Steve Kazee on His Tony Night Magic Touch: 'If You Hang Out with Me, You Will Win a Tony!'

Steve Kazee was in good company inside the Tony Awards winners’ circle on June 10. The Once star, who took home the trophy for Best Actor in a Musical, found himself next to Best Actress winner and his former 110 in the Shade co-star Audra McDonald. However, McDonald wasn’t the only winner Kazee was excited to celebrate alongside.

“I jokingly said if you hang out with me or work with me, you will win a Tony,” Kazee told Broadway.com in the Tony press room. “I did Spamalot with [winners] Michael McGrath and Christian Borle and I went to school with Nina Arianda. James Corden and I used to get drunk together all the time at Angus McIndoe when I was doing Spamalot and he was doing The History Boys. We’d get drunk and stay out until four or five in the morning. It’s such a surreal evening, I can’t even begin to describe what it’s like.” So how does Kazee expect his friends to repay him for his magic touch? “I’m going to have them take me out to the Palm for some steak dinner,” he said with a laugh.

Kazee became teary-eyed when asked about his touching acceptance speech dedicated to his recently deceased mother. “My mother raised me the right way. She told me to speak from my heart. That’s why I don’t prepare speeches. My mom had cancer for 14 years and fought her butt off, and that instilled in me a certain set of ways that I would like to live my life. What’s the point in me saying everything is OK all the time? It’s not OK. I miss my mom, and she should be here with me tonight. She is with me, but not in the way I would like for her to be. This has given me the opportunity to share with you the wonderful and courageous person my mother was. I spoke her name out loud and now everybody knows somewhere a woman died way too young of a horrible disease, and I love her. “