Tony Interview Special: Cynthia Nixon on Basking in the Nomination Light!

Earlier this month, the 2012 Tony Awards Nominations were announced by Tony winning actress Kristin Chenoweth and Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor Jim Parsons. The Tony Awards will be broadcast in a live three-hour ceremony from the Beacon Theatre, on the CBS television network on Sunday, June 10, 2012.

BroadwayWorld was there for this year's official Tony Brunch, and got a chance to chat with this year's nominees!  Today we bring you Cynthia Nixon, nominee for Best Actress in a Play for WIT.

Congrats on your nomination! What’s been going through your head since you heard the news?

Excitement! I’ve been nominated before so I kinda know a little bit of the drill. When you’re nominated and you’re part of the Broadway season in that way, it's really fun, because you get to go to all of these events and see other people that you admire. I just saw a bunch of people from PETER AND THE STARCATCHER who I know and love. I love that show.

There’s something so special about it. Whether at the finish line you win or not, you have four weeks of basking in a golden light and hanging out with the coolest people in New York, as far as a theatre rat like me is concerned!

The show’s limited engagement wrapped up in March. Does that make this experience at all bittersweet for you?

It's both a blessing and a curse. You think “Well the die is cast. I’ve done my performance.” I can’t say “Oh, I’ll be especially good tonight and maybe I’ll get a few more votes.” I did my best and now it’s over. There are good and bad things about it.

Why do you think audiences connected so well with WIT?

It’s just an amazingly beautiful play. It’s an amazing play that seems like it’s all about complication- there’s heavy duty medicine and heavy duty literary criticism. That makes it seem like it's high up there in this intellectual realm, but it’s actually about things that are very basic and primal and simple.

When you’re sick and you’re at the end of your life, you want a friend. In the end, all of your accomplishments aren’t that important- what’s really important is connecting with another human being.

The Tony Awards will be broadcast in a live three-hour ceremony from the Beacon Theatre, on the CBS television network on Sunday, June 10, 2012.  Click here for the complete list of nominations! Click here for the nominations by the numbers.