Jesse Williams Was 'Terrified' Being Nude in 'Take Me Out'
Jesse Williams lets it all hang out in the Broadway revival of "Take Me Out," but the actor shares that it took some time for him to get in the right headspace to do so.
"I was terrified," Jesse Williams told Page Six about stripping down in his Broadway debut. But it's what exactly what he asked for, he explained.
"That was what I asked God for. I asked to be terrified. I asked to do something that was scary and challenging and made me earn it and made me feel alive and not comfortable," says Williams about the role.
In 2021, Williams announced that he was he was exiting "Grey's Anatomy" after 12 seasons as Dr. Jackson Avery. Now starring in "Take Me Out" as Darren Lemming, a baseball player who recently came out as gay, the actor says he is excited and "a little nervous" to be doing something new.
The production marks the first revival of Richard Greenberg's play that won the Tony in 2003 for Best Play. It opened to largely good reviews, Jesse Green in the New York Times wrote: "At its best, "Take Me Out," which opened on Monday in a fine revival at the Helen Hayes Theater, is a five-tool play. It's (1) funny, with an unusually high density of laughs for a yarn that is (2) quite serious, and (3) cerebral without undermining its (4) emotion. I'm not sure whether (5) counts as one tool or many, but "Take Me Out" gives meaty roles to a team of actors, led in this Second Stage Theater production by Jesse Williams as Lemming and Jesse Tyler Ferguson as his fanboy business manager."
"Honestly, I just make that excitement. I don't let it settle. I know it's going to be fine," says Williams. "I just have to believe that and lean forward," he says. "Having said that, I'm incredibly humble about the whole thing. I've never done this before."
For ticket information, visit the show's website.
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