Tony Awards Close-Up: How Does Jeff Daniels Make It Through the Brutality of BLACKBIRD? Find Out!

Jeff Daniels has done it all. The actor is well known for his performances on TV and the big screen, not to mention his work as a musician and playwright. This season he has picked up his second Tony nomination (Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play) for his portrayal of Ray in Blackbird, opposite Michelle Williams. Below watch as Daniels admits that the news might make playing the brutal role every night a little less difficult.

Actor, musician, and playwright Jeff Daniels is known for his roles in such films as Terms of Endearment, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Arachnophobia,Dumb & Dumber, The Hours, The Squid and the Whale, and Good Night and Good Luck, as well as his Emmy Award-winning performance on HBO'sThe Newsroom. His most recent projects include part 1 of The Divergent Series: Allegiant, alongside Shailene Woodley and Theo James, 20th Century-Fox's The Martian, directed by Ridley Scott, and Universal's Steve Jobs, directed by Danny Boyle. Daniels has received many prestigious nominations over the course of his long career, including four Golden Globes, four SAG Awards, and two Emmys. Alongside screen work, Daniels has many stage credits to his name and is the founder of The Purple Rose Theater Company in Chelsea, Michigan. On Broadway, he has appeared in Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage for which his performance earned a 2009 Tony Award nomination for Best Actor, A. R. Gurney's The Golden Age, Lanford Wilson's Redwood Curtain, and Wilson's Fifth of July. He has appeared off Broadway in productions of Wilson's Lemon Sky and Bradley Rand Smith's adaptation of Johnny Got His Gun.

BLACKBIRD tells the story of Una and Ray. Fifteen years earlier they had a relationship and haven't set eyes on each other since. Now she's found him again. BLACKBIRD premiered at the Edinburgh International Festival before moving on to London's West End where it won the Olivier Award for Best New Play in a production directed by Peter Stein. The drama was subsequently produced in New York by Manhattan Theatre Club in a production starring Jeff Daniels and Allison Pill, directed by Joe Mantello.

The American Theatre Wing's 70th Annual Tony Awards, hosted by Tony Award winner James Corden, will air on the CBS Television Network on Sunday, June 12, 2016 (8:00-11:00 PM, ET/delayed PT) live from the Beacon Theatre in New York City.