Ramin Karimloo, the Youngest Phantom, is a True Phresh Phace

Age: The actor turned 29 on September 19. 

Currently: Entering record books as the youngest ever actor to play the title role in the West End staging of The Phantom of the Opera, a production that on 9 October celebrates its own significant birthday: 21 years at Her Majesty's Theatre. Not that age is all that important when it comes to mapping out the journey of a character whose own age is never explicitly stated during the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. For a while, says Karimloo, who was the standby Phantom for a year before assuming the role full-time on 12 September, "I kept getting caught up with the age, when the real thing is to aim for the truth; that's more important than me defining an age. It's easy to get swallowed up into thinking he's a 40 or 50-year-old man because of some of my predecessors, and clearly he has to have some years behind him because there is a back story to what Madame Giry says about him." But in fact, Karimloo maintains, "If you bring out the Phantom's emotions, what's genuine about him, from there age is irrelevant."

Hometown: Karimloo was born in Iran but spent his infant years in Italy—his parents' country of choice given the revolution back home. In 1980, when Karimloo was two, the family relocated to "a little hick town in Canada"—Peterborough, two hours from Toronto. "It was great," he says, looking back on "a very simple life, which was easy and fun and where the food was good. In the winter, we'd ice over the backyard and play hockey." Will he go back to Iran? "Not for the moment because I'd have to do my National Service. But I would love to take [Phantom] back there; I'm getting a lot of Iranian press because of my website." He laughs. "I've been voted Iranian of the day twice."

From Iranian of the Day to the Music of the Night: Karimloo points out that the Phantom is only on stage for 40 or 45 minutes of the two and a half hours of Hal Prince's famous production. "You wouldn't think that's all that much, but the last 30 minutes are so emotional." Having first played Raoul, the second male lead, in the production, Karimloo was struck by "what an exceedingly hard role" the Phantom in fact is. "I thought it was a lot easier, but it's a lot lower than my voice normally goes." Speaking on the day of his first performance as the official Phantom, he comes to the part having performed it 50 or 60 times over the past year in his capacity as understudy. (He also appeared for a nanosecond as Christine Daae's father in the Phantom screen version.) So, is he nervous? "To me, if you're nervous, you're unprepared. You can still be excited, I think, but nervous means you haven't done all your work. I know my lines, I'm good to go, but I know my Phantom still has a journey to go on."

Raw Talent: Karimloo comes to his present job having also performed in Les Mis and Miss Saigon, and he was Joe in the U.K. national tour of Sunset Boulevard, opposite Faith Brown, when he was only 22. (He had 12 days rehearsal for that one.) Perhaps surprisingly, however, the actor admits to not having trained professionally prior to making his way in a business where raw talent can out. "I was working on cruise ships, but the one thing I've never done is train as an actor or singer; I couldn't afford it and I didn't feel taking a huge student loan was worth the risk. Just because you went to some top British school doesn't mean it's the only way to succeed in the profession. Someone said to me you've got to go to Pineapple Studios [in Covent Garden], and I didn't know anything about theatre." Before long, however, he had an agent and was getting work. "Within four months, I was working with the New Shakespeare Company in Regent's Park covering for Gary Wilmot in The Pirates of Penzance, and I took over the part of the Pirate King when we were in Bath." That casting, Karimloo acknowledges, "was very much against type. The Frederick and I were the same age, but I thought, ‘I'm glad I'm the Pirate King,’" he laughs, "because I got to wear leather pants."

The Perfect Year: Karimloo is contracted to Phantom for a year, during which he will be commuting daily from his home in Essex, east of London. What lies ahead? "I'd love to play Cliff in Cabaret or We Will Rock You for the sheer sake of singing that stuff. I really want to focus on the acting, too. For some reason over here there's a fine line between being a musical actor and a straight actor, which I think is ridiculous. Good acting is good acting, bad acting is bad acting, whether in a musical or not."