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The Gotham Pages: Brian Tyree Henry is Reclaiming His Name

A man sits behind the wheel of a car with a small dog resting on his lap.Brian Tyree Henry in Dope Thief

Brian Tyree Henry has made a career of playing men under pressure—haunted, hardened and often held back by systems much bigger than they are.

“Hopefully, I’ll be in a love story sooner or later,” he jokes, “because, boy, am I tired of running for my life.”

Henry drops that line near the end of our conversation. It’s funny, yes—but also revealing of his nearly two decades in the business. It isn’t always easy to live with the effects of what it’s like to embody these complex men, I guess.

“No,” he replies, his voice dropping a couple octaves into a momentarily solemn tone. “But it’s always an honor to get to play these guys, because these guys exist.”

Henry sounds upbeat, practically buoyant, for the duration of our 45-minute chat over the phone, like what you’d expect from someone who has received universal acclaim for his lead portrayal in the Apple TV+ drama Dope Thief, which premiered in March 2025. At this year’s second annual Gotham Television Awards, he’s nominated for Outstanding Lead Performance in a Drama Series for that role and is also being honored with the ceremony’s first-ever Performer Tribute.

The tribute citation calls out Henry’s work in Dope Thief for its “profound authenticity, emotional intelligence, and philosophical depth.” It’s the first individual award he’s ever been awarded as a professional actor, though he’s been nominated for an Emmy (Atlanta), a Tony (Lobby Hero) and an Academy Award (Causeway), among others.

“This is insane, because I don’t win anything,” Henry comments. “It just reminds me that I’m doing the right thing, and that I’m supposed to be doing this. This feels like a very peer-driven award. So, I’m just floored by it.”

Henry is no stranger to Gotham nominations—he earned nods for Outstanding Supporting Performance for The Fire Inside (2024) and Causeway (2022), not to mention an ensemble win for Breakthrough Series – Short Form for FX’s Atlanta in 2017.

Dope Thief is especially meaningful to Henry because it marks his first time receiving top billing—and serving as executive producer. His theater training of “no one person is bigger than the show” guides his approach to collaboration.

“My door was always open. You kind of become a camp counselor. It was the absolute best feeling I’ve ever had in my career,” he says. “It was so nice to see that at this stage of my career, it was being offered to me, and that people trusted my taste, my contribution, my collaboration. That’s one of the biggest reasons I do this—the people who come together to make it happen.”

And getting his own space was a nice perk, too. “I got my own office, man. With a nameplate! My favorite part was designing the office. Ottomans, Capri Suns, bubbles on deck. I put up Ridley’s storyboards.” (Super producer Ridley Scott directed the show’s pilot episode.)

Henry credits the warm bond between the cast and crew with their ability to withstand the seven-month pause in production caused by the 2023 Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Henry chose to remain in Philadelphia during that limbo period. In the end, it took 16 months to shoot the show.

“Every single crew member who started with us came back. They didn’t have to. They have families, lives, livelihoods. But they all came back. And I have to believe that’s because of the energy and the kinship we formed. We were there for each other. You can’t manufacture that.”

He also remembers Ray, his driver on set, who passed away before the show was completed. “I started every day with him and ended every night with him.”

In Dope Thief, Henry’s character (also named Ray) is a restless, smart and cunning man caught in the carceral system since his teens. Raised by a mother struggling with addiction and a father behind bars, Ray’s emotional world is as pressurized as it is repressed.

“There’s just something about Ray’s depth that really fascinated me,” Henry says. “You’re watching this man carry the weight of the world. He’s grieving. He’s being told: You’re a man now. This is what it’s like. And for me, that felt familiar. That’s something I knew based on my upbringing.”

Henry grew up primarily in Washington, D.C., with his mother and three older sisters before being sent to live with his ex-military father in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

“Ray always carried the burden of feeling like the inconvenient child. Never feeling like he fit in. There’s not one episode where you’re not watching Ray go through a gamut of emotions,” Henry notes. “And I wanted it to be known that it’s possible for this Black man to feel. To be afraid, confused, unsure. To not be good at what he’s trying to do—especially this life of crime. I wanted viewers to care about him, even though we’ve been told we shouldn’t. I wanted them to pull him closer.”

As a child Henry took refuge in the library. “I lived in the library. My parents worked, we couldn’t afford babysitters, so the librarians were mine. I’d spend all day there. That’s where I felt safe,” he says. “So, I’m always celebrating that kid. I’m always reminding that little Black boy in the South that, yeah, here we are.”

His first major move into acting came when he was a student at Morehouse College. At neighboring Spelman College, Henry auditioned for actor, director and professor Kent Gash who, during a recent appearance on the Drew Barrymore Show, said he initially thought Henry was a professional actor and tried to turn him away. Gash made a surprise appearance during Henry’s interview that shocked the now in-demand actor.

“I remember sitting there thinking: Oh. This is what they mean by your life flashing before your eyes. Kent Gash never let up on me. He was like, this is what you’re supposed to do. And I was a knucklehead. I wasn’t thinking about the future. But he saw me. And I don’t ever want to forget the people who got me here.”

Henry spent nearly a decade in New York City honing his craft, mostly on theater stages. After graduating from Morehouse, at the insistence of Gash, he studied at Yale School of Drama. He then did a variety of theater roles, including stints on Broadway. (He was in the original cast of The Book of Mormon.) He also landed walk-on roles on shows like The Good Wife, Boardwalk Empire and Law & Order. Those lean years of using EBT cards, shuffling on and off unemployment and participating in actors’ workshops for no pay are not far from his memory.

“I owe pretty much everything for how I’ve been able to navigate my success and these accomplishments to my upbringing in New York, you know, and to the community I had there,” he says. “New York is always a homecoming for me.”

Henry’s eventual breakout in Atlanta as Paper Boi, the drug dealer turned rapper on the come up came in 2016. It was a career game changer that also came with an unsettling identity shift, as he had to learn how to get used to the visibility, and invisibility, that comes with fame.

“I was Paper Boi to everyone,” he says. “And that was interesting. Because I didn’t realize I was losing my name. I’d been Brian for so long. And suddenly, people all over the world—different countries, different languages—are calling me Paper Boi. No one tells you that fame means you might lose your name. Dope Thief reset that for me. It let me reclaim my name again.”

Now, as his work reaches an even wider audience, Henry savors the process of revealing his range and receipts as an actor, surprising some.

“I was just talking to someone about the Public Theater and I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s where I started.’ Shakespeare in the Park, with Oscar Isaac and Lauren Ambrose. They were like, what? I was like, I was in it! It’s fun to watch people discover that. Realizing I’ve always been here.” He played Tybalt in the 2007 production of Romeo and Juliet in Central Park.

The time he spent cutting his teeth in New York’s theater community provided a necessary foundation for the career success he’s experiencing now.

At the 2025 Met Gala, with the theme Black dandyism, Henry looked dapper walking the red carpet in a maroon suit and gold cape designed by Nigerian fashion house Orange Culture, paired with black riding boots.

“That was the best-smelling Met Gala ever. Shea butters everywhere,” quips Henry.

He was seated at a table with close friend and Atlanta castmate LaKeith Stanfield. He also ran into playwright Brandon Jacob-Jenkins, a friend from his twenties in the city.

“”We used to do play readings together. And we just picked up like nothing had changed, even though he’d just won the Pulitzer [for the play Broadway play Purpose]. That feeling—that sense of belonging—is everything.”

On the heels of Dope Thief’s successful first season, Henry is grateful for his years as a young actor in New York City, and he’s mindful of just how far he has come.

“I’ll never forget that part of me,” he says. “Those workshops I did for free, for food. That’s part of my DNA. That’s why this recognition at the Gothams hits so hard. When your peers are rooting for you—when they want to see more—that’s the real reward.”

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