Lance Guest on His Million Dollar Broadway Debut as Johnny Cash
Age: “My birthday’s July 21.”
Hometown: Saratoga, California
Currently: Bringing the Man in Black, music icon Johnny Cash, to life in Broadway’s ultimate onstage jam session, Million Dollar Quartet.
A Family Affair: It’s a factoid that seems tailor-made for the media, but Guest isn’t bluffing: “The very first album I ever owned was Johnny Cash at San Quentin, which was a gift from my older brother. It was recorded not far from where we lived,” Guest recalls, though he credits the Beatles with inspiring him to become a musician himself. After learning to strum on “a $10 Mexican guitar” his dad bought, Guest eventually honed his hobby into a valuable skill with the help of a “badass lead guitarist” cousin who’d meet up for lessons. Meanwhile, his mother stoked his interest in rock almost by accident. “She once brought me home a record from the library because she ‘thought it looked good.’ I turned it over, and it was Led Zepplin. How many people get turned on to good music by their mom?” Guest pauses. “But she hated Elvis.”
Leading Man: Though he was the go-to guy for leading roles in high school, playing everyone from Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls to Henry David Thoreau in a play, Guest says acting professionally seemed like a stretch. “I never thought I’d make any money doing it,” he admits. “It was impractical.” Luckily, a high school teacher advised Guest to attend UCLA, and he did—and was cast in the play that would later inspire a Broadway phenomenon. “There was a scholar at our college who was a great translator of German theater. He came to us and said, ‘This play hasn’t been done since it was banned in 1918! You should do it!’ It was Spring Awakening. I didn’t get Melchior or Moritz though.” By junior year, Guest was taking the lead(s) again, balancing college productions with professional auditions and performances around L.A. “I ended up auditioning for that old TV show Fame. The casting agent looked at me and said, ‘You need an agent.’ The next thing I know a friend of hers calls me and I had one. I started working right away.”
Action Hero: Though he valued theater more, Guest’s screen career took off after a stint on Mary Tyler Moore Show spinoff Lou Grant, which led to appearances on hits like St. Elsewhere, Knots Landing and Life Goes On. His breakout performance came in Halloween II, the gory big screen follow-up to the original, appearing opposite Jamie Lee Curtis. The bloody turn scored him the starring role of video-gamer turned intergalactic gunner Alex Rogan in cult sci-fi hit The Last Starfighter. “It didn’t [play] for long, but I got a lot of mileage out of that one,” Guest says with a laugh. After his blockbuster horror flick and a literal star turn, Guest was handed the role of shark-fighter Michael Brody in Jaws: The Revenge with Michael Caine. “The whole idea was pretty crazy,” he says of the now infamous flop. “We would have benefitted from some digital special effects for sure!”
Million Dollar Offer: Despite screen success, Guest remained committed to theater. “I did small theater in Los Angeles for about 20 years,” he explains. Eventually, a friend mentioned a colleague looking for “[an actor] who was tall and could play guitar.” The colleague ended up being Million Dollar Quartet co-book writer Floyd Mutrux, and the role was Johnny Cash. Guest jumped at the opportunity to begin work on the fledgling show. After four years of development and runs in Daytona, Seattle and Chicago, the tuner about the true-life Memphis recording session of Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis opened on Broadway in April 2010, bringing Guest his Rialto debut and scoring a Tony nomination for Best Musical. “It’s surreal,” says the star, who earned rave reviews, about the response. “I never thought it would be a Broadway show, let alone a Tony show.”
We’re Jamming: “There’s an infectious quality about people playing music together,” Guest comments when asked about the draw of M$Q. “It goes all the way to people banging on sticks and dancing around the fire, that primal [energy]—that’s what a jam session really is. And [this show] is a theatrical jam.” He also cites the talent of his co-stars, Tony Award nominee Levi Kreis, Robert Britton Lyons and Eddie Clendening. “I’ve always felt it was important that the actors play their own instruments in this show. Levi kills it; I don’t know anyone who can do what he does. Eddie is like a jukebox who knows every song recorded from 1935 to 1965. And Rob is an amazing guitar player who adapts what he does to honor his character. Not many shows do what we do, and I’m so happy it worked.”
