Quotable Quotes: Highlights from the 2008 Tony Press Room
After the Tony winners gave their acceptance speeches, they crossed 50th Street to speak with reporters in the Rainbow Room. Here are a few notable quotes:
Rondi Reed: On having played her last performance in August: Osage County just before the Tony ceremony: "Am I upset that I won't be performing on Tuesday? No. My agent asked, 'Do you want to stay with the play on Broadway?' And I said, 'I want to win the Tony and go back to do Wicked in Chicago.'" And did you know that Reed has a mutt named Boo Radley?
Jim Norton: On the difference between winning a Tony and an Olivier, its British equivalent: "The Oliviers are quite understated. Here, people are shouting at me on the street."
Bartlett Sher: On life after he said yes to South Pacific: "I've never had so much panic in my whole life. Every single place we went, all I heard was, 'This is the greatest musical I've ever seen.'"
Laura Benanti: On receiving a standing ovation from Arthur Laurents: "Wasn't that sweet? And he's 90 years old, too, so a standing ovation's not so easy, you know?"
Boyd Gaines: On why he didn't expect to win: "Someone came up to me on the subway this morning and said, 'Sorry about the Tony. The paper says you're not going to win.'" On where he keeps his four Tonys: "My mother has them in California. I let my manager have them, and then they go to my mother. I don't like to keep them around. If I walk by them, they go [he whispers menacingly], "Hey, what you done lately?"
Deanna Dunagan: On being a Broadway star in New York City: "In Chicago, I may be recognized once a month. But here, people come up to me and say, 'May I hug you? Your play is the best play I've ever seen.' This afternoon was my last performance. At the dinner scene, when I have to be so vicious to everyone, tears were rolling down my face. I couldn't wipe them, though, because Violet couldn't cry."
Tracy Letts: On having bright lights in his face and standing in front of a roomful of people who're hunched over laptops: "I'm blind, and you guys are all at computers. It's like I'm at an OTB!"
Mark Rylance: On his bizarre acceptance speech: "I had been thinking about it for a few weeks. It's actually a prose poem by Lewis Jenkins, who's a wonderful prose poet from Duluth, Minnesota. I tried one of those out at the Drama Desk Awards and it went down quite well, so I thought I'd try it again. It seemed to have some kind of meaning."
Stew: On winning a Tony Award: "It's incredibly insane and surreal to be up here. I was just talking to Duncan Sheik about how maybe I should become a Buddhist."
Patti LuPone: Addressing that old rumor about bad blood between her and Arthur Laurents: "I was told by people that I would never be in an Arthur Laurents play, that I'd been banned. And as my husband just said, 'Aren't you glad you called Arthur Laurents?' The only thing that turned things around was I called Arthur. And we talked. And the show happened."
Paulo Szot: On performing at the Vivian Beaumont: "The audience is very close to us. We can hear them singing along to the songs. When we start 'Some Enchanted Evening,' I hear them singing, and I feel if I forget a word, they'll be there to pick it up."
Lin-Manuel Miranda: On his freestyle-rap acceptance speech: "To be honest, I didn't write it down. I had several couplets in my head. But I was too superstitious to write it down. Then the couplets went out of my head about halfway through. I would love to review the tape, to see where I started saying 'off the dome' because that's where it really started mentally unraveling for me. But thank goodness for Freestyle Love Supreme, this hip-hop group that I'm in. I've had four years practice of just making stuff up on the spot, which is really nice training for acceptance speeches."
