The biggest stars on Broadway during the 2024-2025 season - Wikipedia data

[Jonathan Cohen]

Posted: 7/27/24 at 8:29pm

There's often a lot of talk on this board around casting decisions, about which actor is most famous and will have the greatest impact on ticket sales. Most of the time, those conversations are driven by anecdotal evidence; assuming if I've heard of someone, they're famous. If I haven't, they're not. 

However, I was curious to objectively find who on Broadway has the most name recognition, and got the answer by at least by one metric. I looked up how many views the Wikipedia page of actors and actresses who are scheduled to appear in 2024-2025 season Broadway shows received between July 2023 - June 2024. 

Here are the results: 

#1. Robert Downey Jr. (McNeal)   -  6.69M Wikipedia page views 

#2. Jake Gyllenhaal (Othello)  -  5.35M Wikipedia page views 

#3. Rachel Zegler (Romeo And Juliet)  -  4.87M Wikipedia page views 

#4. Denzel Washington (Othello)  -   4.63M Wikipedia page views 

#5. George Clooney (Good Night, and Good Luck) - 3.7M Wikipedia page views 

#6. Katie Holmes (Our Town)  -  2.71M Wikipedia page views 

#7. Jim Parsons (Our Town)  -  2.54M Wikipedia page views 

#8. Nick Jonas (The Last Five Years)  -  2.36M Wikipedia page views 

#9. Nicole Scherzinger (Sunset Boulevard)  -  2.16M Wikipedia page views 

#10. Mia Farrow (The Roommate)  -  2.07M Wikipedia page views

#11. Idina Menzel (Redwood)  -  1.74M Wikipedia page views

#12. Sarah Snook (The Picture Of Dorian Gray)  -  1.56M Wikipedia page views

#13. Zoey Deutch (Our Town)  -  1.49M Wikipedia page views

#14. Julianna Margulies (Left On Tenth)  -  1.38M Wikipedia page views

#15. Kit Connor (Romeo And Juliet)  -  1.25M Wikipedia page views

#16. David Hyde Pierce (The Pirates of Penzance)  -  1.11M Wikipedia page views

#17. Daniel Dae Kim (Yellow Face)  -  1.07M Wikipedia page views

#18. Richard Thomas (Our Town)   -  1.01M Wikipedia page views

#19. Bernadette Peters (Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends)  -  834K Wikipedia page views

#20. Darren Criss (Maybe Happy Ending)   -  702K Wikipedia page views

#21.  Michelle Williams (Death Becomes Her)   -  645K Wikipedia page views

#22. Peter Gallagher (Left On Tenth)   -  627K Wikipedia page views

#23. Audra McDonald (Gypsy)   -  626K Wikipedia page views

#24. Patti LuPone (The Roommate)   -  607K Wikipedia page views

#25. Sutton Foster (Once Upon A Mattress)   -  572K Wikipedia page views

#26. Michael Urie (Once Upon A Mattress)   - 463K Wikipedia page views

#27. Bill Irwin (Eureka Day)   -  412K Wikipedia page views

#28. Thomas Middleditch (Eureka Day)  -  399K Wikipedia page views

#29. Ophelia Lovibond (The Hills Of California)   -  361K Wikipedia page views

#30. John Gallagher Jr (Swept Away)  -  332K Wikipedia page views

#31. Christian Borle (Tammy Faye)   -  329K Wikipedia page views

#32. Jessica Hecht (Eureka Day)   -  307K Wikipedia page views

#33. Ana Gasteyer (Once Upon A Mattress)  -  296K Wikipedia page views

#34. Zoë Chao (Eureka Day)   -   283K Wikipedia page views

#35. Laura Donnelly (The Hills Of California)  -  236K Wikipedia page views

#36. Megan Hilty (Death Becomes Her)   -  221K Wikipedia page views

#37. Conrad Ricamora (Oh, Mary!)  -  211K Wikipedia page views

#38. Will Chase (Once Upon A Mattress)  -  196K Wikipedia page views

#39. Cole Escola (Oh, Mary!)  -  163K Wikipedia page views

#40. Adrienne Warren (The Last Five Years)   - 136K Wikipedia page views

#41. Daniel Breaker (Once Upon A Mattress)   -  97.1K Wikipedia page views

#42. Stark Sands (Swept Away)  - 86.9K Wikipedia page views

#43. Jennifer Simard (Death Becomes Her)  -  53.6K Wikipedia page views

[Jonathan Cohen]

Posted: 7/27/24 at 8:30pm

^^^Notes about the data above^^^

• I pulled the data from the ListenFirst social media analytics platform. If a performer doesn't have a Wikipedia page or ListenFirst wasn't already tracking their Wikipedia page, I couldn't include their data. For example, James Monroe Iglehart (A Wonderful World) has a Wikipedia page but I didn't have access to that data. 
• Objective popularity does not mean relevant popularity. For example, Zoey Deutch getting more Wikipedia page views than Bernadette Peters, Audra McDonald, and Sutton Foster doesn't mean more people are willing to see her perform in a musical. 
• Visits to these Wikipedia pages aren't always driven by interest in acting projects. For example, Semrush, a search engine measurement tool, found that the term "Mia Farrow children" is searched 12.8K times a month globally.  

[JoeW4]

Posted: 7/27/24 at 10:28pm

Definitely interesting data. Another thing to consider though:

People might visit different actors' Wikipedia pages for different reasons: in some of these cases, I can't help but wonder if these people have so many views because people see them and think "wait, who is that? What are they from?" In other words, the fact that people need to look them up in the first place might actually say more about their LACK of recognition with the general public.

By contrast, everyone knows Robert Downey Jr. and George Clooney already, and people probably go to their Wikipedia pages to learn more about their lives and work.

So it ends up being kind of apples and oranges.

Still interesting though, thanks for sharing!

[Jonathan Cohen]

Posted: 7/28/24 at 2:17am

Yes, for sure people use Wikipedia to learn about public figures they no zero about. However, for that to happen at scale is actually pretty rare. I can give a quick example - JD Vance had 6.5 million page views on his Wikipedia page on July 15. He was already a public figure but when he became the Republican VP nominee, but there legitimately were millions of people learning who he was for the first time. 

However around entertainment, there's less of a monoculture and actors becoming super famous overnight is not really what's represented on the list. Of the 10 actors on this list with the most Wikipedia page views, all except Rachel Zegler, who became famous in 2021, have been public figures since for at least 15 years. New faces are not getting the most page views. 

That said, I think Wikipedia page views is a better proxy for active interest in actors and their projects, as opposed to absolute name recognition. I'm sure more people know who George Clooney is than know who Rachel Zegler is. That still doesn't mean people have been actively interested in Clooney and his projects more in the last year.