Sarah Paulson has admitted that she became "so hungry" for her 2024 Tony Award win after months of campaigning for it.
The American Horror Story actress, who won the Tony for Best Leading Actress in a Play for Appropriate in June 2024, admitted on the Las Culturistas podcast that campaigning for awards is always "arduous", but her Tonys campaign was particularly difficult because she was still acting in the play at the time.
"(The joy of performing) gets sort of stolen from you with the worry and the fear that you had an off night or something that just maybe didn't quite land or the audience was quieter and did that mean they weren't as into it?" she shared.
"And then you're out there in the morning doing your Good Morning America's and you're talking to all the people. You've been on vocal rest normally while you were doing your play for the whole time, and now you're out there, now you're on pounds of steroids, and you're campaigning."
The 50-year-old noted that she was "happy" to put in the work because she couldn't believe she had been "fortunate" enough to be nominated. However, she candidly confessed that the campaign made her want the award "very bad".
"I also had to deal with my hunger. It made the hunger worse. Oh, I wanted it, and I wanted it very bad," she continued. "All of a sudden, they put like a carrot in front of you and then they just keep moving it further and further away, but like you're getting closer and closer, and all of a sudden you're so hungry. You're like, 'If you don't get me that carrot, I'm gonna die!' I didn't know that it was there, and now that I know it's there, I really want it."
Paulson also has had plenty of experience on the campaign circuit for the Emmys and Golden Globes, among other awards, multiple times.
She won an Emmy, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild and Critics Choice Awards for 2016's The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story.
