Josefina Gabrielle on Twitter Dreamcasting & Confusing Her Kids in London’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Josefina Gabrielle has three Olivier nominations to show for her wide-ranging musical theater career, which includes Laurey in Oklahoma! on both sides of the Atlantic as well as London revivals of Chicago, Sweet Charity, and Merrily We Roll Along, to name a few. She’s now signed for an extended run as Mrs. Teavee in Sam Mendes' epic staging of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Broadway.com caught the ever-delightful performer between shows to talk about acting with children, Hugh Jackman, and her Merrily colleagues on a dreamy-sounding revival of Follies.

A warm welcome back to the West End! Had you been looking to join Charlie when they did the recent re-cast?
I hadn’t really thought about it, but funnily enough the day I booked tickets to go and see it, my agent called and said, “They’re re-casting, do you want to go up for it?” And what was fun was that I went with my family to see it, there were three generations of us from my mum through to my nephew, who was four at the time, and it was just a magical experience; it lived up to all my expectations.

Are your niece and nephew thrilled now that you’re actually in the show?
They’re nine and five now, and they can’t believe their luck. They’ve been a few times and love coming backstage and seeing all the sets. There’s a real sense of ownership for them!

Did you have much prior knowledge of the Roald Dahl story?
Absolutely! I grew up with it, so this was one of my main stories as a child. I had bubble gum that I used to stick behind my ear like Violet Beauregarde and I had the chocolate bar at home and would nibble a tiny bit every day to see how long it would last. Later, I did a Roald Dahl poem as my entry into theater school.

What’s your take on Mrs. Teavee?
Well, I suppose it’s fair to say that she’s handled child-rearing badly but it’s not for lack of trying. She’s a one-man band married to a guy who has given up all responsibility and sits with his beer and his newspaper and grunts, so she has no support network whatsoever and this uncontrollable child. She’s great fun because she’s so completely off the wall.

Her son Mike is different in the musical from the character we know from Dahl’s writing and even the two films.
Yes, in our production Mike has been updated to a gamer: he’s obsessed with screens and videos and obsessively plays these video games, and this has come about because he has ADHD and is on Ritalin and Mummy has had no help from Dad and has got this runaround child. She’s sleep-deprived so doesn’t know which way is up, and he’s done such terrible things that he is under house arrest and can’t go out.

So she’s very happy when her boy gets shrunk!
[Laughs.] All of a sudden she has this controllable child, and that in itself brings with it such a sense of relief that she exhales and suddenly you realize that this is the first breath she’s actually taken for eight years!

Once you got the part, did you go see the show again to prepare?
I was tempted but as we got closer and closer to taking over, I was encouraged not to, and I took that advice. I had seen it the one time and loved it and loved the actress playing it, Iris Roberts, who was fabulous, but I didn’t want to set myself on a path that would inevitably be altered.

Is this one of the largest shows you’ve been a part of, in terms of scale?
It’s just amazing. There are massive teams in every department, with wardrobe going one way, wigs the other, and these giant troops of people crossing one another. We were a relatively small cast change, so when I started I did feel like the new girl on the block in certain areas. I felt as if I was standing in the wrong place as these huge pieces of machinery were moving all around me!

Has this production made you amend the often-quoted adage that one should never act with children?
[Laughs.] What’s astounding is that there are so many children’s musicals on the West End, and therefore there are more and more kids that want to do it and so therefore it is a bigger crop. When I first joined Charlie, there were two Mike Teavees who were on their way out of the production and another three who were coming in, so it was a bit like, “Who are you? Oh, you’re my son!” They’ve found such fantastic children.

What was it like starring in Two Into One with your real-life partner Michael Praed?
Two Into One was fantastic fun because it was a departure for both of us; neither of us had ever done farce. We had done a play together previously—The Murder Game in 2009—but for that one, we did audition separately. No one even knew we were a couple.

You got your third Olivier nod for Merrily We Roll Along—would you ever like to re-team with your co-stars Jenna Russell, Damian Humbley and Mark Umbers?
I would love that! Some lovely person on Twitter in fact cast Follies with Jenna, Damian, Mark, and myself, and we do match up quite amazingly to the characters in that show: we will see [laughs].

I have to ask, do you keep up with a certain former co-star by the name of Hugh Jackman, with whom you co-starred in Oklahoma!?
Very much so! He and Deb [Jackman’s wife] were here when he was filming Blackbeard [in the new film Pan] and we got together and it was like nothing had changed. I remember during that production he made you want to be the best person you could be on stage, and it was incredible because here was this super-talented, drop dead good-looking guy who can do it all and he also gives so much joy and encouragement and generosity to the people around him.

So it’s fair to say you had an inkling then of the success he would go on to enjoy since?
I knew it was only a matter of time—and long may it continue.