Alden Ehrenreich received his first Tony nomination for his Broadway debut as the acerbic Max in Gina Gionfriddo’s darkly comedic play Becky Shaw.

It’s a role Ehrenreich is relishing, in part because of his character’s warped and complicated worldview, but also because he gets to deliver some of the play’s harshest blows.

As Max, he calls love a “by-product of use,” speaks about other people’s pain as an inconvenience to his own goals and snidely comments on his first-date’s attire saying, “You look like a birthday cake.” His character, a 36-year-old money manager, has developed this persona as both a power move and coping strategy after being adopted into a similarly sharp-tongued family who continually reminds him he is not actually their flesh and blood.

When that date, Becky Shaw, whose presence kicks off the central action of the play, asks for advice on how to handle Max, his would-be sister, Suzanna, says “Inasmuch as you can, don’t show him any weakness.”

And yet, Ehrenreich says audiences seem to alternate night-by-night between hating his character and cheering him on.

“There have been nights where some audiences have been so behind these things that me or Linda [Edmond] said that the whole cast is like ‘Easy guys. That’s a pretty fucked up thing to be excited about.’ But for the most part, those nights are just a different, joyful thing,” Ehrenreich said. 

That also speaks to the power of his stage presence. The role also allows Ehrenreich to dig deeper into his love of theater after a string of onscreen work, including supporting roles in Weapons and Oppenheimer, and enjoying acting alongside an ensemble including Edmond, his even more eviscerating adoptive mother, Lauren Patten (Suzanna), his adoptive sister, The Pitt’s Patrick Ball and Madeline Brewer, who plays the titular character and will not let the catastrophe of their first date get in the way of a possible relationship. 

He spoke with The Hollywood Reporter shortly after receiving the news of his Tony nomination May 5 about what it’s like to get into the mind of Max each night and what he’s taking from his experience to his new theater, Huron Station Playhouse, In L.A.

What made you want to come to Broadway with this play?

I wanted to do this for my whole career, act in a play in New York, whether that’s Broadway or Off-Broadway. And I had been looking for things, and I had actually begun to read this play a while back, and really loved it. And then I was told the rights were unavailable, and they were unavailable because of this production. And Trip [Cullman] is someone I knew a little bit. We talked about working together before, and we had a really lovely conversation then. And so when I found out it was him that was really exciting, because he’s such a wonderful director and this role, I just loved it.

What did you love about it?

It’s just an incredibly dynamic, entertaining role. And there’s certain parts and characters that come around that you know how to connect to and I felt that with this, and then the great sort of gratification and surprise has been in the work on it, both on my own and in the room with everybody, just how much depth and psychology and emotion Gina has brought to bear on this play and this sort of tight-knit dysfunctional community of characters. The roots just go so much deeper than I think I even totally appreciated when I first read it, and that was just giving you so much more to mine and and play with.

Do you see your character as a kind of a villain of the play, or is it more than that?

Even if I was playing someone who’s even more outright, and I have played people who are even more outright villainous, unless you’re Jafar in Aladdin or something like that, and maybe even not then, I don’t think anybody really conceives of themselves that way. So I think part of the important part of my job is you see that, and have an awareness of that, but then you really have to put that aside and understand the point of view. It’s why the acting work is very humanizing, because it forces you to think at a very deep level in a very empathetic way toward people who do things that you would find sort of abhorrent. This play in particular is very exciting to do because every night it feels like the allegiances of the audience are a little bit different. And there are nights where it feels like the audience is experiencing me as the villain of the piece, and other nights where they’re experiencing me very much as the person who they’re siding with. And that is a wild thing to experience, that shape shifting quality.

Do you know what tips the scales each night, making the audience for or against you? 

We’ve talked about it, and I really have no idea. There isn’t anything we can kind of point to. Different audiences are different people. They have a completely different point of view and temperament, and what they find funny changes. Some scientists should really kind of study it, because it’s a really interesting phenomenon.

How does it feel being in the middle of that complicated, often negative dynamic onstage?

My character spends a lot of time justifying himself to the other people in the play, but on those nights where I can feel that the audience is really kind of revolted by him, I feel like I have to argue that much harder for the legitimacy of his point of view, which is not necessarily something I believe as a person, but when I take on any character, it feels like I’m responsible and an advocate for their lives, to some extent. And you feel that kind of protectiveness. And then when they’re really on my side, there have been nights where some audiences have been so behind these things that me or Linda said that the whole cast is like “Easy guys. That’s a pretty fucked up thing to be excited about.” But for the most part, those nights are just a different, joyful thing. And sometimes the actors, you know, the ensemble, will kind of check-in and at intermission and go, “Oh, they really don’t like you tonight.” 

Are you looking to do more Broadway after this? 

Yeah, absolutely, I would love to. I love theater. I had a theater company in my ‘20s, and I’ve loved theater since I was a kid, and my whole adult life. And so the fact that I get to be a part of this tradition, really, and I was gonna say community, which is also true, but also just the historical tradition. Most of the actors I admired, if not all, really began in theater in one way or another, and I’ve always been very enamored with it. It’s part of why I wanted to start Huron Station in LA. And so the fact that I have the ability to work in this world is very gratifying.

Have you learned anything from being on Broadway that you want to bring to Huron Station? 

I directed a short film about shadow brothers Sunday a few years ago, and what I felt when I felt when I did that was like, Oh, I’ve had all this experience with great filmmakers, and I’m kind of grabbagging and cherry picking all these different great lessons of things I want to do and things I don’t want to do, and bringing that to bear on this film and and I feel the same way with Huron now. It’s just wonderful timing. We’ll be opening with our first season very soon, and the fact that I am now going into that experience with a much better grasp of just how the sausage gets made, to use a gross metaphor, is very is just great. So there’s just, there’s a lot of little things about, you know, how the rehearsal process works, and things that I felt were useful, and things like that that I feel like I’ll be bringing into it, and also just appreciation of what theater actors’ lives are. I have such an admiration for so many of these actors that I’ve watched on stage for so long, and a much greater appreciation of the grit that is involved. 

What do you make of your past several months, with Weapons and now the Tony nomination? 

The making of the thing in theater’s interesting because you’re making the thing and putting the thing out simultaneously, which is very different from working in film, but the great joy for me, the great moments, really, have been working with other artists that I respect and admire. So in this case, working with Tripp and working with the ensemble actors that I get to go up and do these scenes with every night. Or in past experiences working, you know, with Zach Cregger on Weapons and being a part of his vision, like those moments where you’re collaborating with an artist who is changing what you’re doing and bringing your game up, and you’re learning from and you’re offering something to what they’re making is the great satisfaction of it. And then if the thing does really well, that’s a really nice recognition and appreciation of it, but it’s almost a separate thing than the actual experience.