Brian Tyree Henry
Photo by Jessica Kourkounis

Brian Tyree Henry: “It reminds me that I’m alive”

Short Profile

Name: Brian Tyree Henry
DOB: 31 March 1982
Place of birth: Fayetteville, North Carolina, United States
Occupation: Actor

The final episode of Dope Thief airs on 25 April 2025, on Apple TV+.

Mr. Henry, would you say that you’ve been changed by every role you’ve played as an actor?

I'm constantly being changed by whatever the project is that I'm in at the moment. There's no way to not be changed by them. That's the only way to play the truth of it. It used to be that I carried these roles with me, I couldn't seem to shake them after wrap happened. I still found myself constantly thinking about James from Causeway, you know what I mean? Wondering how he would be doing now, how’s his leg? And then I carried Alfred from Atlanta, I even carried Jefferson from Spider Man. But then I learned to create a new ritual, which was to release them. And in order to release them, I have to bury them because I’m not going to go back to them. But I do want to honor them, because they’re also characters I needed to see when I was a young man.

Is that part of why you became an actor? To fulfill those roles and be those characters for yourself?

Well, I’ve always wanted to be seen, and that is why acting was good for me. I always felt like I was lost, I grew up in a house full of adults. I grew up in a house that didn't really shield me from the realities of the world. And in that environment, in order to get noticed, you had to be bold, you know, anything I could do to get these adults to realize that my existence mattered, I would do and it didn't work. It never worked! At the end of the day, I realized that it wasn't really for them, I was actually doing that for me; to realize that I deserve to exist in that space. And here we are, I’m in my forties, and I'm still trying to figure that out. I'm still trying to find my own voice. I never got into acting to make money or even to pay the bills, I got into it because it provided me safety. I never felt safer than when I was acting, like we’re about to sit here and give life to this story. It’s so fulfilling. It reminds me that I’m alive.

“You’re playing dress up and make believe, and no matter how shaky things get, you still have to keep that essence of what it is.”

The actor Sandra Hüller says that acting is about impossibilities — that the friction of playing a character that is alien to her is what motivates her.

You have to do this amazing, wonderful schizophrenic thing of splitting yourself, right? There’s who you want people to see, and who you want to protect. “Now I'm this person, but I have to make sure I keep these parts of myself hidden away.” It’s a sense of play. There’s a moment in the show Dope Thief where my character Ray is pretending to be a DEA agent and he says something about just projecting certainty. And that’s half the battle of being an actor, you know? You’re playing dress up and make believe, and no matter how shaky things get, you still have to keep that essence of what it is. And so I absolutely understood Ray in that moment.

Ray really goes through it over the course of the series. One of my favorite moments is when he finally completely unravels and we see him just breaking down in tears for several minutes.

Yeah, I remember for that particular episode, there’s a lot that goes on, his friend is missing, he’s been shot, his stepmom is dying, there's all these things, and he's doing everything he can to act like he has it together. Finally, he gets to sit down and she asks if he wants some water… No one has asked what I wanted this entire time. And I remember thinking, when’s the last time Ray has cried? In that moment, he needed to sob, the kind of cry that we don't get to do as men anymore because there’s shame in it. But when I heard myself doing that, I realized, like, I don't know when the last time I’ve cried, where I’ve really heard myself crying. I remember hugging myself and I couldn't stop it, because Ray needs this, and at the end of the day, it was so therapeutic for me too. I needed to hear myself cry as that boy again, because I hadn't done it for so long.

Is it scary to get so in touch with those emotions?

The thing is that, as an actor, you’re spending hours or days living in the body of somebody else, and your personal body doesn’t always know it’s fake. So you get that adrenaline, shock, all that stuff you’re going through, your body is really reacting. In that moment, I had to remind myself that I'm safe, right? I looked at my director and I was like, “Here's the thing, we don't have a lot of these, we cannot do a bunch of these scenes because my body is going to open the flood gates. So I need you to protect me.” We filmed it maybe four times, that was as many I could do. And ultimately, that's what came out of it. It's hard for me to watch that scene back, actually.

It sounds extremely personal for you. Is it exhausting to bring all of that out in your roles?

It reminds me of the science fair. Once a year, you have to do this science fair and it starts with not just getting the experiment that you want to try, but how you want to present the experiment. You have to go get that big ass cardboard thing, and then you have to figure out how you're going to present it. How is your presentation going to stand out? How is your experiment going to stand out? How much time are you going to invest into it? How deep are you going to go into it? Are you doing this experiment to truly solve something in a way that no one has done it before? And I feel like more often than not, my acting style is that of a science fair. I'm experimenting to see if there is a new access point, if there's a new way in.

“I never want to feel like I’ve mastered anything… I think it’s something you spend a lifetime trying to learn.”

How do you get yourself in a zone to accomplish all of that, that when maybe you’re not feeling up to the task or not feeling confident enough?

My rituals always involve music! All the time, I’ve got my little speaker and based on how I'm feeling I'll have playlists that I'll shuffle. Sometimes I have days where I just need quiet, I don’t want to talk at all. I’ll just sit and listen to myself. That can be a little bit of a trap, because the brain can oftentimes confuse you and play old tapes, chipping away at my confidence, chipping away at my performance, chipping away at how I even see myself, I have to really dig deep and remember that all of that is a lie. All of that is false. I have to make sure that I'm always present with where my feelings are. And I'm not gonna lie, Reese's peanut butter cup minis, they really help! Sometimes you just need that silly little bit of self-care!

It seems like those moments of insecurity and doubt are present for everyone, no matter how long you’ve been working in this industry.

We are all fucking human, you know? People will say “You’ve been acting for so long,” or they’ll say, “But you’ve acted with so and so,” but there are still those insecurities and uncertainties. There are still those peaks of personal growth, everything affects me! But I love what I do. With acting, I’m still learning. I never want to feel like I’ve mastered anything… I think it’s something you spend a lifetime trying to learn, if you’re lucky.