Samuel H. Levine on His Journey from Bus Boy to The Inheritance on Broadway

Samuel H. Levine is making his Broadway debut in The Inheritance, Matthew Lopez’s two-play interrogation of modern gay life in America. Levine plays two roles in the play: Adam, a rich actor on the rise in New York City, and Leo, a young and desperate sex worker on the fringes of queer life. The two characters offer a rare opportunity for the actor to traverse the breadth of human triumph and despair in the span of one performance. In person, the 24-year-old Levine exudes an intensity and vulnerability broken intermittently by genuine smiles. Here, Levine discusses growing up and growing with The Inheritance. 

There's a Place for Us
A Brooklyn native, Levine was raised by a family supportive of his acting endeavors, though not artists themselves, and studied acting at LaGuardia High School. There, he discovered an environment that nurtured his creative interests. “People were cultivating your artistry and sensitivity, and [having] that community from the age of 13 or 14 is incredible,” he said about his experience at the performing arts-centered school. “It was acknowledged that [acting] could be a real thing—not just a hobby, and that quickly became apparent when I started skipping my academic classes but always showing up for drama class," he said. In acting class, Levine found a reprieve from the social anxieties and stresses of adolescence. "There's things you [aren't even] aware of that are bubbling up inside of you, whether they be pimples or emotional,” he said. “I was very closed off, and the drama classes helped me to open up. It was the one place in high school where I felt more able to be myself."

Early Inspiration
Levine can trace his acting inspiration to one particular performance offered on Broadway: the 2010 revival of August Wilson’s Fences. For the young actor, that play was an early and salient illustration of the power dramatic performers can wield. “I remember seeing Viola Davis just overcome with emotion, and people were listening to her," he remembered. "She was speaking from the heart, and I was just fascinated by it.” What Davis could achieve from the stage, speaking intimately to a captivated audience, influenced Levine's own dramatic philosophy. “I think acting comes from a place of wanting to be heard—of wanting to hear people or wanting to really talk to people,” he said. “It's there, and it's undeniable that it's there.”

At Sea
While Levine studied acting at the California Institute of the Arts after high school, he left college to pursue acting full-time during his second year. In 2015, he landed a role in Abe Koogler's Kill Floor at LCT3, playing to a modest audience at the hundred-seat theater. In Kill Floor, Levine portrayed a high school student struggling with issues of self-identity, and the part mirrored the actor’s own turmoil during that time. “[I was] out of school, back at mom's house, totally lost, not sure what to do,” he said about moving back to New York. “[I was] in the middle of the ocean.”

From Brooklyn to Blighty
Levine waited tables for two years, applied to Juilliard and got rejected. Then the opportunity of a new play turned his life around. “Almost a month later, I got an email to do the workshop of The Inheritance,” he said. “I found myself in this room with this amazing play and these amazing parts and these amazing artists, and I just sunk my teeth into it because I wanted it so badly. No way are they going to give this part to a bus boy from Brooklyn, you know? But that freedom kind of allowed me to just play and be myself." In a twist of fate, just six months after his Juilliard rejection, he was asked to travel to London and play Adam and Leo in the play's world premiere. 

Casting a Spell
“We arrived in London and we rehearsed for two months,” Levine said. “I'll always remember the first preview at the Young Vic when we finally shared this thing with people; it was just electric. We had no idea that [The Inheritance] was going to take on this kind of magical aura in the room." The play went on transfer to the West End and become the toast of the town, earning an Olivier Award along the way. "It took us by surprise, and to this day, it still does," Levine said about his first performance. "I remember that day—it was the first time I realized the power of the play.”

Putting It Together 
Reaching the emotional depths needed to play two characters separately engaged in their own personal trauma isn’t an easy feat, and allowing each role to teach him about vulnerability has been a restorative practice. “It's a play that asks people to look at shame and look at the trauma that they may have experienced. Through this play and through Matthew's story I've been able to do that," Levine said. “I love Leo so much, and I love Adam, too. It's a journey of them becoming one person. Leo has taught me so much about the power of being vulnerable, of listening to people, of falling in love, of risking heartbreak and risking more and getting hurt and surviving. I'll carry him with me forever.”

Watch the video below to see how The Inheritance has shown Levine the "power of being vulnerable" and more.

Photos by Emilio Madrid | Video directed and edited by Kyle Gaskell