Tonys 2014: The Actors - THR Tony Award Roundtable

hello and thank you for tuning in to the Hollywood Reporter's first tony actors roundtable we are very happy to be here in New York I'm Scott Feinberg and lest you think that we at thr cover only Hollywood we are joined by six of the best actors of the theater on Broadway right now don't take my word for it we have the Tony nominating committees word and so I will introduce our guests one by one first of all Best Actor in a Musical Tony nominee Andy Carla plays Rocky Balboa in Rocky then Best Actor in a play nominee Tony Shalhoub who plays middle-aged Mosshart Mozart's father and George S Kaufman in Act one Best Actor in a Musical nominee Neil Patrick Harris Hedwig in Hedwig in the Angry Inch Best Actor in a play Tony nominee Chris O'Dowd Lennie in Of Mice and Men Best Featured actor in a Musical Tony nominee James Monroe engelhardt who is the genie in Aladdin and Best Actor in a Musical nominee Jefferson Mays who plays nine assorted members of the dice with family in gentleman's guide to love and murder so thank you all very much for being here and I think we'll begin just really at the beginning and I want to ask you if you recall when you first acted in any way even if it was something silly at home I guess performed even in any way and then if there was a moment after which you knew that that was what you want to do with your life and I'm gonna start with you please me oh yeah my first performance I was four years old it was a policy of Baptist Church I sing a gospel song and the minute they started applauding I was like this is all I want to do for the rest of my life I want to hear that sound and the first time I knew I really wanted to be an actor actor I was in show choir well I wasn't in show choir they asked me to be a show choir and I said no and I went to go see the actual choir perform and this little kid got up this high school kids saying and all the girls to the screaming and I went I want girls to scream for me so i'ma join the squad because I could be in a bus full of sweaty dudes playing football I could be in a bus full of crazy girls do show choirs around the city I'll do that and no turning back he'll turn up how about you Tony I think my first was when I was six and I have an older sister who was in high school at the time and they were doing King and I at their school and I was not asked but taken by the hand and told that I was going to be in a play because they they needed kids to be in this musical so I was one of the little kids and Siam there and the but the the hook was that the I'll never forget this was a dress rehearsal so there were probably 50 people sitting out in that in the audience and it was the end of the first act and all the kids were around the Masana whatever the lead was and there was a musical number and I happened to be in the down stage for this down stage position and the curtain closed and I was on the outs I was the only kid on the outside of the curtain and of course was all those things right it was humiliating and uh but it got a huge laugh and so I was it was that sort of horrible mixture of humiliation and and the beginning of being coming a laugh junkie and it's been one humiliation after since neon how do you my story's not dissimilar to Tony's I'm from a small ski resort town in the middle of New Mexico so there wasn't a lot of arts to speak of and the high school Ruidoso high school was putting on a production of The Wizard of Oz my brother who's three years older Brian and all of his friends were in the elementary school and were asked to go be munchkins audition to be munchkins and so I was just with my parents and in the same car and was there and they needed someone to play Toto the dog but asked if I must have been seven I would have would be toto and I said sure I didn't have an idea what it meant and so I was a part of that production and got to have makeup put on and I was perplexed by the ayah that conceit that Toto cuz the the the yellow brick road went through the audit through the audience I was the directorial conceit and then it would go up onto the stage and I and I was confused when on stage I was on all fours going to the red carpet the yellow brick road they wanted me to stand up on my hind and walk as like a person which scythe is method method wise I was confusing to me but I lost that battle Jefferson how did it begin for you but I think being read aloud to as a child we did I grew up in a house without a television it fell off a table during the Vietnam War some time I remember helicopters and then the basset hound ran under got caught him that the cord and dragged it shattered so ever after my parents would pass a a novel around the dinner table and we'd all take turns reading some interminable Dickensian passage to get away with with no period situation look so I started reading aloud but I remember vividly seeing my mother's face uh just transformed into the different character she was playing Uriah Heep or Miss Havisham Oh and and I became obsessed with that to see this woman that I knew so well was so familiar to me becoming different people and different voices coming out of her mouth and and I think at that point I said oh I want I wanted very much want to do that well it's magic Andy I I too had parents that were you know willing to be into the arts my mother played Oregon for her church and so there was always music around the house I was piano around the house and I sort of found music that way helped out for musical theater but I didn't get into theater until high school Maya I was with the wrong crowd at the time in high school and I actually got suspended for smoking in the boys room all right my mother just so angry needed to find something for me to do made me audition for Aladdin I'm not Disney version of a lab and I got the lead I don't know what they so it was one of those things and I I auditioned for this role and then I found this whole community of actors that um I never knew there were such personalities and there was such a family and there was such a community of theater and we and I just I got right into it and sort of found my home that way and finding the laughs on stage and and yeah I was hooked from then on Chris I when I was around nine or ten I was quite shy but the school were doing its Sleeping Beauty and I had no interest in being in on the stage or that was torture to me but the girl who was playing Sleeping Beauty I was quite attracted to and and I and there's a big kiss at the end of the play so I had to sing a song which I'm gonna do right now but I had to sing a song and and that was a nightmare to me but I thought okay what if I get through that I get to kiss the girl and so I did it and it was like I did maybe do two performances but well on the first night I was like okay I got through the song I got through the song and now it's coming up to the end of the play and I kiss her and when she wakes up and just as I was about to cook she's asleep or dead or whatever is going on with her just as everybody together she put her hand up back she put her hand in her mouth like to kiss her ham oh yeah she's asleep yeah yeah I don't believe she's in the industry any man Chris you come here having already sort of established yourself on TV and film and I know you actually trained initially I believe as a theater actor but you've kind of had this experience with Hollywood and internationally doing that something that I know Tony Neal and some of the others I just wondered for you having having experienced that and there certainly I would imagine perks to those mediums in terms of pay maybe even hours and different things like that what for you was the attraction to the theater and for the guys who have gone there and now have come back what keeps you coming back well I mean it's nice being able to rehearse you know and in a way that's kind of the best bit to actually to really dove into a character 10 hours a day for five weeks and to explore without anybody recording it and recording your thoughts as you're going through it is is very liberating you don't feel like you're constantly on show even though it is the one time where there's those people watching you in the rehearsal room but none of it is judgment it's more like everybody it's it's more of it it's the journey rather than the destination and every time of the camera goes on it's like this is the end result and there is there's something very nice about that being actually particularly when the rising is so good in a play like my two men you know the writing really stands up so it I'd say those two things really having great rising which usually if something makes it to the stage the writing is great whereas I've done loads of scripted work on TV which is okay and that's fine too you know so yeah I'd say those two things is what why it was great to come back into diesel and Neill and Tony for you having sort of lived in both worlds what keeps you coming back to the theatre I just love I love I have a entik love affair with the talented people that do it eight times a week every time I see a show whether I like show or not I can't you can't help but respect the physical demands of doing a show eight times a week whether it's a musical where they have to be physically ill you have an ensemble that's not getting paid well but they're killing it and they're limber and they're hurt and they're still doing it they're singing or whether it's a one-man show you know like all of it impresses me did the duration of it I feel like they're athletes and I totally concur with what you say like when you're filming a movie or a TV show you're going off of your instincts and you're sort of quiver of tricks and bits that you can do because you know that you only have four takes and when you're you never do it again ever but to watch someone do their 170 fifth version of this show and I've it's my first time to see it and I still feel like it's fresh and exciting and interesting that to me is a super skill that everywhere all of them have and on this level you are required to given the cost of a ticket now people sit there and they demand excellence from what you're doing and I think then the athlete in me wants to perform at that level you know sorry yeah I think when you distill it all down the theater is really the actors medium I mean if you want to look at it that way I look at film is really the directors medium and really the editors and then TV is more the writers medium I mean of course we you know we see our favorite TV stars and but but really it's the writing that's that that that's driving that and and in the theater when the when the writer and the director finally step away step back then it's it sauce it's it's just it's that's the connection between the viewer and the and the life on the stage and so it's great to it's great to return to that it's a I think it's healthy to return to that for for actors movies are great and TV is you know can be lucrative and all of that but it's I think it's healthy to to to not have a steady diet of just just one and now to kind of hone in on the roles that you're all currently involved with just curious how you first heard about it how first came to your attention and and sort of what most appealed to you about pursuing it and so Andy for for Rocky it's a different kind of role than then it's definitely the most challenging I've ever done but it came out give about about three years ago when then Aronson Steve Flaherty or the music writers and Tommy Han was doing the book we're auditioning for a rocky and I thought my agent called me Rocky the musical and I thought what are they thinking it's going to be the stupidest idea ever about a musical but I went back I want I watched the the film and it's this you you think about this rocky franchise but it's actually it all started with this first independent film that's shot beautifully it's a very it's a simple story about a guy who's got nothing in climb and and it's given the opportunity of a lifetime but he's got all this heart and dignity behind it and so it actually made a great story for a musical and I was like wow that's that's impressive I hope they do the music right and they and the way and heirs of Flaherty are just you know geniuses is the way they they found the characters through this music and so I actually auditioned I audition with some of the music immediately on auditioning I was like I know this role I know it I could feel that I'm in this room and I can I have no trouble doing this role maybe it's made something about like how I grew up or you know coming from a working-class family and and appreciating everything we had but there was something about this role that I felt like I could do honestly and I felt like I could you know really persevere through it physically and I wanted I wanted to take that challenge so I you know I just petitioned for it with them and I can I kept doing a reading and we did a workshop where we did all the all the fighting out in Brooklyn we had so we sort of choreographed all that stuff they took it at Germany which I don't speak any German and I thought it was going away and away from me and I was sort of sad and depressed about that but when it came back here I made sure that I auditioned my butt off for that show because I thought what would rocky do he'd get up and fight for the role in a lifetime and I kind of had to I have to I have to follow that sort of mantra throughout the entire you know process of this show eight shows a week and and the physicality of everything I have to take take on that rocky spirit and show up for the audience's and they're given so much back at night but yeah I spent about three years with this role and it's it's become the role of my lifetime as as far as what I've ever done so I'm having a fantastic time rather and Tony here you are with three very different characters that you're portraying was that sort of them a big part of the appeal or were you interested in that era what treats uh well I I had done a workshop of this like like you had uh about a year and a half over a year and a half ago with with Lapine and I I had never worked with Lapine before I knew him and I admired him very much and I guess there was something about when I when I when I approached any material lately you know I I look for those things that are it seem undoable or wrong origins or sort of impossible challenging and this just seemed like there's no way I can I can pull this off I can Lane name you five other actors who could really nail this one but it just it was it was daunting and a little terrifying and but the material is so rich and it's based on this glorious book that theater people and others love it's all about our it's about all of our stories really it's starting out at a very young age having this you know getting whacked in the head by seeing a play a gorgeous piece of theater and and the hook gets set and then your whole life just becomes about that journey and and so I I just I wanted to try and see if I could you know do something that was a little bit a little bit out outside my wheelhouse and and also the idea of being able to do three characters just just just felt felt like probably a good chance to fail no now James I understand that you saw Aladdin at a very young age and kind of knew even then yeah I was 17 years old I was I was 1992 and as a graduation present because I'm a huge Disney nerd my mom took me to see Aladdin and I remember sitting in the theater and I was I'm a huge fan of stand-up comedy I just love stand of Richard Pryor Whoopi Goldberg Robin Williams those guy love that just standing on stage with the mic and just trying to be funny make people laugh I love that and so I watched friend like me and I leaned over to my mom and I was like I want to do something just like that because there was like everything it was like Disney was comedy it was musical theater was everything all in one and I knew I wanted to be a Disney character I just just didn't know how the heck it was going to happen and so I got that seriously I got the blessing of being in audition for the Little Mermaid pretty much I tried they were like I'm sorry just don't look good eat fast and I went okay fine so I took Memphis instead and I was sitting at home and they on Broadway calm because I'm also a Broadway nerd they had this picture that they were going to be doing Aladdin at the 5th Avenue in Seattle and I'm screaming to my wife I'm like they're doing Aladdin and I know they're not gonna pick me they're not gonna look at me and they literally began auditioning and they auditioned every brother and when I mean I mean every black dude in New York and they didn't call me and I was so upset I was just like mad at the world like I need to talk to somebody somebody to see me and finally a Casey Nicola was directing Book of Mormon and one of the cast members he was asking as I'm looking I'm looking for a guy to do the genie and they were like why have you seen James like art he was like no who is that that when he's in Memphis and so they called my agent and I went in and my agent called me and sent me this stuff and I looked at my wife and I said they're either gonna love me or hate me and I happen to know a friend of mine who was playing the auditions and I said eyes anybody doing voices or changing characters are being funny he was like no everybody's playing it really straight I'm like has anybody watched the movie so I got the sides and I did what you're not supposed to do I literally started marking out lines and writing in my own improv things or things I was going to do and I just went in there and started cartwheeling and jumping on the floor and I feel so bad for the reader he had no idea where I was he was just like I thought those lines aren't here and also I'm so naive I didn't realize I was auditioning for Casey Nicola I thought it was some dude from Seattle I didn't know what he looked like so I just had no fear and so when they said you got the role I was so happy I was just you know this is all I've ever wanted and the genie is my favorite character of all of all time with Disney so I was like sure I'll take it and we didn't even know we were going to go to Broadway they said this is just for Seattle we'll see what happens yeah and the fact that we're here and I'm at this table right now man wishes come true that's gay and and Chris you know for for your first Broadway role it's a pretty pretty special one yeah and I heard about it maybe six months ago is that right no middle last summer near a year ago I guess now and and I've been asked if I would be interested in it and I was like yeah and then it went away because their first choice became available and I was really disappointed and but I try to not think about it I started looking for another gig for I was on a job at the time and and then a few months later he couldn't get out of his contract such a good job and so came around again I just jumped at it I think we had the contract sign within 48 hours I don't think it was ready to go see Erik I don't want to tell us who that was I'll tell you he would have been great and Jefferson having previously you know I guess in some ways flex some of these same muscles because obviously I think how many characters was it the last time that you 3737 an eye on what they were all by default wearing a little black dress in person it's kind of it was just obviously wonderful very well received and yet this was a totally kind of different sort of challenge on all that and I I guess was that what you know were you in any way intimidated or daunted by by this yes circular a certain certainly I was number one it's a musical and this is my my first foray into the Broadway musical and I just so agree with you there Olympic athletes unbelievable the benchmark is so high the excellence is as so-called straight play-actors we can sort of muddle through you know come in hungover sometimes doing the best work but why do you look at meet with you such an open receptive face but but anyway so that yes if I was I was absolutely terrified and I think that's a good reason to do something which that's what I tell myself but I was asked to do a reading of it about five years ago so it was granted the luxury of time you know to do a couple of days and then go away for a year and come back to it and and that's such a rare and wonderful thing and it was based on the same source material that gave rise to this delightful 1950s Ealing studio comedy kind Hearts and Coronets starring Alec Guinness that I saw when I was very young at my brother's College Film Society through a haze of pot smell and and it was one of those experiences that made me fall in love with a acting very transformative nature of it and and Neil Hedwig is one of the most colorful parts you could you could ever find was was that sort of were you looking to just come back to Broadway or was this the part that it may just want to come back um if I got a call from David binder the producer of the show and he wanted to know if I would be interested in playing hedvig and it was three years ago and I was in the middle of a TV show so I thought AHA that's a great move in a career but I can't do it I just as I don't have they needed X number of weeks to recoup and then you have to add the previews and then you have to add the rehearsal and it just doesn't fit and so I said can you wait and he said well let me see and he went back to John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask who were producing as well and they were willing to wait a year and then another year and I got the same call but the show was still on and so I said I just can't and we tried to figure it out and wouldn't work and so they I got a call from them David saying that they're gonna have to move on that they wished it had been great and then they went to directors and they found Michael Mayer and Michael said to them who you approved castor who years to the caste and he basically you think he said have you thought a meal and they said yeah he's not available he said well how when's he free and he said probably a year and a half from then he's overweight so they waited for this show to end which is just fantastic and during that period of time I could ruminate on the idea of playing hedging and I was just like that's such a ferocious part and having just spent the better part of a decade playing an alpha male sitcom scenery chewer it felt like wow it would be impressive on many levels to be able to be you know one essentially a one-person show and that would be just great as a move career-wise but then I also was sort of terrified by the notion of being so flamboyant and feminine and carrying myself in a way that I've just never ever done I have no previous history with heels or wigs or some do I mean some people have played you know la college isn't on the road I don't know whatever but I just never had and so to go from never having done that to standing on a Broadway stage doing it scared me like people would see through me and see that I couldn't pull it off and scared me and like how do I invest in that time and and so I had the benefit of time to be honest I knew that once I knew that it was happening I had time to work with heels and Spencer lifts the choreographer and clump around for hours at a time and figure out how to stand and then I would get to do three weeks of How I Met Your Mother come here for a week and work on just book work and then I go back and do three weeks and I met your mother and on the fourth week we have off I'd come here and do music work with Stephen Trask and then I go do three weeks on the show and come back and we set the whole show for one week and then I went back into the final three weeks of the show and we had two and a half weeks of rehearsal so it was weirdly part-and-parcel but in that i feel like i did have time to sort of let things settle but i just that part is so unlike anything i have ever wanted to and ever been able to do whatever thought I could do and I think that what Jefferson said is so true is if you challenge yourself through things that you're afraid of on this scale especially it demands attention and personal attention I mean not from fans or from people watching but you have to be on point and you can't you can't phone it in well it kind of leads nicely into the the next question I wanted to ask you guys because in one way or another you guys are all getting a serious workout every time you do this show I mean quite literally and then getting you know getting in the ring you are fixing up they're not in they leave they don't know how you have so much energy the transformation from character to character so quickly obviously you know you're all over the place in that show and I think even just it probably in the way that you have to carry yourself as Lenny and things like that it's got a it's got to be a training experience and so what I wonder is a what you guys just you know find the most challenging aspect of doing this one sometimes two times a day and then also how you manage to recover are you constantly in in you know constantly wiped out or do you have a trick to kind of enduring this and so Jefferson again in a split second you're a different guy on the show it's it's I think probably as much a physical you know I think it's I think it's more athletic than artistic sometimes but yeah everything happens very quickly and I'm indeed in perpetual motion doing these costume changes and I must say a lot of it is done to me by my extraordinary dressers sometimes they're up to four people working on me at one time I go running off stage into the dark they these four muscular and determine people set upon me tear my clothes off thrust me into a new outfit you know tear off a mustache slap on a wig squirt water in my mouth and push me back out on stage like an expert pit crew the Indianapolis 500 so I'm just sort of a spinning top through that but how does one get through it um I eat a lot of sushi actually a lot of salmon and I think that's the best pre-show meal I've discovered at least for this thing and then I just just drink water electrolyte fortified water throughout I think about a certainly over a quart Wow any that's real fighting in there for and while it's choreographed you still do get hit and and I know that I've read things where you talk about being in some degree of pain a lot of the time can you can you take that and expand them um it's really interesting about you know the show is all about that really it's it's about Rocky's first number he's talking about his nose ain't broken it's the one thing he has that you know he's got tensor knuckles he's got bruises I'm living everybody right of that song which was is great it's it's a great way to just like sink right into the character not you know it's it's it's right there it's all visceral for me this this is all messed up this my foot is anti and you know I got hit so hard two nights ago I literally blacked out for a count because these these punches were making full contact and it's something that you know Steve Hoggett the choreographer came up with because we are in sort of where we're being dude from 360 degrees we have audience behind us in front of us there's no tricks to be able to fake that like a camera can so we figured out this whole science in this choreography of you know I know when each punch is coming but you know to delegate the percentage of how much those punches come varies from night tonight and I certainly rocky is always the guy that gets hit and keeps coming back so I take my punches every night and I sort of I've learned a human physical condition of being being able to take a punch and it's something that took a couple weeks I had several black eyes and you know my next was always so during rehearsal and you know fluctuating weights you know I was up to 190 because I wanted to be a heavyweight champ and I dropped back to 182 now I'm down to 177 it's it's a variable craziness of physicality luckily I've done enough Broadway shows where it's eight shows a week as we all know is very physically demanding I just knew this one was the next level up so the trainer the food getting in there and trying to you know keep everything physically active and clean is a huge part of what my life is I'm I live like a nun who gets punched in the face and James they those costumes that you have to wear are not exactly light in some of the cases and you you have so much activity up there that you know it's like non-stop I from the front from the time I from the time I come out of the lamp it's a good straight 15 minutes the the first introduction in an actual eight-minute song just going and the song switches genres through the whole thing and then I have to just state energetic and hyper in the entire time but I love it I can't I can't lie about that I'm kind of I was a hyper kid you know most people would call it ADHD I was just a hyper kid but as far as the physicality of it my dresser again is also fantastic there's water there there's a fan there there's a towel there and I know that I can't eat is as heavy as I am I cannot get really heavy before I go onstage I have to eat really light like sushi or like a good grilled chicken or something before I go which is funny because they as Casey likes to say he wants me to stay hefty but healthy because watching a watching a very small person do what I do would not be impressive watching a brother who's damn near 300 pounds jump up and down like that Roberto oh that's amazing he's gonna die and I hear that people go do you have oxygen on stage of like I know you think that's a compliment but it's not you move so well to be so big I know what you think that means but don't you know um I stretch a lot to have a physical therapist to make sure that you know that I'm okay and puts my back back in line because I do a lot of cartwheels and stuff like that she puts me back and fixes me and then my wife has me on a high-protein diet to make sure I stay hefty and still fill up my costume even though I'm jumping around in sweating buckets but also you know you get to be a crazy cartoon character you get I get to do all the things on stage but I think about doing when I'm walking down 40 seconds right so it balances us great and and Chris how do you find it I mean more than I definitely I put on a little bit away for the character so I feel sometimes like I'm I'm not as healthy as I would like to be but more than that I think it's the the vocal stuff I've been more surprised about and how to control that you know Lenny's in many ways it's just an animal and so when he shouts at somebody it needs to feel on caged and whatever so it's trying to control your voice in a way that you don't ruin your voice every night I find a little bit tricky and haven't necessarily always achieved it I've taken a couple of steroid shots at various points along the way and I'm always I'm always drinking some weird tea to sensitize the part of me and all that kind of stuff and I've seen a bunch of doctors and they're manipulating your neck to make sure that you do this thing and this all that kind of thing so I think I haven't done a play in five or six years before we did this and I think the rustiness definitely shows in that regard and that's what I probably found most surprising is I generally feel vocally very capable but when you do it like that like you know it shows a week is really where where it shows and Neil I mean to be in such a hyperkinetic kind of character this guy is up climbing up the side of the stage sliding down cars you know all flipping things all around mean free for you it what's the secret to getting through that the conceit of this show is that it's only one performance and that had big is following Tommy gnosis around everywhere he goes and so she's taken over this theater for just the night so there needs to feel a sense of unbridled explosiveness and through that I being asked to channel Iggy Pop and when he did it he was like high on heroin it's all kinds of shots but that physicality is important and so I just tried to be as preventative and and pre-emptive as possible I did a stint as the emcee in cabaret and it's in its last its first go-round and had to leave the show a couple weeks early because I stomped around in those combat boots so much I got stress fractures on all my toes so I didn't want that to happen in the heels because I didn't want to be aggressive and too aggressive and then I don't have an understudy in the show so I have to do it whether I'm well or not so um so I've just been very conscious of being I have physical therapy twice a week for a long time on my feet nothing's wrong with them now but that's the that's the point and vocal lessons specific vocal lessons into a microphone instead of out to a massive audience because that's what I'm doing but within it I'm just getting beat up all the time I mean every show is different intentionally and I'm a little masochistic in that regard because I don't want to just feel like I'm doing the same trashy movements because then it starts to feel like choreography to me so I'll just jump up and throw on myself on the ground which I did last night and my legs started bleeding and so I'm trying to do a dramatic song after that I can hear the whole front three is going but that's that's you know that's the excitement of it so I'm you know you have to give it all and yet protect yourself and I don't know what that what that exact dynamic is but but you don't want to feel as if you're doing a protected performance because I think people can sniff that out pretty quick so Tony over the years is there been a secret that you've arrived that for how to get through any of the key to the CLIA the answer is in the question over the years why do one who knew theater was a younger man's game um yeah as I get older and it's funny we have a set III you know I could go with everything these guys have said it's true for me I have to watch what I eat when I eat what I sleep when I sleep how much I sleep I have cut out you know coffee caffeine wine all the fun stuff dairy for the most part and and just because you need to have your energy kind of sustained over a long period of time I would love to have you know my usual routine of three or four cups of coffee in the morning and then a shot of espresso later in the day but it's just - it's just - up and down no I didn't go Red Bull at half hour I can't do it greep I did that I would have a great show and then not sleep so I would paper at the next day so - and then I'll and we're at we have a set I mean certainly not physical like this but it's said we have five or six staircases on it's three cheers and so we're always running up and down these stairs and we're on a gigantic turntable which we're stepping on and off of as it's moving quite quickly and you know it's funny Larry every I've read two or three performances I'll be just sort of like running up a set of stairs to get into place and you know I'll feel like something in my hip I collect you know what the hell is that where and then that'll go away and then it'll be something not just something's just moving around yeah yeah so I do go do I go too well I go to uh she's a vocal massage person have you heard about that yes yes see that's our fingers in your right Road and and pushes on things and because I have the trouble with the you know by the seventh or eighth show of the week my voice is forgetting pretty ragged and so it's it's all of those things are challenging but you know it's it's also it the audience gives us back a lot and I work with a great company of people great actors and I also have a dresser who is a miracle worker I don't know how he does it not only does he quick-change me many many times but he also he's kind of like a therapist back there for me when I'm sort of like in a panic or something he's just like it's all good but I mean luckily once a ward season is over we can just start phoning it in I guess nothing I'd wait for you know I've got a case of once you measure I'm just walking your friends do this okay as we just were running a tad over so I hope we can do a rapid fire with this last thing and actually it's kind of fun just the first thing that comes to mind just please shout it out and we'll and we'll go weirdest thing you're in your dressing room anybody I've actually got quite a lot of mice mice yeah they were presents relating to the show they're all prop mice Whoopi Goldberg gave me a pair of high-heeled shoes last week where you cannot form lady gaga looking she anybody else I've got I've got balls of thread I have to pick up lint in the show so I saved I save random wads of thread so I have them on myself that sounds completely I have a death certificate I have a giant a painting of Stallone okay the person whose attendance of your show has meant the most to you oh I had James Earl Jones come on opening night it was the last person to play Lenny on Broadway so that was pretty cool yeah my mom she stood up and then cried falling down which was fun uncle keV us Harry Belafonte well there's a nine-year-old kid Liam who was dressed in all rocky gear and that's that's kind of the spirit I had when I was that kid Anna Wintour hola opening night arms raised up Comfort cell intermission activity you're one thing you're always gonna you do during intermission gotta pay got it I get no intermission that's right that's right oh that's right I get recent by getting rege littered three glitter that's right - uh what you do on your day off I lie in my oxygen tent I read The Hollywood Reporter eight shows a week if you can have it your way what would that number be instead if you could three up to the three shows a week six and six of mr. face I can probably live with 797 a night was a great weird the weird are the most annoying thing that audience members do your show periodic you know at any show sometimes at the start of our show somebody will a teenage girl would just show James Franco it's quite an informative heckle right I got yeah I think she was at our show the other day and she didn't she held that people think Hedwig is Rocky Horror sometimes so they think that if they shout out something like I love you Barney right then I will have to berate them in some way and I'm giddy looking forward to that so I think cell phones of course are them horrible they study went off a lot um they do go down together it's not to self oh you see the glows that it's the iPads that people don't think you can see cuz they're big in Islam and the other wing is another say this you know and then this is a this is a pet peeve of mine coughing in the theater okay I mean I know some people have whatever but it's contagious cough once coughed twice but I you have to call more than that now go out and a coffee really it's like they look at them they look at all the posters and you're like you know what honey that'll be a great way to go I usually put out one that I imagine you might have conflicted feelings entrance applause how we filled that entrance applause I open the show I love it please plan for me I demand it for me it's a little awkward because I come out as a narrator and it's sometimes it's there and sometimes it isn't and I never know how right away and I feel terrible if I wait too long and then every once while there's like a and I started in mom and finally just in a sentence for each of you if you could dictate you know if you had your way what would you like people to leave your show thinking or feeling differently or doing differently than they were before they came in you know going up going back into the world what do you want them to take away I actually get a lot of people telling me how inspired they are after the show and they want to run a marathon which is great because at least I can give them the physicality but they also go away with them a lot of a lot of spirit a lot of up spirits I think ours is really about success and failure in that and I hope they take away the idea that you know failure is not such a terrible thing and it's kind of it's sort of essential there is no success without some failure along the way the last song of the show says lift up your hands and speaks about the misfits and the losers kind of within all of us and I think the story of Hedwig's feeling incomplete and realizing that the incompleteness is what makes her complete is a really wonderful thing that I think people don't think they're gonna expect don't think they're gonna get and then and then actually be the theater feeling we're better when we're together don't let the Machine divide us I really want people to be entertained and our show is really xscape ISM you know for for kids and for parents and for couples you know when they come and see our show I want them to leave the dregs of the real world outside come to Agrabah laughs fall in love and then walk out going damn that was fun yeah I I agree I just when people leave after having laughed a lot and being taken out of themselves and falling in love again with with musical theater it's the best well on behalf of the heart of Reporter and I'm sure a lot of fans are gonna tune in to this thank you guys so much for your time and been very enlightening thank you thank you Great Scott I saw you

Channel: The Hollywood Reporter

Views: 67,604

Rating: 4.9281435 out of 5

Keywords: A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, Act One, aladdin, andy karl, broadway, Chris O'Dowd, D'Ysquith, genie, George S. Kaufman, Hedwig and The Angry Inch, James Monroe Iglehart, Jefferson Mays, lennie, Moss Art, musical nominee, Neil Patrick Harris, Of Mice and Men, play, rocky, Rocky Balboa, theater, THR, Tony Awards, Tony Shalhoub, shows, actor, actress, actors, acting, actresses, celebrity, interview, roundtable, gossip, roundtables

Id: VqJBSUK_NVE

Length: 48min 14sec (2894 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 02 2014