Who Is Jak Malone? Get to Know the Tony-Winning Breakout Star from Broadway’s Operation Mincemeat

Jak Malone wins his first Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his Broadway debut in Operation Mincemeat where he plays Hester Leggatt and more. He originated the role in London and has been with the show since its 2019 premiere from comedy troupe SpitLip. Malone also won an Olivier Award for the performance. His rendition of “Dear Bill” brings down the house eight times a week at the John Golden Theatre.

Malone, the second-oldest of seven siblings, hails from the Wirral in Merseyside, England, and is a graduate of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. In an interview with Broadway.com, he described his working-class upbringing: “We didn’t have a lot growing up, but my mum was very creative. Everything was a game. Everything was a reason to make up a funny voice or play together.” He wasn’t always a team player, often getting into mischief—until his grandmother, a dresser at a local theater, suggested he try drama. It was the push he needed to find his light.

Malone first encountered his Operation Mincemeat co-creators David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson and Zoë Roberts at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. “The guys from SpitLip, who were working under another company called Kill the Beast, were doing these horror-comedy plays that spoke to me on a cellular level.” He began creating fan art inspired by their work, eventually earning an audition for Operation Mincemeat, a dramatization of the real-life MI5 deception that helped turn the tide of World War II.

Now that he’s officially a Tony winner, consider this secret weapon declassified.