Jesse Tyler Ferguson of “Modern Family” won the 2022 Tony Award for outstanding featured actor in a play for his work in the revival of “Take Me Out.”

“Twenty-five years ago, I worked at the Theatre Circle gift shop on 44th Street, which happens to be three doors down from the Hayes Theater, where “Take Me Out” is playing,” Ferguson launched into his acceptance speech.

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“And I would sit in there and I would be folding my Phantom of the Opera T-shirts and watching actors walk by the windows on the way to their half-hour call and I thought, ‘Oh God, I hope that’s me someday,'” he went on to say. “So to stand in front of this community I admire and love so much just means so much to me. I cannot believe I get to do this for a living.”

“Mom, Dad, thank you for letting me move to New York when I was 17,” Ferguson remarked, also thanking his understudy and his husband.

Take Me Out was also named Best Play Revival. When a big group of cast members, Ferguson, and non-performers involved with the production, appeared in the press room, questions about the photo leak from the play were posed.

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Ferguson indicated that the release of a naked photo of cast member Jesse Williams following a performance had not made him less trusting of Broadway audiences.

The cellphone footage, which was filmed from the audience and subsequently released on social media despite safeguards in place at the Second Stage Theater to prohibit phone access, infuriated the theatre, Actors’ Equity, and Ferguson. Last month, Deadline reported that it would add infrared equipment to identify mobile misuse.

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“Take Me Out is a very unique play in which there are shower scenes and celebrities — I don’t think those two match up too often onstage,” Ferguson answered in the press room when asked if the incident will weaken his connection with those in the chairs. “Maybe we’ll see a surge of those plays, though, who knows?”