Molly Osborne Is Making Her Broadway Debut as the Desdemona to Denzel Washington's Othello—Maybe Someday She'll Believe It

Age: 27

Hometown: Wivenhoe in Essex, U.K.

Current Role: Molly Osborne plays Desdemona in Kenny Leon’s production of Othello, starring Denzel Washington in the title role and Jake Gyllenhaal as Iago.

Credits: Osborne played Tzeitel in Trevor Nunn’s revival of Fiddler on the Roof, which opened at the Menier Chocolate Factory in 2018 and transferred to the West End’s Playhouse Theatre in 2019. She returned to the Chocolate Factory for productions of Paula Vogel’s Indecent (2021) and Terry Johnson’s The Sex Party (2022), and performed in the 2023 off-West End musical adaptation of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at the Southwark Playhouse.

Cool Kids
Molly Osborne is a musical theater girl who came of age in the era of Glee. It’s an adolescence that comes with certain universal markers—whichever side of the Atlantic Ocean you fall on: “We'd watch Broadway.com a lot,” she says of her and her circle of theater friends. “And we’d watch Seth Rudetsky” (his “deconstructing” videos are still essential viewing for the vocally curious). She laughs. “I really wasn’t a very cool person.” Osborne grew up just an hour outside of London, but found theater through the “am-dram scene” closer to home. She learned her lynchpin musicals (Grease, The Sound of Music, etc.) at the nearby Mercury Theatre in Colchester, where, as part of their youth program, she also got to sit in on dress rehearsals for some of their productions—“which I always think was quite formative,” she says now. “Being 13 and watching a Brecht play and not having any idea what it’s about.” She also became enamored of all things Fosse: “I absolutely fell in love with Cabaret and Chicago.” Anything Goes also tops her list of favorites. “I’m not a dancer, but absolutely love big dance musicals,” she says. “It’s that larger-than-lifeness about a show.”

Shall We Dance?
“I very much always wanted to be a brassy belter,” says Osborne. She chased the Sutton Foster sound with a dash of classic jazz, inspired by her grandfather’s love of Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. “I kind of pigeonholed myself quite early on,” she reflects. “It was quite a journey to discover what I actually sound like.” At drama school—the Trinity Laban musical theater program in London—she got to feel around for the edges of what her voice could do. She played Hope Cladwell in the dystopian musical Urinetown. She tried on Sondheim for size as the Witch in Into the Woods. (Disclaimer: “There were four of us, so I played the Witch in the beginning of Act II.”) She even found a way to live her tap-dancing dreams in the Gershwin musical Crazy for You. “I'm really not a dancer,” she says, reiterating a point previously emphasized. “But I love it so much.” It was the tail-end of her time at school and she had already signed with an agent, so, without anything to lose, she lobbied for a dancing role. "So yeah,” she says. “I was one of the tapping girls in that.” She savored every second, knowing for certain, “This is the only time this will ever happen. No one will ever pay me money to do this.”

An Indecent Proposal
Osborne has been a barista at a train station kiosk. She’s built spreadsheets for a clothing company. She’s been a videographer. She’s taught painting classes. “This is all part of the life,” she says. “Doing the temp jobs and making the coffee and serving the drinks. But then when you do get the job, it's like, ‘Yeah, this is why I'm here.’” Just off her run as Tzeitel in Trevor Nunn’s revival of Fiddler on the Roof, she was turning down theater auditions with the idea that she would try out pilot season in Los Angeles. Then the folks at the Menier Chocolate Factory (where Fiddler played before transferring to the West End) asked to see her for Indecent, Paula Vogel’s Tony-nominated, music-infused drama inspired by Sholem Asch’s controversial play God of Vengeance. “I read it and was just like, ‘I need to be seen for this play.’” She was offered the show’s “Ingenue” track, and without another thought, said, “Bye-bye, L.A. We’re not doing that.” Covid-19 shuttered that production of Indecent after only three previews, but they were able to do their full run a year-and-a-half later. “I'm so glad that I stayed and so glad that I did Indecent,” she says, not an ounce of regret about forgoing a shot at Hollywood. “That's one of my all-time favorite plays ever.”

"Take Care"
“Broadway. Othello. Set in the future. Starring two unnamed A-listers. American accents only.” The breakdown left Osborne with little doubt: “I’m never getting this job.” It was one among a pile of self-tapes she had to turn around quickly, so a friend advised, “‘Don't try and learn all the Shakespeare words. Just read it.’ So I did,” she says. A few weeks later, she got a call saying that Kenny Leon would be in London and wanted to meet. “He told me about his process and what the piece is. He then started talking about Denzel [Washington] and Jake [Gyllenhaal]. And I was like—right, yep.”

They parted ways, only to run into each other the following night at the West End opening of The Picture of Dorian Gray (also now on Broadway). Leon was a guest. Osborne was there on a assignment, making Vox Pop videos on the red carpet (one of her many side hustles). “We had a little chat. And then afterwards he said to me, ‘Take care’”—a pleasantry she took to mean, “Goodbye forever.” A few weeks after that, she got word that Leon was considering flying her to New York for a chemistry read with Washington. “At that point, I was like—huh?” A week or two later, she was told, “We don't need to fly you over. They're happy with the tapes. We want to offer you the job.” Still baffled, all Osborne can say is, “It's really stupid. Hopefully they're not regretting it now.”

...With Molly Osborne
It was the middle of the night in London when Osborne got a call from an unknown American number. Then a text came through: “Hey, Desdemona. It’s Othello and Iago. We’re trying to FaceTime you.” In a panic, she made herself presentable and called back her future co-stars who were enjoying a meal together stateside. Among the first words Denzel Washington ever spoke to her were, “Did you have to get yourself made up for this call?” She replied, “Yes. Yes I did.” By the time all three were in a room together in rehearsal, the ice was broken and the work could begin. “I feel like it’s every actor’s dream to have a go at Shakespeare,” says Osborne, still finding new colors in the voice she used to think was just for jazzy belting, but now negotiates the Bard’s poetry in an American dialect. And then there’s the dream she never thought to have. “I always aspired to the West End, but Broadway to me always seemed like the mothership.” She adds, “I can't quite believe that it says, ‘…with Molly Osborne.’ I sort of never want to get used to it.”