Jodie Comer poses within the press room throughout The 76th Annual Tony Awards.

Cindy Ord/Getty Images for Tony Awards Pro

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Cindy Ord/Getty Images for Tony Awards Pro

Jodie Comer poses within the press room throughout The 76th Annual Tony Awards.

Cindy Ord/Getty Images for Tony Awards Pro

It’s protected to say that choosing up the Tony for greatest lead actress in a play is just not a case of newbie’s luck.

Who is she? The 30-year-old British actress who hails from Liverpool is greatest identified for her performances on display, starring in exhibits like Killing Eve, My Mad Fat Diary, and films like Free Guy and The Last Duel.

• She’s greatest identified for her position in Killing Eve, the place she performs a lethal murderer named Villanelle.
• In April, she took to Broadway to carry out the lead position in Suzie Miller’s critically acclaimed drama, Prima Facie. This was after a stint in London final yr, performing the identical position.

What’s the large deal? Comer’s one-woman depiction of Tessa, a lawyer defending males accused of sexual assault, was her first ever efficiency on an expert stage.

• The story follows Tessa, extremely profitable in her area and protection of her shoppers, as she herself turns into a sufferer of sexual assault.
• Comer obtained excessive reward throughout, for a efficiency that critics called a tour de force
• Plus, competitors was fierce this yr, as Comer was up in opposition to Jessica Chastain in her much-buzzed-about efficiency in A Doll’s House, in addition to different seasoned actors like Jessica Hecht and Audra McDonald.

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What’s she saying?

Here’s a few of Comer’s acceptance speech on the awards Sunday night time:

I wish to thank Justin Martin, my director, for his relentless pursuit for discovery and for instilling in me a belief inside myself, always reminding me to belief myself.

She additionally thanked the playwright behind Prima Facie:

This girl and this play has been my biggest instructor, and I’ve to thank Suzie Miller for that, who wrote this magnificent piece. Without her, my efficiency wouldn’t be right here, so this feels simply as a lot Suzie’s as it’s mine.

Plus, Comer spoke with NPR’s Juana Summers back in April forward of her Broadway debut. Here are some highlights from that dialog:

On the bodily expertise of appearing within the play:

It was positively a problem. But it was additionally unimaginable. I feel it actually fed into this undeniable fact that Tessa was accountable for each aspect of this storytelling. 

And that was what actually struck me after I first learn the piece. You know, I’d explored materials earlier than that offers with sexual assault, but it surely was by no means instructed on this method. And I felt like she had a lot management over the narrative.

On portraying intense moments inside the story:

I at all times do not forget that a part of the play — you actually really feel the whole viewers holding their breath. Like, I’m at all times struck in that second by the silence within the room. What I beloved about it and what I’ll say and what I take into consideration, once more, the facility of the play is that you do not see the perpetrator. 

You do not see Julian. You do not see the bodily assault happen. But it is all about language and stillness and her telling you what it’s that she’s experiencing. You know, it is extremely intimate and exposing. And I feel the way in which wherein the assault is depicted may be very uncommon. And I feel in a method, that is what makes it all of the extra highly effective.

So, what now?

• Comer will proceed her position in Prima Facie by way of July 2.

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