks With Tony Nominee Audra McDonald
Five-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald has been nominated again this year for her role as Billie Holiday in "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill." McDonald told Tyler taking on the role of Billie Holiday was a challenge. "To try and get an audience to come with me and believe that I am Billie Holiday and singing for them with no 4th wall; talking to them the entire time...it's the hardest thing I've ever done," she said.
CBS New York's Dana Tyler Talks With Tony Nominee Reed Birney
Actor Reed Birney has spent most of his theater career off-Broadway. But now he's back on the Great White Way and nominated for a Tony Award for "Casa Valentina" -- Harvey Fierstein's play about straight men in the 50s and 60s who vacationed in the Catskills so they could dress as women. Reed admitted to Tyler he's never worn a dress before taking on the part. "It's actually kind of liberating ultimately. I was terrified the first day," he said.
CBS New York's Dana Tyler Talks With Tony Nominee Jefferson Mays
Tony Award-winner Jefferson Mays is nominated for his role in which he plays eight different members of a wealthy family who are murdered by a distant relative seeking the family fortune in "A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder." Mays told Tyler winning a Tony is "glorious euphoria." Tasked with playing so many roles in one play, Mays called it a marathon. "I think it's more athletic than artistic sometimes," he said.
CBS New York's Dana Tyler Talks With Tony Nominee Neil Patrick Harris
Neil Patrick Harris spent nine years on television as Barney Stinson in the hit CBS comedy "How I Met Your Mother." Now, Harris is back on Broadway as a German transgender performer in "Hedwig and the Angry Inch." The Hollywood darling is nominated for a Tony after four years of hosting the event. Harris told Tyler after nearly a decade of playing alpha male Barney Stinson, the role of Hedwig was particularly intriguing "because it was such a departure and such an interesting left turn."