Meet Douglas Hodge, the Breakout Star of La Cage aux Folles

Age: 50

Hometown: Born in Plymouth, England; now at home in Oxford, England

Currently: Making his Broadway debut in an acclaimed performance as Albin/Zaza, the aging headliner in a St. Tropez drag club (and loving partner of club owner Georges, played by Kelsey Grammer) in La Cage aux Folles.

Better Late Than Never: How does an Olivier Award-winning classical actor go decades without ever making it to Broadway? “It is odd,” Hodge says, relaxing in his powder blue dressing room at the Longacre Theatre. “I did endless Pinter plays, all of which were supposed to come here, and Guys and Dolls [as Nathan Detroit], which very nearly came but didn’t. And now here I am, in a great American musical.” Before the (ecstatic) reviews, Hodge summoned Jane Krakowski, his Guys and Dolls Adelaide, to check out the show's third preview. “I was concerned that the audience wouldn’t understand my accent and my humor,” he explains. “Jane had done the same thing I’m doing now—gone to England as the only American in the production—and she was fantastically helpful. We went to a bar after the show to talk, and finally she said, ‘I just want your part,’ which was the best compliment she could give.”

The Imitator: Hodge never saw a play until he auditioned for England’s National Youth Theatre at 16. “I didn’t do school plays, I did impersonations,” he says of a childhood skill that won him gigs at local working men’s clubs. “I could impersonate whoever I met. The clubs employed me, and a few years later, I toured NATO bases around Europe.” Encouraged to study acting by his English teacher, he recalls, “I fell in love with Shakespeare.” A decade later, Hodge co-starred with Tessa Peake-Jones in a Birmingham Rep production of Romeo and Juliet—and they now have an 18-year-old daughter and a 10-year-old son. “It’s pretty hard to play Romeo and Juliet with someone and not fall in love,” he says with a smile.

Pinter Pause: While building a resume that includes everything from The Winter’s Tale and Titus Andronicus to TV adaptations of Middlemarch and Mansfield Park, Hodge developed a 10-year working relationship with the late Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter. “The first time I met him, we acted in No Man’s Land together, and the entire cast shared a dressing room this size,” he says. Hodge went on to direct an evening of Pinter plays in Oxford and acted in London productions of Betrayal, The Caretaker and more. “He saw almost everything I did, until this [La Cage’s original production at the tiny Menier Chocolate Factory],” Hodge says of his mentor. “It was an inspirational relationship, and I still miss him.”

A Little More Mascara: Hodge’s dressing room walls are papered with photos of women who’ve inspired his portrayal of drag star Zaza, including Vivien Leigh, Bette Davis, Ginger Rogers, Marilyn Monroe, Edith Piaf, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, Jackie Onassis and Princess Diana. Seeing himself in drag for the first time, however, proved to be “a terrible shock and disappointment,” Hodge says with a laugh. “In my head, I thought I looked like Audrey Hepburn, then I looked in the mirror and it was like seeing some terrible truck driver.” More seriously, the actor admits that his young son has never adjusted to the idea of Dad dressed as a woman. “He asked me, ‘Can they not get enough girls?’ It’s been very difficult and complicated for him, and he would rather it wasn’t happening. So we don’t talk about it, and we arm-wrestle.” Hodge’s teen daughter, on the other hand, “thinks it’s hilarious and fantastic. She comes in and says, ‘Dad, you’ve got nail polish remover!’”

Star Quality: Paired with Kelsey Grammer as his onstage love, Hodge confesses he feared the popular American TV star would be unhappy playing second banana to Albin’s antics. “I get most of the punch lines, there’s no doubt about it,” he says, “and for a lot of big stars, there would be a competition there. But Kelsey is so confident in his own self that he’s able to feed and play off me. He’s fantastically generous.” In fact, Grammer gave his co-star the theater’s larger dressing room and claimed a much smaller space for himself. “That sums up how welcoming everyone here has been,” Hodge says. “I don’t want to be unfaithful to my other lovers [British La Cage co-stars Philip Quast and Denis Lawson], but he’s in a different league, this man.”

Family Values: Since its Broadway debut in 1983, La Cage aux Folles has been praised as a heartwarming depiction of family values—never mind that the family includes a drag queen “mom.” Hodge experienced the power of the show’s message personally, after his parents initially declined to see the London premiere. “My dad thought it would be too racy and embarrassing and said, ‘We’ll skip this one.’ But then I was [feeling] poorly, and they came down. They listened to the music, and finally they did come to the show—and it turned out to be everything my father believed in about tolerance and respect and dignity, and family being the core of life. He absolutely loved it." Hodge pauses, his blue eyes shining. "The night before the Olivier Awards [when Hodge won Best Actor], my father died, so it’s been an extraordinary journey for me.”