What two things do Jessica Chastain, Scarlett Johansson, Katie Holmes, Bette Midler and Sigourney Weaver have in common? All are celebrated actresses who had top billing in plays produced on Broadway last season – and none are up for a Tony Award.

The five women whom nominators did tap for leading actress in a play – arguably the most competitive high-profile category this year – do include a genuine showbiz legend, Cicely Tyson, and two beloved TV veterans, Laurie Metcalf (“Roseanne,” “The Big Bang Theory”) and Holland Taylor (“Bosom Buddies,” “Two and A Half Men”).

But none in the group, which also includes theater favorites Amy Morton and Kristine Nielsen, are likely to star in a Hollywood blockbuster any time soon. They are ladies of, well, a certain age – Morton and Nielsen won’t give theirs, but the rest are north of 55 – who consider the stage their home and are particularly grateful for the opportunities it has given them lately.

Metcalf, 57, who wrapped an acclaimed run in a London revival of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” before earning her Tony nod in Sharr White’s psychological mystery “The Other Place,” notes that “for the past five years, I’ve been able to bounce around and find these wonderful roles that would be closed to me in TV or film, which are geared younger.”

In the character of Julia, an elegant, sharp-tongued neurologist who may be struggling with some form of dementia, Metcalf found “this sort of complex, white-hot female lead, and it’s terrific to be able to play that at my age.”

Nielsen is equally passionate about the self-pitying spinster she plays in Christopher Durang’s Chekhov sendup “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.” Sonia is the latest in a string of neurotic women that Durang, himself a Tony nominee for best play, has bestowed on her – “singular monsters, who were great fun to play,” she quips.

Sonia is “a more-hopeful character, with dreams and aspirations,” says Nielsen, who believes that the close race in her Tonys field reflects a season in which rich female roles were easier to find than in some previous years, “when you’ve had to look under rocks to nominate people.” She cites “I’ll Eat You Last: A Chat With Sue Mengers” star Midler, “The Testament of Mary” star Fiona Shaw and her own co-star Weaver – who plays Masha, Sonia’s more-glamorous (and irritating) sister – among those whose “wonderful performances” deserved more recognition.

Given their eight-show-a-week schedule during runs, and travel before and after, the nominees each missed some or all of their fellow contenders in action. Morton, up for playing one of the most iconic and intimidating roles in American drama – Martha, the acid-tongued but ultimately needy matron in Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” – did get a chance to see Metcalf, “who’s a friend, and I thought she was freaking brilliant.”

Morton concedes that she found the role that earned her this Tony nomination, her second, “as intimidating as hell.” Originally performed at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company, of which she is a core member, the production earned acclaim for its earthy audacity. “We didn’t want to play into any previous stereotypes of Martha and (her husband) George; the idea was to treat it as a new play.”

Tyson, the grande dame of the bunch at 79, faced a similar challenge returning to Broadway after a three-decade hiatus to play Carrie Watts, the elderly heroine of Horton Foote’s much-loved 1953 play “The Trip to Bountiful.” Tyson had been knocked out by Carrie, a widow who finds a new sense of purpose in a trip back to her childhood home, when she saw Geraldine Page play her in a 1985 screen adaptation, but she knew she had something of her own to add.

“It was just the humanistic value of the piece,” Tyson says, adding that Carrie’s struggle in particular appealed to her “at this stage in my life.” And like Carrie, she has found affirmation in the journey – including a future job offer that she won’t specify.

Taylor, 70, found her familiar character not in drama but in political history. The late Ann Richards, the famously feisty former governor of Texas, is the subject of “Ann,” a one-woman play that she also wrote.

“I’m not a professional writer, but the creative impulse here was unstoppable. I had to find out why (Richards’) story was so potent for me.” Her nomination is, Taylor says, “an enormous validation of her above all else.”

And whoever ends up taking the Tony Award home June 9 is, Taylor insists, inconsequential.

“People try to make it into a horse race, but the truth is that we’re all different animals, running on different tracks,” she says. “I think we all celebrate each other’s work; that’s what it’s really about.”

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