Spamalot attracts some of the most enthusiastic audiences on Broadway. That must be fun to experience.
Oh, it's amazing. You don't get that sort of reaction with Hamlet, I'll tell you! [Laughs] I wish I could have tasted what it was like at the very beginning in Chicago and also here, with all the Monty Python fans. Apparently it was like a rock concert. There are fewer of them now; it's more like a regular audience. But this is just fine for me!
How did you feel during your first performance? Funnily enough, I went into a sort of Zen state. I thought, “This is SO absurd.” A director friend in London had said to me, “I cannot believe your chutzpah—your first major musical, and you're doing it on Broadway!” But I was so well rehearsed, and as a replacement, the first few performances are about repeating what Tim Curry did and standing where he stood—the lighting has been organized, and dance steps are dance steps. In the beginning, it's like being very well drilled rather than presenting a new person. It took quite a while to get into my own skin with it.
I read that you were a choirboy at St. Paul's Cathedral as a child. Do you feel as if you're returning to your roots?
It's funny you should say that because a friend in the Spamalot company told me, “Everything you sing sounds as if it were in a choir!” [Laughs] The only other musical I've ever done was Candide, so the Las Vegas [feel] and the gospel singing in this show are completely new for me. That's not going back to my roots at all.
You're a natural musical comedy performer. Why haven't you done more?
You're very kind. I've always wanted to do musicals. I just wonder if very many musicals have parts for people like me.
There are plenty of musical parts for you. Tell me how you got this one.
What did you think of that idea?
Did you work with director Mike Nichols during rehearsals?
Were you a Monty Python fan?
You've arrived just in time for the first Tony Award honoring replacement actors.
That's too bad. You would have been up against your countryman Jonathan Pryce [Dirty Rotten Scoundrels]. Have you ever worked together?
What's that?
Have you always felt comfortable juggling classical roles with lighter ones?
Were you thinking then about how you'd play Hamlet?
When did you realize you had a gift for Shakespeare?
Not many American actors get that kind of experience. What do we need to do to get better at Shakespeare?
American actors may be reluctant to try it because the critics can be blistering, as Denzel Washington discovered last season in Julius Caesar.
I believe that audiences feel it just doesn't work as well with American accents.
Which classical parts have you enjoyed most?
Have any of the great roles you've done been filmed?
Does that make you sad?
Did he say he liked yours the best?
I was wondering what's left for you, other than King Lear.
Are you sorry that Tim Curry is opening the London production and not you?
So there's no competitiveness between you and Tim and people like Kenneth Branagh and Ralph Fiennes, who'll soon be doing Faith Healer right next door?
Do you wish you were more famous?
You have that kind of power in classical theater, don't you?
See Simon Russell Beale in Spamalot at the Shubert Theatre, 225 West 44th Street. Click for tickets and more information.
Sort of. I wonder if I don't fit in. I can't think of a part in Oklahoma!, for instance, or South Pacific. Sondheim might work.
I was doing Tom Stoppard's Jumpers on Broadway in 2004, and Bill Haber, one of the producers, invited me to his house. We did a little concert, there were lots of singers there, including Liz Callaway. I was roped in to play the piano, and I sang “Younger Than Springtime,” speaking of South Pacific. Apparently, that's when Bill said to himself, “Oh, he can sing,” and he kept that in mind. A year later, he came to England and left me a message saying, “I want to talk to you.” I'm terrible about replying to phone calls, so I let it go. Then I went to see Guys and Dolls, and who should be sitting next to me but Bill Haber. He said, “Would you like to come over and take the part from Tim Curry?”
Well, I had a weekend free before starting Julius Caesar, so I flew over for one day to see the show. I had never been in an audience where 1,500 people stood up at the end, and without embarrassment, starting singing. Together. Even me! Standing by myself, singing, “Always look on the bright side of life.” I thought that was great. It's what theater is about—the community, the joy. So my first thought was that I'd love to be in it because you don't get that very often. My second thought was that Tim made it look easier than it is. A bit of dancing here, a bit of singing there, a bit of scat, a bit of fake tap, and also linking the whole show together. I was a little scared, but that's the whole point of our business, isn't it?
Oh yes, and they were brilliantly generous with rehearsal time. I had five weeks, which is unheard of for a replacement. These two fantastic dance captains and the assistant director did the basics before Mike came in for the last week or two. Everyone was so welcoming. The cast did three full run-throughs with me, including the big boys, David [Hyde Pierce] and Hank [Azaria].
No, I missed all that somehow. Eric Idle popped in last night and I was talking to him about it. I think it's because my father was in the army and we were living in the Far East then. English-speaking television was quite bad there, so I never saw Monty Python. My friends could do all the sketches.
I just heard about that. I don't think I'm applicable because I haven't been in the show for six months.
No, but we were in the Royal Shakespeare Company together. My first season, he gave a brilliant performance as the Scottish king. I made him some damson jam.
A damson is a bitter plum. Jonathan had them in his garden in the country and I said, [assumes an eager voice] “I'll make some damson jam for you!” I'm not really a cook and it came out like a rock. [Laughs]
Well, I started off doing comedy, playing Restoration fops and Shakespearean clowns. It's only recently that people starting seeing me as Hamlet and all the rest of it. When I played Konstantin in The Seagull, that piece of casting changed my life. Suddenly a director, Terry Hands, said, “He can play a serious role; he's doesn't have to do just comedy.” I would never have expected to play Hamlet because of the physicality of the part, but after Konstantin this little ambitious worm in the back of my head started turning. Konstantin is famously one of the three mother-son parts, along with Hamlet and Oswald in Ibsen's Ghosts, and I thought, if I've done one, I can do the other two.
Yes. He had given me a tiny part in a King Lear he directed on the radio with John Gielgud. I was the first knight, and I got to sit next to Sir John; I didn't say a word because I was so scared of him. Ken is very loyal to his actors and offered me the gravedigger with Billy Crystal, which was an amazing few days.
I never saw Ken playing it; he was entirely in director mode while I was there. And funnily enough, when he played it on stage at Stratford, I was in another theater playing Richard III.
Like a lot of actors, I had a fantastic English teacher. He was very strict and he hated the professional theater, but he was a great intellect. It was an all-boys senior school, which in England is from 13 to 18, and the first part I played was Desdemona in Othello because I could sing, and she has a song. I was 14, and I did every school play from then on. In my final semester, I was preparing for some very difficult, important exams to get into university, and my English teacher said, “I want you to do King Lear.” I said, “You must be joking, sir. You know I have these exams.” He said, “I think it will help you.” And he was right. I can't imagine what it would be like to watch myself now, but it was wonderful at the time.
I don't think you've got a problem. I was invited to sit in on a workshop Kevin Kline was doing on King Lear. He's great.
A lot of actors are scared of it in England too. Occasionally I'm asked to do a class on Shakespeare and the most important thing I stress is not to be scared. There are a couple of rules—the rhythms and stress of the language and whatever—but as long as you know what they are and when you can break them, it's fine.
No, that's nonsense! [Laughs] When [director] Sam Mendes brought Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night over to BAM for nine weeks, we played a game about pairing Chekhovs and Shakespeares—obviously Three Sisters and King Lear, Seagull and Hamlet—and I said, “Wouldn't it be wonderful to get a mixed American-English cast?” I'm very keen to do that. I'd love to see Laura Linney play Hermione in The Winter's Tale. It's got to be done. And she's also got to do the Scottish lady. I suppose there would have to be a consistency of approach, but it wouldn't have to be all English accents, it could be a mid-Atlantic approach.
Well, Chekhov is perfect. I once spoke to a Shakespeare society here in New York and the first question was, “Who is the greatest playwright?” And my answer was, “It's not Shakespeare.” [Laughs] So Uncle Vanya or Konstantin in The Seagull, the two Chekhovs I've done, would have to rank up there. Hamlet changed my life and the way that I act because you have to pare down. By the end, you have to be in a state of absolute simplicity and grace.
No, except for archival footage.
No. Half of the reason I love theater is because it disappears. I'm totally romantic about things like that. I love it when people say, “I saw Gielgud do Hamlet.” I love the mystery and the tradition. When I did Richard III, a man wrote to me who had seen every Richard III since the 1920s. He'd seen Ian Holm, Ian McKellen, Antony Sher. I love that.
No, I think he liked Ian Holm the best. [Laughs]
I was young when I did it, with Sam Mendes as director. It is a test. It's the one part I wouldn't mind having another go at.
What's left is King Arthur. [Laughs] In terms of sheer fun, I've never done anything like this—ever. I just giggle for two hours. I've lost all sense of professional discipline. I got a letter from Michael Ball [star of The Woman in White and other musicals] who said, “Now you've got the bug.” And it's true.
No. I think it's rather elegant that there will be the same two Arthurs in a row. Tim created the role; it's his role.
Oh, I'm sure there is a competitive edge. Ralph is an old friend of mine. We grew up in the RSC together. When I did Julius Caesar, he was Marc Antony. We went around Europe together. I'm very, very fond of Ralph and he's fond of me, I hope. I remember him going off to do Schindler's List; he's an extraordinary film actor with an extraordinary face, so we're very different; there's no way of comparing us.
No. I'd love to do movies but it's not a burning desire. My ideal is somebody like Ian Holm, who is a great classical actor, also has a film career, but is just recognized as being good. In that old game of choosing money, fame, or power, I'd love a bit more money [Laughs]—they pay me well here, but not when I'm doing subsidized theater in London—and power in terms of being able to say “I'd like to do this part” and people saying “OK.”
I suppose so. But that's all I want—and perhaps an apartment in London with two bedrooms instead of one. [Laughs] And I wouldn't mind a grand piano. But that's it. Then I'll be happy.
