It's Imelda Staunton's Turn! The Gypsy Star on Drinking with Roses Past & Staying at the Top of Her Game

Imelda Staunton has already won Olivier Awards for her Baker’s Wife in the London debut of Into the Woods and as Mrs. Lovett opposite Michael Ball in the 2012 West End revival of Sweeney Todd—but even by those illustrious standards, her current performance as the mother of all stage mothers, Rose, in Gypsy exists a league apart. A pint-sized dynamo of power and pathos, Staunton spoke to Broadway.com during her car ride to the Savoy Theatre, where the actress is giving it her formidable all—and then some—eight times a week.

How do you give so much of yourself each time out? I saw the show on a Friday and couldn’t imagine you turning around and doing that again twice on Saturday.
[Laughs.] I just take each day as it comes. You do have to put most of your life to one side so that after each performance you can regroup for the next one. The thing is, this isn’t like any other job and you sort of know that going in.

Sure, but how do you find the stamina?
You just try not to do too much. It’s not as if I feel that I’ve got to be silent all day; it’s more to do with self-discipline because I would be so pissed off with myself if I wasn’t absolutely at the top of my game every day.

What does that mean in practice?
Well, what it doesn’t mean is lying in bed all day—that hasn’t been the case! It’s more to do with no long phone calls or long lunches with friends. Those sorts of things I won’t do. This job takes up all my time but that’s fine; that is the gig.

Is a lot of it about maintenance—not just of your voice but of the very fiber of the production?
There might be moments technically that I change some nights or bits where I think, “Why don’t I try that?” But what’s important to me is to retain what I’ve found with Rose and to keep the integrity of her. Our director [Jonathan Kent] is great with that—he saw the first half two nights ago and he’s coming back again on Monday. This is literally the mother of all shows, so he wants to keep an eye on it just as I want to keep an eye on it.

Was it moving having London’s last Rose, Angela Lansbury, at your opening night in April?
I was so moved by her being there and by how gracious and generous she is as a woman. We had a very special half an hour or so after the performance where we shared a drink onstage with everyone.

I know you saw Patti LuPone play Rose on Broadway but that was before you knew you would inherit the same role some years later.
Well before! Patti did it in 2008 and I was so impressed that I saw her twice and thought to myself at the time, “That [performance] is so brilliant that no one needs to do [the role] again!” People had said to me, “Do Gypsy,” but it wasn’t until 2011 that it really entered my head.

At which point, did you seek advice from her?
In fact, we did meet in New York when she knew I was going to do it. I went to see her in the Mamet play [The Anarchist, in 2012] and we went for a drink and she said, “I hear you’re playing Rose.”

Did she have any pointers?
I remember Patti saying, “The only thing you need is vitamins,” and I took her at her word. She was right. That and things like the occasional throat massage and acupuncture. I have a warm-up I do before each performance and a cool-down afterwards.

You had great success on the West End several years ago in another landmark musical, Sweeney Todd, but that must have felt altogether different.
It really did. For one thing, Sweeney really is a shared assignment between the two leads [Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney] and it’s a different sing altogether. In a way what was far more helpful to me was doing Good People in between Sweeney and this: that’s another show about a mother who will do anything she can to help her child.

What struck me watching the show was how many audience members clearly didn’t know the story and were responding to the narrative afresh.
I think that’s right and it is nice to be performing to people who may have no idea what’s going to happen as opposed to an audience who’ve all seen the show many times before and know exactly what it is: you’re reminded all over again how well the piece works.

The acting from everyone is so exacting—which pays enormous dividends in return.
I think it’s fair to say for my part that I may have underestimated Gypsy as just a musical whereas it really does work as a play not just about Rose but about the journeys of six women—the three strippers, for instance, for whom time has stood still, June, who essentially says, “I’m outta here,” and Louise and Rose.

Interestingly, this is the first major production of Gypsy to be done since the death in 2011 of its co-creator Arthur Laurents, who directed the LuPone revival.
Yes, and I don’t know what [Laurents] would have made of it. In a funny way it feels as if our production has been released from him and from what’s gone before. The dance for Tulsa, for instance, has been re-choreographed. I’m not saying that’s good or bad; it just is.

Is that your dog that you’re holding when you charge down the right-hand aisle at the very start?
No, it’s a theater dog. We did have mine at Chichester [where the production was first seen last fall] but I didn’t want to keep that for London because I had found that I was handing my dog to three strangers each time and that didn’t really appeal. I’d much rather she have her own life so that I can relax.

Does the production feel as if it’s moved to an altogether different level on the West End?
I suppose it does, and I do think we’re starting from a better place. I’ve taken my own preparation pretty seriously, which is to say that I didn’t want people going, “Yeah, good actress, can’t sing” [laughs].

Not much chance of that. One wonders what you could possibly do for an encore?
Part of me thinks, “I’d like to never set foot in a theater again,” but that’s just because this feels so decisive. People ask me what's next, but I have a pretty boring radar with not a lot on it.

Besides, why worry about the future when you’ve got Rose to occupy your present?
Precisely: I've done it. [Quoting Sondheim's Follies] At least I was there.