‘Dope Thief’s Brian Tyree Henry Wants You ‘Yelling’ at His Characters (VIDEO)
Brian Tyree Henry had 10 projects come out in 2018 alone. Widows, If Beale Street Could Talk, and Atlanta Season 2 were just some of the things he was seen in that year. He also snagged his second consecutive Emmy nomination in 2018 (his first and only for Atlanta, after being nominated the year before for his guest role in This Is Us). He also had time to nab a Tony nomination. In the time since, the accolades have continued. His star-making turn as Alfred/Paper Boi in Atlanta came to an end in 2022, Causeway earned him an Oscar nomination in 2023, and now he could win Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series for Apple TV+‘s Dope Thief at the 2025 Emmy Awards in September.
In the video interview above, Henry reveals how his jam-packed 2018 taught him how to approach his career with “surgical precision” and why he wants fans “yelling” at his characters. The 43-year-old star was recently flipping through his old journals to look back on that pivotal time in his career. Though being so booked and busy didn’t make him realize he had “made it” in the moment, his journal revealed that he did have a sense that his life was changing.
“I put them on the shelf. I just had not read them,” Henry says of his personal writing. “I pulled one journal down that went all the way back to 2018 … I literally wrote, ‘Hey fool, you have seven movies coming out right now. You have seven movies. Are you hydrated? Are you drinking enough water? What are you feeling? Take the time to really be grateful about what’s going on.”
Taking his time is a top priority now. He recalls learning the importance of mindful character development through one of his first TV roles, a guest spot on The Good Wife Season 2, and how that prepared him to audition for Atlanta. The Good Wife taught him “to remember that there’s cameras there and cameras capture everything, so maybe you have to do less, maybe you do a little bit more here. Maybe this isn’t so precious here. And it just cracked me open after that.”
“I was just like, well, I’ve humiliated myself so much at this point with the choices I made in this show. You’ve just got to go full-tilt boogie,” Henry explains with a laugh. “I remember leaving that set, not that I felt like anyone was making me feel like I didn’t make good choices, but I released this need and control of wanting everything to be right. I think that’s what really helped me when it came time to audition for Atlanta, just go in with a certain kind of confidence of myself as an actor to just build a character and make these choices. And I never looked back.”
His acting choices now are defined by this goal: “I always want people to be yelling at me when they’re watching the stuff I am in,” he shares, “either yelling at me because they’re so happy and I’m making them laugh or there’s joy or they’re just like, what are you doing? Why are you doing that? Because then there’s a connection. I’m always just thinking about that. I’m always trying to make sure that the viewer feels like I have them in mind. And I think that definitely is something that translates from theater.”
Brian Tyree Henry as Ray and Wagner Moura as Manny in Dope Thief (Apple TV+)
Henry stars in Dope Thief alongside Wagner Moura, Ving Rhames, Nesta Cooper, Kate Mulgrew, Marin Ireland, and more in the drama created by Peter Craig. He plays Ray Driscoll, a man frozen in his circumstances because of a troubled past that continues to haunt him. Ray and best friend Manny (Moura) pose as DEA agents to rob drug dealers. Their small-time grift becomes a life-and-death enterprise after a robbery goes off the rails, as they reveal and unravel a big hidden narcotics corridor on the Eastern Seaboard.
Dope Thief felt theatrical thanks to executive producer Ridley Scott, who directed the first episode of the Philly-set series. Scott always shoots with many cameras at once, and the actors don’t know where all of them are positioned. The Gladiator director also doesn’t allow many takes, which made filming Dope Thief scenes feel like live theater at times. But Henry loves the specificity that cameras force you to consider.
“When you’re doing the screen, every little thing really counts to this character’s development, to the story,” the Yale School of Drama alum explains. “How you scratch your face, how you breathe, how often are you blinking, all these things. That is exciting to me because screen really doesn’t give you anywhere to hide.”
Theater exposes you in a different way. There’s no takes in a live show. “The ability to surrender is a big thing that I try to bring from stage to TV,” Henry notes. “People can tell if you’re phoning it in. People can tell if you’re not connected. People can feel it. I don’t ever want any viewer of anything that I do to feel like I’m phoning it in, to feel like they can’t I associate with who I’m playing or feel for him.”
Watching Dope Thief, you can’t help but feel connected to Ray as he struggles to show people how much he loves them. Ray can’t find the words to make them understand, Henry says, but he’ll go to the ends of the earth to show them. And hopefully, he’ll get the love he craves so badly in return. Henry uses tiny details, such as rubbing his arm to make a memory out of a rare gentle touch, to show how ready Ray’s love for people is to shine through the cracks of his armor. Learn more about how he crafted this complicated character in the full video interview above.
Dope Thief, All Episodes Available Now, Apple TV+
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