Linzi Hateley on 'Traumatic' Carrie Memories, Not Vacationing in Greece & Returning to the West End in Mamma Mia!

Linzi Hateley will be forever remembered for playing the title role in the musical Carrie in Stratford and on Broadway when she was still a teenager. Now 45 she is legging it in Lycra once again as the ABBA-singing mum, Donna, in Mamma Mia! at the Novello Theatre. The ever-sprightly Hateley found time one recent evening for an engaging and characteristically candid catch-up with Broadway.com.

How does it feel to be back as Donna Sheridan, a role you have played before?
That was nine years ago, when I was far too young. I was just delighted to be asked to do it again. It's a great role, it really is. 

What are its challenges?
There are so many: just from a physical and vocal point of view, it's a massive sing. It's quite an emotional journey as well given that you're dealing with a woman who has brought up her daughter on her own and has found herself in Greece having had a couple of quick relationships along the way—one of which was the love of her life, but he left and went home. It's basically all about timing in life and how it can be so right at a certain point and so wrong at another point. There are a lot of layers to it, but fundamentally it's about love and friendship and a celebration of life. 

How are you fitting into the those costumes?
What are you suggesting [laughs]? In fact, I got myself very fit for this, so I could look as good as I possibly can at age 45. The happy news was that I then went off to one of my fittings and lo and behold, I had lost weight so I was even happier.

And you've got to look bronzed and tanned as well.
Absolutely. I started doing my tanning today, and I look as if I have been on holiday even though it's been cold and I've had the central heating on [at home].

Did you go back to see the show before returning to it?
I did in fact because it has been a while since I had done it, and I'm always amazed at how much better it is than people perceive it to be, by which I mean that for a musical of this type, [Mamma Mia!] really is as good as it gets. For instance, even though the ABBA songs stand up on their own, you'd have thought they were written for the show: they link so well and work so beautifully. 

Did you find yourself remembering everything you had done the last time?
I've actually been largely rethinking it, which I think is good. But what was extraordinary was sitting and watching the audience and seeing just how well the production works. You can criticize it all you like, but the fact is people go away from Mamma Mia! feeling fantastic. It really is musical theater at its best. 

Have you ever returned to a show before?
The only other one I ever returned to was Chicago. I did Roxie at the Adelphi and was then asked back to do it at the Cambridge. I used to call myself Polyfilla [a British wall filler], in that I was the person who filled in when they didn't have a name.

You have a daughter in real life just as Donna does in the show.
Yes, so it feels at times as if I am just playing myself! I'm living out the reality of a character with a 20-year-old daughter who is very much slipping through her fingers as the song goes, so it feels very close to home. That's all part of the strange process of life where you try to hang on to every little morsel of a child only to find that she has become very capable and doesn't need you as much. 

Your own daughter, Meg, is the same age now that you were when you won the role of Carrie.
Yes, which is extraordinary to me, when I think back at what a traumatic experience that was for me and then look at Meg and think how very capable she is on the one hand but how much support she needs on the other, as with any 17-year-old. 

Traumatic?
Carrie was a very surreal, strange experience, though I think my memory of it has probably changed over the years as well. Now I'm just amazed that I made it through; perhaps my innocence and naïveté at the time are what helped. 

That production lives on, of course, for many on YouTube. Do you ever find yourself sneaking a glance at clips?
That's not something I ever do. Strangely enough, it happens more when other people say something like, "Oh my God, have you seen this footage of you and Betty [Buckley]?" [her Broadway co-star], and I say, "Yes, I have." I'm very proud of it now because it's something that I have learned to grow very proud of. The fact that it won't go away and has become a cult and has been revived so many times all mean a great deal to me, and Betty was phenomenal. I learned a lot from her. 

And your co-star at the show's British premiere was Barbara Cook.
Which was amazing as well. I got a call from Barbara just before I went on when I did my cabaret show True Colors: Life Since Carrie at 54 Below in New York [in 2014]. She said she really wanted to be there but wasn't feeling great but she did ask me round to see her. 

Maybe in time you could graduate to the role of the mother in Carrie, having originated the role of the daughter.
Well, it's a wonderful part, but I don't know. Part of me thinks that would be really great and another part thinks, don't go back there.

Can you see yourself returning to Donna at some point yet again?
I certainly do, unless I've retired by then. It's a fantastic part and those don't come along enough. It pays well and that's quite nice, and there are a lot of pluses to having the job security that comes with being in the West End for a year.

When you get some vacation time, will you go to Greece?
Maybe, though after being there eight times a week onstage, I might go to Portugal instead.