Tony Nominee Betsy Aidem Lost '900 Roles' Before Booking Broadway's “Liberation”: 'You Have to Keep Going'“ ”(Exclusive)

Dave QuinnWed, June 3, 2026 at 11:15 AM UTC

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Betsy Aidem at the 2026 Tony Awards 'Meet the Nominees' event on May 14, 2026 in New York City
Credit: Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty -

Betsy Aidem is nominated for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role in the feminist drama Liberation

Speaking with PEOPLE, Aidem —who has faced significant rejection in her career — credits persistence and finding new passions for her success

The 68-year-old actress embraced challenges in Liberation, including a pivotal nude scene, after others turned down the role

Betsy Aidem estimates she's lost hundreds of roles throughout her long career. Fortunately for theatergoers, she's landed a few good ones, too.

The 68-year-old actress is currently nominated for a 2026 Tony Award for her featured performance in Liberation, Bess Wohl's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about feminism, motherhood and the unfinished work of a generation of women searching for change.

It's Aidem's second Tony nomination in three years, following her acclaimed turn in Prayer for the French Republic in 2024. Yet when she looks back at all the accolades she's received over her four decades of work on stage and screen, Aidem says she's spent far more time hearing "no" than "yes."

"The number of parts I didn't get is greater than the number of parts that I did," she tells PEOPLE, while celebrating her nomination at the 2026 Tony Awards 'Meet the Nominees' event on May 14. "I've done like 90 plays, but there were probably 900 plays that I didn't get."

Betsy Aidem at the 2024 Tony Awards
Credit: Jamie McCarthy/WireImage

For years, the actress struggled with the same self-doubt that plagues performers at every level, questioning her talent, her choices and whether she'd ever achieve the career she envisioned.

Her solution was simple, if not always easy: she didn't stop.

"I went to therapy. I had a good acting coach who believed in me. I always put my attention back to the work," she says. "I found other things I'd love to do like paint. I worked in a restaurant for a while. I threw pottery."

Betsy Aidem at the opening night of 'A Mother' on April 7, 2025 in New York City's Baryshnikov Arts Center
Credit: Patrick McMullan via Getty

Over time, Aidem discovered that staying active was often the best antidote to disappointment.

"Taking action is the antidote to despair for me," she says. "I learned that I had to pick up a new skill every time I started feeling like this wasn't giving me what I wanted. You can't look to it for every happiness because it is going to break your heart over, and over, and over again."

That's why she has little patience for the idea that a few setbacks should derail an aspiring actor's ambitions. "I think for young people who aren't getting work, for them to think that they're failing? It's like, 'No! You have to keep going.' It's the long game."

Betsy Aidem attends opening night of Broadway's 'Liberation' at the James Earl Jones Theater on Oct. 28, 2025 in New York City
Credit: Michael Loccisano/Getty

It's a philosophy that has helped sustain a fulfilling career for Aidem. In addition to acclaimed Broadway turns in Leopoldstadt and All the Way, she's appeared in films including The Greatest Showman, Music of the Heart and Nine Months, while also recurring on television series such as Law & Order: SVU and The Americans.

But if that isn't enough proof then look no further than some of the other actresses in Aidem's category. Death of a Salesman's Laurie Metcalf is 70. The Balusters' Marylouise Burke is 86. And Marjorie Prime's June Squibb is 96 (the oldest nominated actor in Tony Awards' history).

"I've got three people in my category older than I am," says Aidem, who is also nominated alongside Aya Cash for Giant. "So obviously the community is saying, 'Yes, you still are worth telling stories about.' "

Betsy Aidem (far right) in Broadway's 'Liberation' alongside (from left) Irene Sofia Lucio, Kristolyn Lloyd and Adina Verson
Credit: Little Fang

Liberation certainly offered a spectrum of stories worth telling. Wohl's ensemble drama follows a group of women involved in the feminist consciousness-raising movement of the 1970s and the daughter who decades later attempts to make sense of their unfinished revolution.

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In director Whitney White's production, Aidem played Margie, an overlooked housewife and mother who arrives feeling defeated by years of domestic obligation before gradually discovering a new sense of agency, confidence and self-worth. The role required the actress to move seamlessly between humor, heartbreak and hard-earned wisdom, culminating in one of the show's most emotional scenes opposite fellow Tony-nominated costar Susannah Flood.

"It felt like I played three parts because Margie started in a very dark place," she recalls. "But through the course of the story, she opened up the aperture of her consciousness and then became a different kind of person with brand new lessons to impart. And then, just when you thought you knew who she was, she got to become Susannah's mother, which opened up an entirely new conversation."

Susannah Flood and Betsy Aidem in 'Liberation' on Broadway
Credit: Little Fang

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The role was exactly the kind of challenge Aidem has spent her career seeking out. "The thing that I embrace more than anything is the range," she says. "Trying to find something as far away from myself as possible. That's what I thrive on."

"I don't play myself," she adds, laughing with self-deprecation. "I don't know who myself is yet. I'm still figuring that out!"

There was one aspect of Liberation, however, that briefly gave her pause: the play's now-famous nude scene.

It was easily one of the show's most transcendent moments. Early in Act II, the show's ensemble — including Audrey Corsa, Kristolyn Lloyd, Irene Sofia Lucio and Adina Verson — shed their clothes during a feminist consciousness-raising exercise, a symbolic rejection of the expectations, judgments and limitations that had long defined their lives.

But when Aidem first read the script, she wasn't sold. "I was like, 'Oh, do I really want to do this?' "

Betsy Aidem, Kristolyn Lloyd, Irene Sofia Lucio, Adina Verson, Audrey Corsa and Susannah Flood in the Broadway production of 'Liberation'
Credit: Little Fang

Eventually, Aidem decided to take the leap. But after accepting the role, she attended a Christmas party and discovered she wasn't the only actress who had reservations.

"I saw 12 other women who had passed on the play," she remembers. "And they were like, 'Oh yeah, I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't take my clothes off.' "

Rather than feeling intimidated, Aidem chose to see the humor in the situation. " 'Okay, so I'm No. 13. But I get to do this, not them. This is great,' " she recalls thinking.

"Careers are made of sloppy seconds, and I was sloppy No. 13," Aidem says with a laugh. "And here I am today."

The 2026 Tony Awards will take place at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday, June 7. The show will be broadcast live to both coasts on CBS beginning at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT, and will stream on Paramount+.

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