Network Star Bryan Cranston Wins Second Tony Award

Bryan Cranston has won the 2019 Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Play for his portrayal of Howard Beale in Network. The stage-and-screen star was honored at the 73rd Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on June 9, beating out fellow nominees Paddy Considine in The Ferryman, Jeff Daniels for To Kill a Mockingbird, Adam Driver for Burn This and Jeremy Pope for Choir Boy.

"Finally a straight, old, white man gets a break!" Cranston, who played the final performance of the play June 8, joked during his acceptance speech. "We have a company that are some of the finest human beings that I have ever been associated with. I will miss you greatly."

This marks Cranston's second Tony nomination and second win, after taking home the trophy for his performance as Lyndon B. Johnson in All the Way. The thrilling Network, which Lee Hall adapted from Paddy Chayefsky's 1976 screenplay, was directed by Ivo van Hove. The production closed on June 8.

Network centers on failing news anchor Howard Beale, who unravels on-screen one night, sending ratings soaring. Cranston dedicated his award to real-life journalists. "Howard Beale is a fictitious TV news man who found himself in the line of fire because of his pursuit of the truth," he said. "And I would like to dedicate this to all the real journalists of the world, both in the print media and also broadcast media, who actually are in the line of fire with their pursuit of the truth. The media is not the enemy of the people; demagoguery is the enemy of the people."

Watch Cranston's Show People episode with Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek to learn more about his newly awarded performance.