Brian Tyree Henrys armpits are still a little damp as he breezes into a Burbank diner on an overcast L.A. afternoon. Sorry Im sweaty, he says. I was feeling a little anxiety earlier, so I decided to hit the gym and run it out.
What did he feel anxious about? Everything! Henry says. You go so long with everybody turning away from you, and all of a sudden theyre turning toward you its kind of fucking terrifying.
After a decade of hustling in regional theater workshops a world away from Hollywood, Henry, 37, is suddenly extremely in-demand. Most famously he stars in FXs Atlanta, as the aspiring rapper and erstwhile dope dealer Alfred Paper Boi Miles. He was in six movies last year alone including Steve McQueens Widows (as a sinister crime boss turned politician), Barry Jenkins If Beale Street Could Talk (as a sweet, haunted ex-con whos the films moral center) and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (as Spider-Mans dad) and this year hell be in four more, including a Childs Play remake out today and a Melissa McCarthy action-comedy this fall. In the middle of all that, he also found time to guest-star on NBCs This Is Us and co-star in the Broadway play Lobby Hero opposite Chris Evans for which he was nominated for an Emmy and a Tony, respectively.
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I feel like people are rooting for me right now, Henry says. Which is a great feeling, because it never felt like people were rooting for me before.
But if youre tempted to think that Henry is enjoying a moment do try to resist. People are always like, Hes having a moment, moment, moment Shove that moment up your ass, he says. Im really fucking tired of hearing that Im having a moment. Ive been doing this a long time. Are yall saying Meryl Streep is having a moment? Suck my dick. It really frustrates me, because it implies theres an ending like youre betting on me being gone like that. He snaps his fingers. I dont want that. I want to be here for the long haul.
To be fair, its been a pretty long haul already. Henry started acting in elementary school in Fayetteville, NC, the youngest of five kids of a middle-school-teacher mom and a Vietnam-vet dad with a fifth-grade education. I thought we were middle class, he recalls, until my father was like, No, no, no go two classes below that. Acting was Henrys escape: his way to transcend their poverty and explore different worlds.
He studied theater at Morehouse, the historically black college in Atlanta. But he didnt get truly serious until grad school at the Yale School of Drama. (Henry has mixed feelings about Yale. On one hand, he met lifelong friends and collaborators like Tarell Alvin McCraney, the playwright behind Moonlight. But as a six-foot-two black man, I could be smoking outside with a Yale hoodie on and people would still be terrified, he says. And Im not even an undergrad! Im here to get a masters, motherfucker!)
After Yale came auditions in New York and with them couch-surfing, unemployment and food stamps. Eventually he found some success on Broadway, in The Book of Mormon, and Shakespeare in the Park, as Tybalt to Oscar Isaacs Romeo. But he wasnt crossing over the way he wanted. Television and film just didnt seem to want to fuck with me, Henry says. I wasnt handsome enough, or I wasnt fit enough I dont know. He came close to giving up: After his run on Mormon ended in 2014, I was done, he says. I felt overlooked. Like no one was seeing me. Like nothing was gonna come. I remember standing in my kitchen thinking, Youve got two options: Either throw in the towel and get some little job or really go for it. One week later, he got the call for Atlanta.
Henry excels at playing scowling tough guys whose swagger often belies a soulfulness and vulnerability. Much like the man himself. The thing I love about the characters I get to play is that theyre not impervious to pain, Henry says. They cry, they get angry which is what I do, too. He thinks its important to show characters struggling with their mental health especially in our community, especially as black men. And as someone whos long battled anxiety and self-esteem issues, he also finds acting central to his own mental health. If I didnt have acting I dont know what Id do, he says. It really does heal my soul. Which is not to say its in any way a substitute for therapy, he adds.
Presumably he does that, too? God, yes, he says. And weed. The holy trinity.
The next step in Henrys career is bonafide blockbusters like Joaquin Phoenixs Joker movie, out this fall, or next years Godzilla Vs. Kong, which he just finished filming. I was in Australia for a month and a half running from a fake lizard, he says in disbelief. Its not a place he imagined himself a few years ago. Im not trying to reinvent the wheel, he says. But I do want to show you that theres different rims you can put on that bitch.
In the meantime, Henry hasnt stopped hustling. I like being a slow burn, because at the end of the day that becomes a fire that will feed you, he says. But I still have to fight every single day for the parts I get. And now that he has a foothold, hes excited to really show what he can do not as a supporting player, but as a leading man.
A lot of times its like, Lets give Brian this tertiary part, give him the best friend but lets not give him a kiss, he says. I dont want that shit anymore. I dont want to be your pinch hitter, where I come in and bunt every time because itll get you a run. Let me swing.
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