John Heffernan on Playing an American, Being a Fanboy & Oppenheimer's Quick Move to the West End

J. Robert Oppenheimer has been called the father of the atomic bomb, and the American physicist has now given his name to a new Royal Shakespeare Company play, Oppenheimer. With a running time of three hours and a cast of 20, director Angus Jackson’s production gives pride of place to leading man John Heffernan, who seizes the title role like the career-defining part that it is. Broadway.com caught the gifted Englishman prior to the West End opening to talk Brits-playing-Americans, his love for theater, and his early days as—believe it or not—a critic.

Were you surprised by Oppenheimer’s swift transfer from Stratford-upon-Avon to the West End?
It was a total surprise to me! I had moved up to Leicestershire where my partner and I had just had a baby girl thinking during the short run in Stratford that I would be able to drive 45 minutes to the theater and that would be perfect. So the logistics of this London run have been complicated but amazing at the same time. [Playwright] Tom Morton-Smith’s writing deserves to be seen.

This is a bold venture for a commercial run.
Which is why I’m hoping it finds an audience! The play is a tough sell on the face of it given that very few people have heard of Tom and no one’s heard of me, so you just hope the RSC name and also the name Oppenheimer rings a bell. There’s a whole generation out there who are unfamiliar with this story.

Why do you think people relate to Oppenheimer’s story?
Oppenheimer’s journey is a fascinating one—his progression from a very strong idealism and then beyond cynicism into a nihilism of a kind, where he basically says, “I have become death.” There’s something quite elemental in this account of an overweening, ambitious group of people who give birth to this thing that is extremely destructive and so how you then in turn deal with that and what happens when your self-belief crumbles.

Do you think it would make a good film?
I think it really could. It’s very filmic in terms of lots of short, sharp scenes that nonetheless has a flow to it and a scope. And I have to say that I really do applaud [playwright] Tom’s ambition: he’s managed something where so many writers before him have tried and failed, so hats off to him!

Have you been to Los Alamos in New Mexico to check out the location of the Manhattan Project, where Oppenheimer designed the actual bombs?
No. I would love to have gone, and I have an actor-friend, Harry Lloyd, who did and I was just so envious. It was wonderful talking to him about what the place was like and also poring over the photographs in the various biographies.

Have you ever played an American before?
Never. This is my first time. I was incredibly nervous about it because I wanted to get the specific accent that [Oppenheimer] has in all the archives. But I do think things have changed when it comes to English playing Americans. It seems to happen much more than it used to, and I remember my agent telling me that having a good American accent would be very important.

Don’t you have a history with the RSC that predates being an actor?
I used to usher at the RSC when I was growing up and saw quite a lot of their stuff that way. I’m a complete theater geek and saw Robert Stephens play Lear at the Barbican when I was 12 and decided later on to get a summer job ushering in Stratford just so I could watch shows.

How does it feel to now be starring in them?
I feel genuinely fortunate to have got where I am. I don’t think you ever lose that fanboy element of being involved in the theater world. It’s sometimes difficult when I end up in a rehearsal room with people I idolized when I was in my teens.

Is it true you were a critic?
I was. I wrote a few reviews for a website under a different name. But the fact is, I was a terrible theater critic, really, and I got told by someone fairly important that I absolutely should not be doing that. My problem was that I tend to really enjoy most things so wasn’t all that discerning. I just love going to the theater!