Pablo Schreiber

Currently: Playing Ralph Berger, the youngest member of an extended family in the Bronx trying to make ends meet during the Depression, in the revival of Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing!. Schreiber has earned a 2006 Tony nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play for this performance.

Hometown: Winlaw, British Columbia, Canada

Hoop Dreams to Stage Life: Acting played second fiddle to basketball when Schreiber was a child, even though his father, Tell, was an acting teacher. Young Pablo starred in all the theater productions in his elementary and high school in Seattle, but when college came around, he went to the University of San Francisco to play basketball. After a year, he decided he needed a change. "I ended up playing on the practice squad," he recalls. "It just wasn't happening. The other thing I loved and knew how to do was acting. I auditioned for Carnegie Mellon University, got in and went there."

Ah, The Good Life: Before turning his attention to theater, Schreiber played Nick Sobotka in the award-winning HBO series The Wire. So what was his most memorable experience on the set? "I was asked to fondle the naked breasts of [my character's] girlfriend and drive an 18-wheeler truck, all on the same day," he says with a laugh. "For a young man doing his first TV gig, I thought that was just about as good as it gets."

The Berger Family: Schreiber savors being part of the all-star Awake and Sing! ensemble. Of Ben Gazzara, who plays Ralph's beloved grandfather, he says, "What he brings just walking on the stage and the level of simplicity he can achieve is really astounding to me." Fellow Tony nominee Zoë Wanamaker, who plays Ralph's mother Bessie Berger, gave the young actor an important piece of advice for getting through his emotion-packed scenes: "It's not your job to cry onstage; it's your job to make them cry. It doesn't really matter how you do it. If you don't cry yourself, you have to find another way to make them cry, to break their hearts."

The Brothers Schreiber: While Pablo may be new on the Tony scene, his older half-brother, Liev Schreiber, definitely isn't: Liev won Best Featured Actor in a Play in 2005 for Glengarry Glen Ross, the same category Pablo is competing in a year later. "[Liev] was a little dubious when I first came to the city and wanted to act," Schreiber confesses. "I don't think he really knew what I was going to make of it. I don't know if he was more worried I would be bad and embarrass him or I would be good and steal some of his thunder." The sibling rivalry seems to have dissipated; in fact, when Liev announced the 2006 Tony nominations on live TV, he gave Pablo a wake-up call first so he'd be sure not to miss his big moment. Still, Pablo admits, being known as Liev Schreiber's little brother is a mixed blessing, "handy and, at times, a bit of a pain in the ass."

Does Anyone Have a Tux?: On top of making his Broadway debut, Schreiber can now add "Tony nominee" to his resume. "I'm blown away," he says. "I'm a little in shock and a little humbled by the company I'm keeping. I didn't really expect anything like this to happen so fast." Schreiber has adopted a healthy attitude about the awards ceremony at Radio City. "I'm going in with absolutely no expectations of anything except to have a good time and to bask in the glory of the honor. I'm just going to have fun." Speaking a few days before the big night, he was missing one key component: an outfit! "I'm trying to find what I'm going to wear," he says with a laugh. "I'm waiting for people to bombard me with requests to wear their tuxedos."