Andre Braugher Discusses His Potential Broadway Debut, Canceled Due to COVID

In a recent interview with Variety, Emmy-winning actor Andre Braugher discussed giving up "Birthday Candles," his potential Broadway debut that was ultimately canceled due to COVID-19.

The show was scheduled to premiere on Broadway last spring, but was pushed ahead a year as a result of the ongoing pandemic. Debra Messing also stars in the piece, written by Noah Haidle.

"It was clear by that time that guys like me have bull's-eyes on our back. I'm 58, I'm overweight, I have high blood pressure, so it was just time to bow out. Which is unfortunate, but the wisdom of that became pretty apparent a couple of weeks later, when all of New York officially shut down," he told Variety.

Braugher also discussed his role on Brooklyn Nine-Nine. The cop comedy is entering its eighth season - though Braugher says the show should respond to the massive change the world and policing has undergone since the end of season seven.

"I look up after all these decades of playing these characters, and I say to myself, it's been so pervasive that I've been inside this storytelling, and I, too, have fallen prey to the mythology that's been built up. It's almost like the air you breathe or the water that you swim in. It's hard to see. But because there are so many cop shows on television, that's where the public gets its information about the state of policing. Cops breaking the law to quote, 'defend the law,' is a real terrible slippery slope. It has given license to the breaking of law everywhere, justified it and excused it. That's something that we're going to have to collectively address - all cop shows," he said. Braugher won his Emmy Awards for "Homicide: Life on the Street" and "Thief."

Series creator Dan Goor confirmed that the upcoming season of "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" will contain a storyline concerning police brutality.

Read the original story on Variety.