“I’m not an actor! I’m a movie star!”
So protests Alan Swann, a past-his-prime film idol who discovers the television program on which he’s about to appear is broadcast live.
The scene is from My Favorite Year, the 1982 film based on Mel Brooks’ experience as a young writer on Your Show of Shows, a weekly variety show broadcast live on NBC between 1950-1954. In the film, a young writer is tasked with babysitting Swann, a notorious carouser, and ensuring the actor – er, movie star – makes it to the show.
Peter O’Toole plays Swann, who prefers the control of a film set to the no-retakes environment of live performance.
Swann likely wouldn’t care for the Broadway stage, either. Other movie stars – er, actors – move freely between stage and screen.
Several recent productions have featured names familiar from film and television roles. George Clooney made his Broadway debut in Good Night, and Good Luck, a screen-to-stage retelling of his 2005 film of the same name. Clooney, too, made himself a household name in the ‘80s as Dr. Doug Ross on NBC’s ER. Oscar winner Denzel Washington starred in the title role of Othello, with Jake Gyllenhaal as the ingratiatingly Iago.
Othello was the highest grossing play in Broadway history, a record it held until Good Night, and Good Luck passed it.
A revival of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross featured comedian Bill Burr and actors best known from television roles: Kieran Culkin (Succession) and Bob Odenkirk (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul).
Culkin’s Succession sister, Sarah Snook was in another theater nearby, turning in bravura performances of The Picture of Dorian Gray, in which she portrays all 26 characters from the Oscar Wilde novel. That earned her a Tony® for Best Lead Actress in a Play.
Clooney also was nominated, for Best Lead Actor in a Play, for his portrayal of Edward R. Murrow, the crusading journalist who went toe-to-toe with demagogue Sen. Joseph McCarthy. That trophy went to Cole Escola who played Mary Todd Lincoln in the uproarious Oh, Mary!
Odenkirk was up for Best Featured Actor in a Play. He played Shelly “The Machine” Levene, a past-his-prime real estate hustler desperate to save his job.
Burr and Odenkirk made their Broadway debuts in Glengarry Glen Ross. Culkin has performed on Broadway and London’s West End. Washington has a half-dozen Broadway productions to his credit, picking up a Tony for his role in Fences (2010). Denzel Washington also got his star on an ‘80s medical drama – St. Elsewhere.
Many actors, in fact, move between the stage and the set. Al Pacino, for example, already had a Tony® on his shelf before his role in The Godfather in 1972 made him a hot property in Hollywood.
He followed that with more career-making performances in Serpico (1973), The Godfather Part II (1974) and Dog Day Afternoon (1975), making him both a critically acclaimed actor and a major box office draw. He’s returned to the stage frequently, though, picking up another Tony® in 1977 and winning accolades for his roles in works by Eugene O’Neill and Shakespeare.
In truth, even the most Hollywood-centric of movie stars likely started learning their craft on stage. Schools have theater programs for budding thespians, not movie sets. The film stars of tomorrow will be auditioning for roles in their schools’ productions of Guys and Dolls and Shrek: The Musical come fall.
The Broadway-to-Hollywood pipeline flows freely both ways, and that route will bring Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure stars Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves to Broadway as Vladimir and Estragon in director Jamie Lloyd’s version of Waiting for Godot. Lloyd, who is being lauded for his audaciously stripped-down revival of Sunset Boulevard, believes the pair’s chemistry will transfer intact from absurd teen comedy to absurd Samuel Beckett tragicomedy.
All we can say is, “Bodacious!”