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An (Extra)Ordinary Man- Harry Hadden-Paton Explains How He Ended Up in MY FAIR LADY
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Nov 2, 2022
'Bart [Sher] and I spoke a long time about this character. I think the key to him is that he is passionate and obsessive about the work and his job. What's he's not good at is emotions- understanding other people's emotions and understanding his own emotions,' says Harry Hadden-Paton. 'The joy of an being an actor is taking someone on a journey. Now I'm digging my heals and making him cruel, patronizing and self-obsessed, then taking him on a journey of self-discovery that has come about through [Eliza].'
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Welcome to Backstage with Richard Ridge
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SAG-AFTRA Foundation and Broadway World continue their filmed Conversation Q&A series, which celebrates the vibrant theater community
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here in New York City. This event, which is coming from the Robin Williams Center
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is a special conversation with one of this season's most eagerly awaited Broadway debuts
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He is one of the West End's most sought-after actors, and he's known to millions of fans
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from such shows as Downton Abbey and The Crown. And now he is wowing both critics and audiences alike as Henry Higgins in Lincoln Center's glorious new production of My Fair Lady
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Please welcome Harry Haddon Payton. Welcome to Broadway. How does it feel
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It's catching up with me. It's amazing. Yeah, I still can't quite believe it
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It's, this month is crazy, all the awards and the press and everything
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And at the beginning, you're kind of cynical about it as a Brit, because we don't do awards, really
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It happens, maybe there are two, and you just turn up. So you think, oh, this is taking me away from the work
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I'm getting really tired. I'm not seeing my family. But I don't know, you've sucked me in, and I am loving it
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I'm getting quite competitive about it, weirdly. and now I'm going to miss it when it's over
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Yeah. Right? Thank you. Thank you, yes. I like this one. Henry Higgins is one of the most coveted roles
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in musical theatre. How did this audition come about for you? It was a phone call from my agent
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who has always wanted me to do a musical. This is my first musical as well
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So I'd done a few workshops and nothing had really piqued my interest
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But she said, here's the audition and I said, for Freddie, presumably
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And she went, no, no, it's for Higgins. I was like, okay, okay
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And I thought about it and I said, well, do I have to? Because what's going to happen is I'll put in loads of work
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I'll learn both these songs. I'll learn both these scenes. And I'll turn up and they'll just go, yeah, yeah
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we're looking for someone older. Which kind of happens a lot. You go in and they just give you something
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that you sort of suspected they didn't want anyway. But then she said, no, I think they're looking younger
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Just give it a go and see what happens. And so I had an hour-long audition with Bart
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I'd got the first line of the script out. He went, stop. And I went, oh
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Was it that bad? And then he said, try it like this
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And I went, OK. And he went, OK, now try it like this. And it became a rehearsal
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It wasn't an audition at all. It was a rehearsal. And there were about six people watching
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and there was a piano. And we eventually made it through the work
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the scenes, and I sang the songs. And after an hour, he said
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okay, everyone leave the room. And I went, okay. No, geez. He said, not you, Harry
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And I went, come and sit down. I turned the camera off. And I went, oh, what's happening
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What's happening? this is the sort of stuff you read about and he didn't offer me the role
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but he said this is great this could work this is quite a big deal
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is what he said this hasn't been done on Broadway for 25 years
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there are an awful lot of people that are going to need to okay you doing it
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which I understand because if I was a producer I would want a more famous face
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doing my play. But he said, so what we're going to do is get you
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out to New York and audition for the estates of Lerner and Lowe and
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Andre Bishop at the Lincoln Center and see what happens. So I turn up at the airport
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like a month, a month and a half later and there's another actor I know and recognize
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A bit of a star going over for the same thing. I go, oh, all right
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And anyway, so I'm jet-lagged for three days and then go into the depths, the bowels of the Lincoln Center Theater
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and audition to two rows of tables with Lauren Ambrose, who was already cast
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So I don't know what it was, whether it was our chemistry and reading the scenes
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or the work I'd put in, but Bart did a thing of saying
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can you just wait, just wait there, after the audition, just wait here for a second, and went back into the room
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And then he said, okay, thanks, go home. And I went, oh
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So I went back to my hotel room and just was going straight to bed
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because jet lag and nerves meant I hadn't slept for a couple of days
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But as I was getting undressed, my agent rang and said, how did it go
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And I went, alright, I think. She said, I think better than alright, because he got it
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Wow. And, yeah, my first thought was, how do I tell my wife
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that we're moving to New York? So how did that phone call go
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There was a lot of kind of laughter. She just laughs when she's nervous
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She laughed when I proposed to her. I was crying and she was laughing
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and that's kind of that's how it goes and then we had a few months to prepare
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and move the family and here we are well Bart let's share you can see that I mean first let's talk
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about Bart, Bart is one of the most sought after directors, what is it like
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working with him and what makes him such a great director? Well I
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think it's Bart and it's that building it's a mixture of both because Bart had a
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has a beautiful vision for this show and he cast me because he wanted us
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to be equals at the start and it seems to make this more relevant
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to now but the theatre as well a mixture of Bart who
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has a family, has kids who understands what it's like to, I have two girls
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and so they're welcome into the rehearsal room and into the technical rehearsals, there are children everywhere
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and Lauren's children as well Which makes the work more enjoyable, because you're flitting between both worlds
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And the theatre itself is so supportive. There are hundreds of people working there
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It's the first time in my life I've had a dresser who I turned up and he said
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can I make you a cup of tea? And I said, no, what are you doing
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But now I could not live without him. It's weird. It's really weird
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and I you know in the UK we're very self sufficient but as a result it's
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it's hard to focus on the work and they've created a building
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where anything is possible because you're so supportive there are hundreds of people working
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for this show and they're all focused on this show and it's
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magical because you then have the freedom to play and be creative
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and imaginative, and you feel like anything is possible, no one's gonna belittle you for trying something fresh
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or crazy. So hopefully the work that has come out of it
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is a result of everyone saying yes yes you can Yes you can It starts with everybody saying the same thing Yes you can That beautiful You are working with some of the greatest actors in this production For those of you who have not seen it yet you must go up to Lincoln Center
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And for those of you who have, you know what I'm talking about. What is it like sharing the stage with Lauren Ambrose, Diana Rigg, Norbert Leobutz, Alan Corderer
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The list goes on. They're very different actors and performers and people
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So it's... Personally, it's an honour to be up there with all of them
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Lauren and I now share something quite deep. You know, we've probably surprised a lot of people
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that we were both cast for it, and we're going through it together, and we both have our families
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Our daughters are best friends who've been moved from their home into New York
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So we have a deep bond there now, which is lovely, and we can look into each other's eyes
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and we have a shared history like Henry and Eliza do towards the end of the play
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everything they've been through. Lauren and I are going through at the same time
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so that's lovely. Being with Norbert, having him in the rehearsal room
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is a dream for two people doing their first musicals because he knows what he's doing
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So I would watch Norbert rehearse, get me to the church in time or something
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and I go, okay, this is, you know, he's making it look easy
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because he just, he's a magician he kind of glides through the space and he also
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has 30 people in the ensemble come in and support what he's doing
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so I then turn up to do one of my tricky songs
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and I'm on my own and I'm reaching for an ensemble going where are the guys that
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are going to help me out but I'm just blessed to have these people with so much experience. And Diana
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what an inspiration she is. She's has a significant birthday coming up
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But she works as hard as anybody. Every time, every night, she
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comes off stage after the scene that just precedes Ascot. I'm waiting in the wings
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for her to come off. And she is in there like a terrier, dissecting
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that scene with Alan Corduna. Just ripping it apart and going, right, well, that worked
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because of this and this worked because of that. And if we run these lines together, then we'll get more
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of a response there. And she's like, her brain is ferocious. And as I said, inspirational
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That's really why I chose acting over singing when I was 20-something, was that there's a career there
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If I can be acting at that age and working as hard as she is
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then that's my dream in life, really. and Alan and I, Alan Corduna who plays Pickering, fell in love in the first week, which is so
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important for the parts as well. We have a banter and an ease on stage that it's a joy to be on
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stage with him. Well, this is your first musical and like I said, you were phenomenal on this
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You know, you give this tour de force performance. For those of you who've seen this, I have never seen Henry Higgins played the way you play him. Not only, I always thought it was Eliza's
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transformation in My Fair Lady. But your Henry Higgins goes through a transformation too
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that I had never seen before. You know, I love that scene
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that you have with your mother, Diana Rigg, when you realize you're in love with Eliza
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and you don't know how to comprehend it, which I think is phenomenal
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There's so much emotion and so many different feelings going through your performance in that. Well, I think she realizes it before Henry does
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And I don't know why. It's interesting you say he's in love with her
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because I've never pinpointed it. Yeah, no, you don't. I think the key for this
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and Bart and I spoke a long time about this character, is that he is passionate and obsessive about the work
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about phonetics, the work, and his job. What he's not good at are emotions
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understanding other people's emotions, understanding his own emotions, And we get a sense of the character through the show that through the first song, Ordinary Man, he says, I shall never let a woman in my life
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You get a sense that there has been a woman in his life that upset him and he doesn't really understand why he got so upset about it
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But that he did and it's just easier to be a confirmed old bachelor like Pickering
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that's easier and I understand it if I don't enter into relationships
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with people that make me feel things I don't understand and the joy of an actor is to take someone on a journey
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so I'm now digging my heels in making him as sort of cruel
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and patronizing and self-obsessed and obsessed about the language and then taking him on a journey of self-discovery
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that has really come about through her. And I'm very lucky. I know Rex, I read recently in a book
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The Incomparable Rex, that he was not interested in Eliza changing him
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For whatever reason, maybe it's the time it was done, and that's the joy of doing a revival
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is that you're putting the same show into a new place, into a new audience, a new society
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see where we've come. and for me I read it and that's how I responded to it
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I've grown accustomed to her face it's a battle of trying to understand
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this woman, he can't tell her not one stage can he tell her
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she looks amazing, she's doing amazingly he says to his mother she picks it up in a shot
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and you can see that it excites him but he never says it to her when she comes in for the ball
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Pickering asks, don't you think she looks lovely and he says, not bad, not bad at all
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Which is the best compliment he can pay because he doesn't have the facility
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and that's what you get at the end is the frustration, the conflict of how he feels
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and how he is programmed, how he's able to communicate. And there's a final moment in this production
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where you're absolutely, he's caught. he doesn't know how how to communicate
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you also make him quite charming too that's a chore that's hard
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is it? no I mean this is the genius of Shaw and
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I'm going to name drop but Robert Lindsay saw the show who my wife
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worked with in London and he commented on how this is the
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most he's ever seen the play come out of the musical. And that's
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what we're doing. That's where I've come from is plays. And I
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very rarely feel like I'm in a musical. Other than I'm backstage getting myself
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hyped up for the final half hour of the show and there's Norbert there's two time Tony Award winning
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Norbert Leo Butts doing a soft shoe shuffle on a table. And I go, alright
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I'm in a musical. Because I feel like I'm just in a play
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like some of the ones you mentioned the pride and flare path
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I've played men who have gone through emotional breakdowns and I feel like it's another one of them
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and also this part some of the songs I can talk and sing and I flip between the two
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so I don't ever feel like I alone on a stage hitting a note I feel like I telling a story and asking questions So yeah I don know what the question started off as How charming you made him Oh right yeah Wow
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how did I get there? I love it. No, but I just, like I said, I've seen so many different productions
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and I've never, there's so much going on with your Higgins that none of us have ever seen
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before. It's all these little delicate strokes and you can watch Eliza sort of break him down
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and that's what I found so amazing about this production. Your performance is flawless. Thank you
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So this is your first musical. So how did you prepare like the vocalese
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What's the most challenging aspect of doing My Fair Lady for you? The scary, well, I was about to say the scariest bit was the singing
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It wasn't, it was the dancing. Yeah. Because at drama school we touched on tap and jazz
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whatever that means, and classical dancing, which is walking around in a space
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So that was the bit I was most terrified of but the singing was a close second
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because I, as a child, was a choral singer which meant singing in Latin
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My wife is forever taking the mickey out of me for not being able to remember the lyrics to any song
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and I think that's because I learnt in Latin. So I'm good at melodies and harmonies
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and terrible at lyrics until this play. And it's slightly transformed me
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because I've had to focus so hard on what I'm saying that now I listen to the lyrics and songs
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But my history as a singer was that and then in rock bands and terrible joke boy bands
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And so I've always enjoyed it, but I took myself off to an amazing singing teacher
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called Sam Kenyon in the UK. who got me to attack the songs
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like I was attacking a Shakespearean monologue. He taught me things about singing songs
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like how you can be influenced by the music and not only the lyrics
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like what this feels like, how the music feels your character should be feeling
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So we spent a long time, And I imagine most people, when they get Higgins
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go, well, I'm going to be the first one to sing it all. And that's what I tried, and I started off
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And so I auditioned actually singing the songs. Every note was the melody that was written for it
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And through rehearsals, it became a case of seeing what worked best
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and Ted Sperling, our musical director. and I decided that there is room for speaking it
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It was written for Rex Harris. Apparently he was very musical and could sing. So it wasn't that he was speaking it because he wasn't a singer
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I think it speaks about the character. I think it shows him as a professor of linguistics
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It sets up an interesting contrast with Eliza and it helps with the sense as well
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So that was the most daunting bit was the singing. And some of the songs were repetitive
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I know Rex had trouble remembering some of those verses. And if you were in our previews, you would have heard a lot of new lines
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But they're more or less in there now. Thank goodness. I love that
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Touch wood. Well, let's go back to the beginning. Growing up, you just touched on this
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Where did your love for performing begin? And what were your earliest creative outlets? It was in choirs
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I was very shy. I had language teaching. Like I had to be taken out of class at nursery school
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to be taught how to say, she sells seashells on the seashore and stuff
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I remember that very clearly, thinking, why am I here on my own? And apparently I just mumbled my way through life
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And then I was in a choir, which, okay, you grow confidence singing with other people
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this is when I was 8 you know 8 through to 13
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and this school I was at or this choir I was in
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really for some reason I don't know who started it but we all enjoyed
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belting it and it was a chance being hidden by other voices to start belting my
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voice and as I when moved up the school I started getting noticed
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and started the odd solo and that led to singing the head of the choir and doing the leads in the musicals at this school when I was 13
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I did, if anyone's done it, it's called Jacques Offenbach, it's by Jacques Offenbach, it's
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called Les Bavards, the chatterboxes, a light opera that no one's ever heard of
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I did that and, you know, people were very nice and my confidence grew
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and so through my next school I was in the choir and then my voice broke
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and I started doing other bands instead. We have to talk about your boy band period
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Yeah. Spunk? Spunk. That was his boy band. But it was, that was a..
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That was a sort of piss take. If that's... That was not..
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I was not taking myself too seriously with this one. In fact, the school wouldn't let us call it Spunk
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So when we performed at school to the assembly, they made us change the name to Squirt
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Which is worse, right? They let that one go through. They let that one go through
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But we had one huge gig at the Hammersmith Palais to thousands of people
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And I felt like a superstar for one evening. But we were doing, like, covers
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We weren't even, we were just miming some of it. But I had other bands
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I had a blues band and a rock and roll band and stuff that I fronted
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And it was much more musically sound. Do you have your boy band on your resume
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No. That one night at Hammersmith? No. And if I were to mention the other people in the boy band
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you won't have heard of them because they are now working in the city. Or, you know, lawyers with proper jobs
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Yeah, that's hilarious. It was good fun. And other friends dressed up in black tie and had fake earpieces as our bodyguards
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It was a bit of fun. I love that. What was that defining moment for you when you said
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I want to be an actor and try to make a living at this? It really didn't occur to me as an option for years
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I went to university after school to study languages. I did French and Spanish
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My parents were very supportive. of everything I did, but the one thing they said was
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do what you like, but please, please just get a qualification. And I was best academically at languages
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So I did French and Spanish for four years at Durham University, and within a week, I had seen a poster to audition for West Side Story
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And I auditioned, I got the part of Riff, and did that
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And throughout that four-year period, I did A West Side Story, then did Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar
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Cookie in Return to the Forbidden Planet. And then Danny Zuko from Grease came along
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which was like... Changed everything for you. Through my childhood I was like this is it But I reached a stage where I went no I done with musicals I need to do Shakespeare because I want to be taken seriously
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I don't know what I was thinking. So that was basically the last musical I did
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was Jesus Christ Superstar. So I did it alongside my work and I was panicking
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going, what was I going to do? And I got a scholarship to see me through university
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as long as I went into the military afterwards because that was where my father was in the army
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I had an army scholarship. I thought, well, this is how it's going to be. I'm going to do five years in the army
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and then I'm going to get a proper job. And at university, life happened
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I met with various tragedies and I came to the conclusion that life is worth living
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and I'm going to do something that makes me happy and that I enjoy because I was aware of my mortality
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I think suddenly. So, but I, you know, I'm quite heady so I thought, well
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I need to be told if I'm good enough so I'm going to audition along with various other people
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That guy that played Tony in the first West Side Story, he auditioned too
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and I got in, and he got in, and I thought, well, this is fun
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Now I'll go. But at that time, I was like, it's got to be a business
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It's got to be a work. I have to make a living out of this. So I'm only going to apply to the top two
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RADA and Lambda, and I went to Lambda, because I loved the audition process
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It felt amazing. but I was still going okay I don't have to do this but I've got in
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so I might as well be there and see if I can
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make a career out of this so I turned up and within a week I was like okay this is it
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I was in a place where I was 24 23, 24 there were 18 year olds
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there was a 30 year old ex-marine who was now an electrician
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All different backgrounds. I'd lived quite a secluded life up to this point
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surrounded by people who were like me. And suddenly I was not
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and we were all united by this one love, this one enthusiasm for theatre and acting
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And it was incredible. And that summer I went to the Edinburgh Festival with my friend Ollie
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who was the original Tony, and we went through drama school together
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and we put on shows at the Edinburgh Festival and talk about an amazing place if that's what you want to do
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because then you're surrounded by a whole city who want to be doing the same thing and have a passion for it
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So it wasn't until drama school. You are known to millions of fans around the world
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for playing Bertie Pelham on the television phenomenon known as Danton Abbey. Danton Abbey fans
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Heard of it? Yeah. That little show. Yeah. Yeah. What are your favorite memories
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and how did you get cast? I mean, you married Lady Edith. I married her. Right? Lady Edith's happy ending
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Oh. I went through a whole box of Kleenex. I watched that episode at home
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I went through a whole box of Kleenex. I was so happy. It was lovely. It was like the end of a Shakespearean comedy
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or something. Everyone was coupled off and it was panto, but it was lovely. Favorite memories of doing Danton Abbey
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Before I was in it, Daniel Stevens couldn't make the read-through of the second series
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I don't know what, he was doing a film or something. So I was asked to go in and be Matthew Crawley
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for that read-through of the second series. Well, I was one of the first people
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to know that Sybil died and all these things. Sorry, spoilers. So..
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And they all were very complimentary. and I waited and five years later
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a part came along and they offered it to me what's weird is that I had gone in
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I had auditioned in subsequent years in series three and four for tiny roles
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and it'd been miffed that I didn't get it but that's life and
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maybe one day I don't know why you don't get these parts
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but then I just got offered Bertie and they said that was the phrase they used
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Edith's happy ending you can't tell anyone but the whole show is going to end
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with your wedding so I've no idea what happened but to be
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to be thrown into this juggernaut that I mean they knew what they were doing by the time I turned up
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and I was entering a world that was fully set up with relationships that had been through everything together
29:05
Like Lauren and I now, can you imagine those actors, some of whom had never done much before
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going through the success of Downton Abbey together and people leaving and relationships failing
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And they went through life for five years together. And so I was entering their world
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and they were very generous and warm and welcoming but I was a little bit like trying to make bad jokes
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and join the gang and ostracizing myself. Yeah, no, they were, they were lovely
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and Laura Carmichael is a dream. She's the loveliest person and looked after me basically
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because I didn't know what I was doing. but it was incredible
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I'm so grateful that they trusted me with that role and that's the history of my career
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great directors or producers have trusted me with roles that I would have thought they could get anyone for
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and I'm very grateful that Higgins came my way the names that I've heard
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were considered for it ludicrous So I don't know how it ended up here, but it did, and I'm very lucky, like Bertie
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My final question is, what is the best bit of advice that you've been given
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either personally or professionally, that you live by? I think it's from my wife
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Every day, keep the faith. Not particularly religious people, but it's having a belief, a self-belief
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and a trust that it will work out. Because there are highs and lows in this business
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And November last year, I was unemployed for three months at a time
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And I had two kids to feed. And you can go, where's this going to come from
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But it has. And I'm very, very grateful that it has. And now you're starring on Broadway
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Yeah. phenomenal as Henry Higgins nominated for a Tony Award Sunday night. I want to thank you for your
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beautiful performance. Thank you for your time this afternoon, sitting with all of us here
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This has been really wonderful. Thank you. I've spoken about myself. It flies by really fast, doesn't it
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It's quite nice, like therapy. Ladies and gentlemen, carry head and take pins. Thank you
31:38
Thanks. Thank you. Thank you
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