What to know about NC’s Ariana DeBose, host of the Tony Awards

North Carolina native Ariana DeBose, won an Academy Award for her role in “West Side Story,” is hosting the Tony Awards June 16 for the third consecutive year.

DeBose, 33, won the Oscar in the Best Supporting Actress category for her role as Anita in the 2021 Steven Spielberg remake of “West Side Story.” She became the first openly LGBTQ woman of color to win an Academy Award, and her acceptance speech continues to resonate with the LGBTQ community.

“Lastly, imagine this little girl in the back seat of a white Ford Focus, look into her eyes: You see a queer, openly queer woman of color, an Afro Latina who found her strength in life through art,” she said.

“And that’s what I believe we’re here to celebrate. Yeah, so, to anybody who has ever questioned your identity ever, ever, ever, or you find yourself living in the gray spaces, I promise you this: There is indeed a place for us.”

Since then, she has continued to star in numerous films, including Disney’s “Wish,” “Argylle” and “I.S.S.” and the Apple TV+ comedy “Schmigadoon!” “Kraven the Hunter” is expected to come out later in 2024.

“Wish,” which celebrates 100 years of Disney, stars DeBose voicing a 17-year-old girl named Asha. She wishes upon a star to save her community from the scheming King Magnifico (voiced by Chris Pine). DeBose sings at least five of the songs on the soundtrack.

In May 2022, she was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of the year and has hosted the Tony Awards twice.

She was The News & Observer’s Tar Heel of the Month in March 2021.

This year, DeBose is also a producer of the Tony Awards. Here’s what you need to know about her before Sudnay’s ceremony from New York.

DeBose grew up in Wilmington, Raleigh, Wake Forest

Here are some quick biographical facts about DeBose’s early life.

▪ Some publications list DeBose as a Raleigh native, but she was actually born in Wilmington.

▪ Ariana and her mother, Gina, a teacher at Wakefield Middle School, moved to Wake Forest when Ariana was entering sixth grade. Gina DeBose told The N&O in 2021 that the move was to give her daughter more options to develop her talent in Raleigh’s thriving arts scene.

▪ DeBose took dance classes at CC & Co. Dance Complex in Raleigh and was active in theater at Wake Forest-Rolesville High School, performing in productions of “Aida,” “Les Misérables” and “A Chorus Line.”

▪ When she was 15, DeBose won a dance contest sponsored by Cold Stone Creamery, reported MyDomaine design magazine. She won $15,000 “plus free shakes and smoothies for life.”

▪ In 2009, when she was 18, DeBose competed on Season 6 of the television competition series “So You Think You Can Dance.” She placed in the Top 20.

▪ She attended Western Carolina University briefly, but dropped out to pursue a career in New York.

Before movies, DeBose was a Broadway star

Long before DeBose starred in the movie version of “West Side Story,” she made her mark on stage.

▪ In 2011, DeBose made her Broadway debut in “Bring it On: The Musical.”

▪ In 2013 she played Mary Wilson in “Motown: The Musical” and followed the next year with “Pippin.”

▪ DeBose then played The Bullet in the original cast of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton” from 2015-16. Immediately after “Hamilton,” from 2016-17, she played Jane in “A Bronx Tale.”

▪ In 2018, DeBose was nominated for a Tony (Best Featured Actress in a Musical) for her performance as Disco Donna in “Summer: The Donna Summer Musical.”

DeBose on TV and in movies

▪ DeBose worked alongside Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman and Kerry Washington in the 2020 Netflix movie, “The Prom.” She played Alyssa Greene, a popular cheerleader who wants to come out so she can attend the school dance with her secret girlfriend, played by Jo Ellen Pellman. But the school and the town try to block gay students from attending the prom. Alyssa’s own mother (played by Washington) is in the dark about her daughter’s sexuality, and leads the effort to keep the prom “straight.”

▪ In 2021, DeBose was a scene-stealer in the Apple TV+ musical comedy series “Schmigadoon,” which starred Cecily Strong, Keegan-Michael Key, Alan Cumming and Kristin Chenoweth. DeBose played the singing and dancing “schoolmarm” Emma Tate, who falls in love with Key’s character, Josh.

▪ DeBose hosted the first “Saturday Night Live” show of 2022, delivering a great monologue and leading several funny skits, including a “Sound of Music” spoof in which she played a singing governess hired to care for a widower’s children.

▪ DeBose has a rare non-musical role in the film “I.S.S.” playing Dr. Kira Foster. The movie was filmed in Wilmington and stars Chris Messina. According to the IMDB description, “when a world war event occurs on Earth,” both America and Russia secretly contact their astronauts at the International Space Station and “give them instructions to take control of the station by any means necessary.”

▪ Since the Oscars, DeBose has been featured in several productions. She had a recurring role in HBO’s “Westworld” and filmed a top-secret role of Calypso in Marvel’s “Kraven the Hunter.” And she has plans to star in and executive produce a film, “Two and Only,” which Deadline describes as “‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ with a bisexual Latinx point of view.” And finally, she was cast in “Poolman” with Annette Bening, which is being touted as Chris Pine’s (“Wonder Woman”) directorial debut. The nature of her role in the film is unclear.

▪ She has received rave reviews for hosting the Tony Awards, including during the 2023 Writers Guild of American strike. She performed a complicated dance routine as her opening act, complete with a leap off stairs into the arms of a fellow dancer. “We don’t have a script, you guys!” she said.

▪ That said, she was roasted for a performance she did at the 2023 BAFTA Awards, in which a rap about acclaimed fellow actresses went viral for the line “Angela Bassett did the thing.” DeBose embraced the incident, selling totebags with the lyrics to the rap at her concert at the London Palladium.

DeBose is Afro-Latina

DeBose’s father is Puerto Rican, and she told Marc Maron in an interview in March 2023 that he has never been part of her life. But the fact that she didn’t grow up with her father, she told Maron, “doesn’t make me less of what I am.”

She told Maron: “When I walk down the street I’m a black woman to half the world, and if you know, I’m a Puerto Rican.”

She is also the first Afro-Latina actress to play the role of Anita in “West Side Story.” DeBose told The News & Observer in December 2021 that Anita’s representation was very important to her, and she let director Spielberg know right away.

“It was one of the first things I brought up when I was auditioning,” DeBose said. “I said if you’re not interested in exploring this — this is my lived identity, I am Afro-Latina — then I don’t know that I’m your girl, because I’m a Black woman. I walk through the world as a Black woman. And it’s not every day that Afro-Latina women get to play characters where the audience really gets to know their experience. ... So I was just basically like, if you’re not interested in that perspective I don’t think you should hire me.”

DeBose said that Tony Kushner, who wrote the screenplay, worked on ways to acknowledge that lived experience in the updated story.

“For me, Anita has taught me so much and she’s helped me embrace another facet of who I am and embrace my Hispanic heritage,” she told The N&O.

DeBose is gay, and identifies as queer

She’s became the first openly gay woman to win an acting Oscar. She already holds the distinction of being the first openly queer woman of color to win a Screen Actors Guild Award.

DeBose was not yet out when she attended high school in Wake Forest, and she told Oprah Magazine in December 2020 that she felt “ashamed” when she danced with a girl at her high school prom. Her role in the Netflix movie “The Prom” was cathartic for that reason.

In a March 2021 profile, DeBose told The N&O that “The Prom” was different from her personal experience in one very important way: “I was very, very blessed to have a real-life experience where my relationship with my family was a positive one.”

She also said she didn’t feel the community in general was prejudiced against LGBTQ youth. “It was an inclusive community for the most part,” DeBose said.

DeBose is very private about her personal life, but numerous publications, including MyDomaine.com, have reported that her partner of several years is Broadway costume designer Sue Makkoo. Makkoo was in the audience during DeBose’s Oscar win and designed the costumes for her first Tony Award hosting gig.

DeBose swept the awards for ‘West Side Story’

Here are some of the major awards DeBose won for “West Side Story.”

▪ The Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress, given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association

▪ The Los Angeles Film Critics award for Best Supporting Actress

▪ Screen Actors Guild (SAG) award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role. She is the first Latina performer to win an individual film prize at the SAG Awards.

▪ Critics Choice award for Best Supporting Actress

▪ The BAFTA award for Best Supporting Actress, given by The British Academy of Film and Television Arts

How to watch the Tony Awards

The three-hour telecast, live from Lincoln Center in New York, starts at 8 p.m. on CBS and will stream on Paramount+. A pre-show, “Tony Awards: Act One,” to award technical awards is at 6:30 p.m. on Pluto TV with dancer/host Julianna Hough and “Ghosts” star Utkarsh Ambudkar

How to watch ‘West Side Story’

“West Side Story”is on Disney+ and can be rented on other streaming services like Amazon Prime.

This story was originally published March 23, 2022 at 6:00 AM with the headline "What to know about NC’s Ariana DeBose, host of the Tony Awards."

Brooke Cain

The News & Observer

Brooke Cain is a North Carolina native who has worked at The News & Observer and McClatchy for more than 30 years as a researcher, reporter and media writer. She is the National Service Journalism Editor for McClatchy.