Tony Awards 2024: Sarah Paulson – Good work doesn't need star names

Tony-winning actor Sarah Paulson has claimed casting star names in productions can lead to the material not being properly served.

The actor, who scooped the Tony award for best performance by an actress in a leading role in a play for Appropriate, said she did not understand "all the reasons why certain things are able to happen in theatre, film or otherwise, in terms of having stars or not having stars".

She highlighted David Adjmi’s Stereophonic, which won five categories at the Tony Awards 2024, as being "a great example of a play that didn’t have any well-known people" in it but had succeeded because "the play itself sparked the interest".

"I do really believe that if you build it, they will come. If the work is there and the material is good, then that should be enough," she said, warning that attaching the "wrong actor but a famous person" to a production can be bad for shows.

"Then the material doesn’t get served and the actor doesn’t get served and the thing isn’t good and it tells this story of ‘doing plays doesn’t work and actors don’t want to do them’ and then it’s scary and it’s a cycle that doesn’t seem fruitful to me," she said.