Harry Lennix Says Samuel L. Jackson ‘Doesn’t Mind’ His Stage Romance with LaTanya Richardson Jackson (Exclusive)

When Harry Lennix romances LaTanya Richardson Jackson onstage in Purpose, it’s with her husband Samuel L. Jackson’s blessing.

“He says so,” Lennix, 60, tells PEOPLE. Running into his costar LaTanya’s real-life partner “out after a show,” he jokes, “he always says it’s his time to be with his wife again. But he doesn’t mind lending her out to me for a couple of hours a night.”

Purpose, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Broadway hit at the Helen Hayes Theater, has made Lennix a first-time Tony Award nominee. At the upcoming 78th annual ceremony June 8, the Pulitzer Prize-winning family drama — about the fictional Jaspers, an influential Black American family reckoning with long-held secrets — is up for six Tonys. The critically acclaimed production is directed by Phylicia Rashad.

“LaTanya Richardson Jackson is one of my very favorite actors in the world,” says Lennix, who has collaborated with his fellow Tony nominee on theater productions stretching back almost 20 years. “She is a joy. She’s so pliable. She’s so willing to play and explore, and she’s always having fun.”

Adds The Blacklist star, “When you bring joy to this game, it really is probably the most rewarding thing.”

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That joy was felt offstage as well as on, adds Lennix. “We have really been a cohesive unit, a really tight group,” he says of the cast, which includes the Tony-nominated Jon Michael Hill, Glenn Davis and Kara Young.

“We’ve relied on each other through some times that we’re — I wouldn’t say touch and go — but when you’re leading up to a play and new material is being tried out and rehearsed,” explains Lennix, “sometimes it can be a little daunting.”

“But we always had each other. Every night we say a prayer before we go on stage and we check in with each other. I think that has really solidified us and really made us feel like a family.”

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Jacobs-Jenkins, 40, who won a Tony just last season for his play Appropriate, is “onto something,” LaTaynya, 75, told PEOPLE. “He’s the greatest living playwright right now, and everybody’s going to sit up and pay attention to him.”

Samuel, 76, joined his wife alongside their daughter Zoe Jackson at the March premiere of Purpose. LaTanya told PEOPLE that she and the Pulp Fiction star, married since 1980, have a “pact” to keep acting for as long as they can — with the caveat that they’ll say when “it’s time” to retire.

“[We] both have said we’re going to do it till the wheels fall off,” she said. “We are just going to do this as long as life allows.”

Purpose is now playing at the Helen Hayes Theater.

Source People.com