Back on Broadway in Moulin Rouge!, Boy George Is Having More Fun This Time

Last year, Boy George, the former Culture Club frontman, songwriter, fashion designer, producer and global queer icon, found himself being roundly and routinely booed on stage.

He loved it. George was playing Captain Hook in a large-scale pantomime version of Peter Pan in the U.K. “Panto was a real revelation to me,” he told Broadway.com Editor in Chief Paul Wontorek on The Broadway Show, “in terms of playing a baddie and having the kids booing me. That was amazing. It was so invigorating. Who knew being booed would be so much fun?”

In a way, it was useful preparation for his next role. Since February 6, Boy George has been playing the top-hatted impresario Harold Zidler in Broadway’s Moulin Rouge! In honor of George’s presence, the megamix score of the show has been updated to incorporate Culture Club hits “Karma Chameleon” and “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me.” “People love it,” said George. “It wouldn't have been something I would've suggested because, whatever. Nostalgia. But then the show's full of everything so it kind of makes sense.”

The last time George was on Broadway was in 2003, when he starred in his own musical Taboo, a celebration of U.K. club culture in the ‘70s and ‘80s that told the story of George’s own early clubbing days before fame.

That first Broadway experience was, he has said, a nightmare from beginning to end. Though George’s score was well received, the book played it safe. George also felt that critics gave him a hard time because he wasn’t a so-called real actor. Towards the end of the run, he was going on stage on ecstasy. Prolonging his debauched stay in New York afterwards, George was eventually arrested in the middle of a drug-fueled psychotic episode. He was relieved to get out of the country.

This time, George wanted his stay in New York to be both more purely enjoyable and more zen. “Being here with this sort of clarity is a very different experience. Being anywhere with this clarity is a big experience. I feel like yeah, I've come here to enjoy it—which is different to Taboo.”

Most recently, he's gotten to enjoy the sensation of being thoroughly prepared for the role. “I arrived with the first half pretty much under my belt," he said. "You go from sort of being like, ‘Oh my god! This is really stressful! Where have I got to be?!" To like, ‘This is great.’"

George added, “I've got a couple of scenes where I sit offstage and I get to soak it up. And yeah, I'm actually on the stairwell saying, 'I love this role.' I really love playing this character. And it's important to remind yourself that it's fun.”

Offstage, George is more relaxed than he’s ever been. He meditates every day and practices E.F.T., or emotional freedom technique, also known as “tapping.” “I've been doing it for years, but in the last year, I've really ramped it up a lot. Literally, before I go to sleep, I kind of say, ‘Everything tomorrow's going to be great.’” By contrast, to psych himself up before he makes his entrance in Moulin Rouge!, George listens to hardcore techno in his dressing room—specifically gabba, a techno subgenre with upwards of 190 beats per minute. "Really fast," said George.

In a nutshell, lately, George is just enjoying “being in the game of what I do.” Soon enough, he hopes to get a new version of Taboo off the ground. “I would love to bring it back and make it brighter in some places and darker in some places as well. A bit more real.” He'd also like to do some more ‘serious’ work. “Maybe some Shakespeare. ‘Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by some son of a bitch.’ The gay Shakespeare.” And the list goes on. “I want to do some more acting. I'd like to be in a film. I'd like to do everything, really. Have my own dessert topping, own a skyscraper. All of it.”