Sophie Okonedo won her first Tony. She played opposite Denzel Washington in A Raisin in the Sun, and has claimed an award for her work. Although Okonedo has been working as an actress for years, the Tony she won is her first.

If reviews of the show were anything to go by, Okonedo was an obvious pick. “She embraces every part of the character,” one critic said in the Washington Post. Concerning her character, Ruth, Okonedo explained “She’s quite tough, quite robust. She couldn’t be falling apart every second. She’d have to be trying to keep it together.”

Broadway has been very kind to Okonedo. “If it’s always like this, you’re never going to get rid of me,” the actress told Playbill, speaking of her Broadway experience, “I am just loving every minute of it. If I had predicted what would happen, I couldn’t have predicted it. With this play, the joy I have of performing it, the incredible cast I’m with and then all of the accolades with it, it’s really unbelievable.”

Sophie Okonedo wins her first Tony award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for "A Raisin in the Sun" pic.twitter.com/nSjsdBwiTU

— Shadow And Act (@shadowandact) June 9, 2014

Okonedo beat out four other actresses for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play: Mare Winningham in Casa Valentina, Sarah Greene in The Cripple of Inishmaan, Celia Keenan-Bolger in The Glass Menagerie, and Anika Noni Rose who was also in A Raisin in the Sun.

What’s next for Okonedo? The Daily Mail reported she will take the role of Queen Margaret against Benedict Cumberbatch’s Richard III in the BBC’s miniseries The Hollow Crown. The project is the baby of Sam Mendes and will encompass William Shakespeare’s version of the War of the Roses.

Image via YouTube, CBS.