George Clooney Shares Wife Amal’s Reaction When He Dyed His Hair After Final Broadway Bow (Exclusive)

George Clooney is back in his silver fox era and one important person is particularly excited.

At the 78th Annual Tony Awards on Sunday, June 8, the first-time nominee debuted his natural hair again after previously dyeing it black during his run starring in Broadway’s Good Night, and Good Luck.

“Oh man, my wife [Amal] was the happiest person when I came home after the play today and I’d cut all the hair off,” said Clooney, 64, speaking exclusively to Entertainment Weekly and PEOPLE on the Tonys red carpet. “Because, you know, I looked like a drug dealer with that bad black dye job.”

The Oscar-winning actor led Good Night, and Good Luck in a limited run at New York City’s Winter Garden Theatre that opened with a star-studded premiere on March 12. In addition to co-writing the adaptation of his 2005 feature film with Grant Heslov, Clooney starred as the iconic — and dark-haired — broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow.

Amal, 47, the actor-writer’s wife since 2014, had found Clooney’s darker hair “funny,” he revealed during a June 2 appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers. The mother of two apparently admitted she would “be glad when it’s gone,” said Clooney. “It looks like [I’m] going through some horrible midlife crisis. I’m 64 — midlife is a little stretch.”

Good Night, and Good Luck made history with its penultimate performance airing on CNN on Saturday, June 7, as the first time a live Broadway performance has ever been simultaneously televised. Clooney and his collaborators in the David Cromer-directed show ended the run today.

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In his conversation with EW and PEOPLE, the Ocean’s Eleven star explained that he was “excited” that the live broadcast let “more people see it than just the people in Broadway… I thought it wouldn’t be bad for other people to be able to see this and see it at home for free.”

For his Broadway debut, Clooney is nominated in this year’s Tony Award category for Best Actor in a Play. His fellow nominees are Cole Escola for Oh, Mary!, Jon Michael Hill and Harry Lennix for Purpose, Daniel Dae Kim for Yellow Face and Louis McCartney for Stranger Things: The First Shadow.

See PEOPLE’s full coverage of the 78th annual Tony Awards, hosted by Cynthia Erivo at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall and airing on CBS and Paramount+.

Source People.com