Martin Marquez on Parenting Lessons Learned from Playing Billy's Dad in London's Billy Elliot

Martin Marquez has worked extensively around London, often in the not-for-profit theater. For now, Martin is appearing at the Victoria Palace as Dad in Billy Elliot, the same role that won Gregory Jbara a 2009 Broadway Tony Award. Broadway.com spoke to the versatile Marquez about life in a long-running show and whether, as the father of five children, the parent/child issues raised by the hit musical struck close to home.

You are often seen in shows at the Royal Court or the National Theatre. Is this an unusual gig for you?
I’ve done a few musicals in the past, like Anything Goes at the National for Trevor Nunn, which transferred into the West End [Marquez was Moonface Martin], and since then I have gone up for one or two. Last year, I went up for Shrek and Me and My Girl, and I’m certainly happy to do them: they’re a great form of entertainment! What I’m not so used to is the long run, and I do find that a test. After two or three months, it becomes a bit of a challenge, and you have to keep yourself motivated. You have to remind yourself that you’re doing a great show and it’s not just a job.

Billy Elliot must keep its cast spry and alert since it is forever folding new sets of children into the company.
What’s nice is that when you’re rehearsing with a new Billy, you have the opportunity to ask a director if this bit can be changed a little, or that bit, and it’s those small changes that do keep it fresh. And because you’re playing opposite a different actor with each new Billy, that itself reminds you that it’s about connecting, you know what I mean? You’re not just reacting—which is what some people call acting.

Since you play Dad in the musical, do you find that you are becoming a sort of surrogate father to all the Billys?
I’ve found actually that that opportunity is pretty limited because they keep the younger actors—the Billys and Michaels and the ballet girls—in the dressing rooms other than when they’re on the stage, so there’s not much side-of-the-stage banter and we’re certainly not in one another’s dressing rooms. You get the opportunity when you’re rehearsing to have a few words and form a relationship, but it’s not as close as you might imagine.

It’s interesting that one of your current Billys [13-year-old Adam Vesperman] is actually an American boy, from Seattle, Washington, who has come over to be part of the London company.
I know, it’s extraordinary! You do think, “Why are they looking [in America] for a Billy for London,” but it may be that the Billys in America are slightly older so that when Adam has done a year here, he can go straight into a production in the States.

Does the political backdrop to the show—the miners’ strike in Britain in the early 1980s and the passionate feelings that brought with it—resonate with you nearly three decades later?
Oh, I’m old enough to remember, definitely, and I feel very touched to be reminded of that situation. You continue to see the effects of that period on those mining villages in the north of England that haven’t recovered to this day, so I still think [the material] is very relevant. It’s so easy now to forget that the opportunity to strike once was a genuine political action for workers—an important political tool—whereas in today’s climate, we tend to see that as a bad thing. But this show is about a time when striking was one of the only options these men had to get their voice heard and to change their conditions.

It must be fascinating for you as a parent to consider your own children’s lives and careers against that of the musical’s Billy, who wants to be a dancer despite growing up in a working-class family whose life was defined by working down the mines.
It is, absolutely. Even in my own life, being one of five children myself, who chose to go into acting when I was older than Billy—I was about 20. My father had a fish and chips shop in Coventry. Acting and the theater weren’t worlds he knew anything about, but both my parents were completely accepting of my choice, and of my brother, too. They sensed that it was something we really wanted to do.

What’s your take on the emotional journey that Dad takes during the show?
I would say that it’s the shift from, say, an absolutely “no way” will his son do ballet to sitting in front of the ballet panel and saying, “Yes, I am” when they ask him, “Are you fully behind your son?” It’s very interesting and powerful to watch that happen. I suppose I’ve had some of those shifts in my relations with my children but they’ve been smaller shifts, and my eldest in any case is now 28. But I think I’m relatively open as a dad. As an actor, you often learn from the parts you play, and I can immediately see that if my son wanted to be a ballet dancer, I would from day one be behind it.