From late January of this year until the end of March, Brian d’Arcy James got loaded eight times a week, turned his teetotal sweetheart into a lush and then struggled for sobriety, in the limited-run Broadway production of “Days of Wine And Roses.”
Come Sunday matinees, Mr. James, a Tony nominee for his performance as Jack Daniels’s best friend (the awards ceremony is June 16), could have been forgiven for an eagerness to hit the road instead of the sauce.
Destination: Fairfield County, in Connecticut, where he and his wife, Jennifer Prescott, an actor and documentary filmmaker, own a weekend home.
“I wouldn’t say that I counted the minutes,” said the very affable Mr. James, 55, whose Broadway credits include “Hamilton,” “Something Rotten!” and “Into the Woods,” and who had a principal role in the 2015 Oscar-winning movie “Spotlight.” But “everything about the show was so demanding — emotionally, technically and physically — that when the Sunday matinees were over, the idea of having a place to go and just recoup … it was just, ‘Oh, my god, thank god.’”
Brian d’Arcy James sits on a piano bench, wearing a dark sweatshirt and jeans.
