Sunset Boulevard's Tom Francis Is Not About to Slow Down

Of all the ways to make one’s Broadway debut, lying center stage in a body bag in the dark has to be among the strangest. In Sunset Boulevard, Tom Francis has spent a lot of time wrapped in his polyethylene cocoon awaiting his cue to unzip.

It’s particularly tough for a man who sweats. Anyone who’s seen Francis’ performance as Roger in Rent—recorded at Manchester’s Hope Mill Theatre in 2020 and immortalized on YouTube—knows that the man is inclined to pour buckets. During Sunset Boulevard’s West End run, he managed to short-circuit 13 or 14 body mics with sheer perspiration.

What does he think about, lying there in the claustrophobic darkness several times a week, anticipating the show ahead? Well, he has a mantra. “Do you know Top Gun: Maverick? When Tom Cruise says, ‘Don’t think just do’? I just have Tom Cruise in my mind saying, ‘Don’t think, just do.’”

In Sunset Boulevard, Francis plays the hard-boiled screenwriter Joe Gillis. It’s an intensely, even creepily still performance that suits both the noir setting and intimate scrutiny of the show’s onstage video cameras. Last year, the performance earned him an Olivier Award.

Considering the remarkable restraint on display, it comes as a surprise that Francis is a puppy dog off stage. (For a period last year, he fostered an actual puppy dog, named Ella; the pair were fast friends.) On the phone in between performances on a two-show day, he speaks in excited torrents of words. “I've got quite a lot of energy and I don't really think I'm anything like how I portray Joe Gillis in the show. People are a bit confused sometimes that they're meeting… a little bit of a personality.” 

At this point in the show’s run, Francis doesn’t have to push hard for liftoff. His vocal warm-up often entails rocking up to the St. James Theatre, singing Joe's highest notes once (“Morning, Joanna”) and then probably booting up the Xbox. (He and David Thaxton, who plays Max in the show—“literally my best mate,” says Francis—have a FIFA World Cup tournament going.)

But on the stage itself, the part demands total commitment, concentration and control; he doesn’t leave the performance area for the entirety of Act One. “It’s like a meditative trance,” Francis said. “You haven’t got any time to go and reset off stage and go have a chat with the stage managers or your cast. You are just completely immersed in this thing. As soon as that music happens, you just transform a little bit.” 

Some of the most striking stage pictures and cinematography of the show are the result of a literally mathematical approach to blocking: The movements of Francis’ Joe and Nicole Scherzinger’s Norma are geometrically connected. The effect is of an uncanny telepathic connection between them.

“There's this thing that we use called ‘the grid’—the whole show is designed around it. We know where we're supposed to be and where we're supposed to end up.” For Francis, vigilantly navigating this trigonometric choreography is like being both the air traffic controller and the aircraft. “You're constantly looking out of your peripheral, figuring out where Nicole is or if she's looking where I am and how we move. Sometimes I lead it, sometimes she leads it, but it really means that you're listening to each other and really feeding each other. It's such an exciting way to work.”

Of course, we need to talk about the walk.

At the top of Act Two, in one of the more bravura sequences to have ever played out in a Broadway show, a camera follows Francis down the stairwell of the St. James—with stops in a couple of dressing rooms along the way—through the foyer and onto 44th Street. In rain, in sleet and snow, in gale-force winds—and, one time, amid the swirling mass of humanity exiting Hell’s Kitchen at the Shubert Theatre—Francis has been there, stoically marching through the most theater-y stretch of the Theater District, singing the show’s fiendish title number, a spittle-flecked meditation on showbiz in 5/8 time.

It's a convergence of musical theater and guerilla filmmaking, of bold directorial vision and tireless performance. It's also a staggering technical achievement—utilizing SK 6212 transmitters, EK 6042 camera receivers and multi-zone antennas—executed with the precision of a military operation.

There are contingency plans in place: one where Francis doesn’t cross 44th Street (used once or twice during slippery conditions), one that takes place inside only (never used), one where the ensemble only joins Francis in the last moments of the walk (used occasionally). All had to be diligently rehearsed. At times, the audio signal in Francis' ear has cut out and he has had to perform by his inner metronome.

There’s no literal grid outside, of course, but there is still a tight interplay between Francis and the camera, operated by the actress Shayna McPherson. “We are in tune with each other,” Francis said of McPherson. “Even though the street changes every single night, quite literally—where cars are parked or what things are doing and where we're going to do it—it's never ever a stressful situation. Nothing really fazes us. The other day, Shayna was going around a car with the camera in the most unbelievably uncomfortable position. She kept me in the shot the whole entire time. We're just in sync.”

Performing the scene has felt different lately, given the intermittently lovely weather. “It’s so nice. I didn’t wear a coat for the last two or three shows.” The warmer months, though? “It might get a little tough in the summer.”

The effectiveness of this moment—and the success of the show overall—hinges so much on the actors' trust in the vision of their director. From the very beginning, Francis showed remarkable faith in director Jamie Lloyd. “He came in on day one and said, ‘I’m going to make you do some wild things in this rehearsal process. Just trust me.’ And I went, ‘Let’s go.’ I really did."

“I mean, he is an absolute genius," Francis said of Lloyd. "And when someone who is a genius holds you and tells you to trust them, you have to. He brought things out of me that I never ever even realized had been brought out of me until I took a step back.”

Maybe it’s a New York thing: Even given all the hoopla around the show, it can sometimes seem that a relatively meager amount of credit is apportioned to Andrew Lloyd Webber. In Francis, however, the composer has a champion. “I would say there are two geniuses that have made this production work, and it's Jamie and Andrew. His use of melody is just second to none. It’s such a cinematic score. You really feel like you're watching a movie even if you were just listening to it. It's an absolute pinnacle of his work.”

Sunset Boulevard ends its run in July, by which time it will have occupied Francis' days for the better part of two years. Given his surfeit of restless energy, it’s no surprise that he is already eagerly anticipating the next thing. He recently joined the cast of Netflix's World War II drama The Mosquito Bowl. He's also looking forward to spending more time on his own own music and singer-songwriter ambitions. (His personal musical style is closer to Keane and Coldplay than Andrew Lloyd Webber.)

It hints at the extent of Francis' ambitions that, when it comes to building a profile and a career, one source of inspiration is the footballer David Beckham. "Whenever he takes a free kick or passes the ball, it's just absolutely remarkable to watch," said Francis. "But it's not necessarily his career in football—it's his career outside of football. The way that he's transformed his illustrious career in football and made it into a global brand."

As extraordinary as the journey has been, the prospect of finally putting Joe Gillis to rest must seem like the light at the end of a long, dark, twisty tunnel—or the promise of slipping out of a black body bag for some fresh air. Whatever's next, one can assume Francis will give it everything he's got. “Hopefully," he said, "I’ll book a project that excites me as much as Sunset Boulevard has.”