10 Big-Name Celebrities Nominated for Tony Awards This Year

Oscar-winning actress Jessica Chastain received her first Tony Awards nomination for her leading role in the Henrik Ibsen play A Doll’s House. For the play, which is set in a Norwegian town in the late 19th century, Chastain was nervous about taking on the intense role of a woman pushing back against the confines of her marriage. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve done,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. “No one expected this much from me, demanded this much from me.”

Singer Josh Groban is no stranger to the Tony Awards. He received a leading actor nomination in 2017 for his role in the musical Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, and he earned two Primetime Emmy Award noms for co-hosting and performing at the 72nd Tony Awards ceremony in 2019. He’s back again this year with another nomination for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical, for his performance in Sweeney Todd.

Samuel L. Jackson, one of Hollywood’s highest-grossing actors, has earned his first Tony Award nomination for his supporting performance in the August Wilson play The Piano Lesson. Jackson, who played Doaker Charles in the new revival, originated the role of Boy Willie in the original Broadway run of the play in 1987.

Best known for playing the psychopathic assassin Villanelle in the television series Killing Eve, Jodie Comer received a Tony Award nomination for her Broadway debut in the play Prima Facie, a one-woman play about a criminal defense lawyer whose view of the criminal justice system changes after she is sexually assaulted. Comer has already won a Laurence Olivier Award for her performance.

Singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles has sold more than two million albums over the course of her career, and is no stranger to the Broadway stage. She earned Best Original Score nominations for her work on the musicals Waitress (2016) and SpongeBob SquarePants (2018), and earned Emmys for co-hosting and performing at the 2019 Tony Awards. This year marks her first nomination as an actress, for her leading role as the Baker’s Wife in Into the Woods.

The Will & Grace star hosted the Tony Awards ceremony in 2010, and the next year, received his first Tony nomination for his leading performance in the musical Promises, Promises. Now, Hayes is nominated for another Tony, this time for Best Leading Actor in a Play for Goodnight, Oscar, in which he portrayed real-life pianist and comedian Oscar Levant.

Audra McDonald is a fixture both on Broadway and at the Tony Awards. She has taken home six Tonys – more than any other actor in history – and is the only person to have won Tonys in all four acting categories: Leading Actress and Featured Actress in both a musical and a play. She is now up for her 10th career nomination for her leading role in the play Ohio State Murders, written by Adrienne Kennedy.

Best known for his role as Detective Bunk Moreland on the HBO series The Wire, Wendell Pierce has previously been honored by the Tony Awards for his work as a Broadway producer. He received a Best Play nomination for Radio Golf (2007), and won that same award for Clybourne Park (2012). This year he received his first Tony nomination as an actor, for his leading role as Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s famous play Death of a Salesman.

Ben Platt became a Broadway sensation when he originated the title role in the popular coming-of-age musical Dear Evan Hansen in 2016, winning not only a Tony Award for the performance, but also a Grammy Award for the album and an Emmy Award for performing one of the songs on The Today Show. Now he’s up for another Tony for his leading role in the revival of the musical Parade.

Known for her roles in television shows like Masters of Sex, Impeachment: American Crime Story, and Welcome to Chippendales, Annaleigh Ashford’s roots as an actress come from the Broadway stage. She received a Tony Award nomination for her role in the musical Kinky Boots in 2013, and won a Tony for Best Featured Actress in a Play in You Can’t Take it With You in 2015. She nabbed another nomination this year for her leading role in Sweeney Todd.