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Meet the 2022 Tony Nominees: MR. SATURDAY NIGHT's Billy Crystal
May 17, 2024
Today we're studying up on Billy Crystal! Watch below as Billy tells us more about what this nomination means to him and how he talks about the process of bringing the film to the stage.
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Thank you for all the joy you have brought to Broadway
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How does it feel to be here? It feels extraordinary. This has been, you know, for this particular show, a six-year journey to get it to the stage
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But it's been a 47-year or something like that relationship with this character, 37-year
0:26
relationship with this character, to bring him to the point where I feel he's at his
0:30
best, which is in front of a live audience. What is it like having the palm, all of the audience, the palm of your hand, and your
0:37
entire cast when they sit in that theater and watch you do what you do
0:43
I'm very blessed. We have an extraordinary cast. It's a great book
0:48
It's a joy to play this guy. He's complicated. He's funny. He's charming
0:54
He's irascible. He's frustrating. And he sings eight songs. So that was the task, is, all right, if I'm going to do this, I want to be as good as
1:05
I can be. And so I've worked so hard and worked so hard every day to bring it every night because
1:12
this is Broadway and people expect something special. And whatever I mean to people, I have to be even better than that
1:21
So I feel that responsibility every time I go out there is to be as great as you can be
1:27
And every night's a privilege to play this guy. What an incredible school
1:31
I mean, Jason Robert Brown, Amanda Green. It was like collaborating with them, like old school, like throwing things at them
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they go back and write a song. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Look, you know, there was a couple of moments, I think we need a song here
1:43
What about this? And then one time, you know, we were pretty much along and we had done a couple of workshops
1:50
and stuff and I called Jason and go, where's my What Kind of Fool am I
1:57
Where is that song? He needs that song. And then two days later, they write this incredible song called Any Man But Me, which is my 1045
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song and I got to kill it. And the responsibility of singing well was never lost on me
2:17
I don't like to not be good or good enough. You just can't be good enough
2:24
You got to be. So I loved our relationship with them. Jason is very much an amazing voice musically and understood the character
2:37
They loved the film. They loved other things that they had seen that Don't Get Me Started and on HBO and other
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things about him. So they understood him and how to write him
2:47
And we worked very closely together on I don't like this, I don't get this, I can't
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sing it this way. And the encouragement from them that I was credible was incredible for me once we started
3:01
workshopping the show in front of audiences
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