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Backstage with Richard Ridge: Lee Pace Not Your Average Joe Pitt
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Nov 3, 2022
'I wish I could say that it's fun but it's not. It's painful and it's complicated.' Lee Pace has ruled Middle Earth, wandered the galaxy, and now he's come back home to Broadway. The star of stage and screen returns this season in the critically acclaimed revival of Angels in America, and he's not taking it lightly. Watch below as he chats with BroadwayWorld's Richard Ridge about the challenges of performing such heavy subject matter, how he gets through a two show day, and so much more!
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Welcome to Backstage with Richard Ridge
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SAG-APTRA Foundation and Broadway World continue their filmed Conversation Q&A series, which celebrates the vibe and 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 an actor who has known to millions of fans around the world
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for his diverse work on stage, screen, and television, including the TV series Pushing Daisies
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and AMC's Halt and Catch Fire. Working for such directors as Steven Spielberg in his Oscar-winning film, Lincoln
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Peter Jackson for his Hobbit franchise. And James Gunn for Guardians of the Galaxy
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Well, now he is back on Broadway, electrifying audiences as Joe Pitt in the astounding production of Angels in America
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Please welcome, Lee Pace. Well, first off, welcome back to Broadway and Angels in America
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How does it feel? Oh, God, there's lots of different emotions you feel
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It's terrifying at times and really exhilarating. Yeah, it just feels really good
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It's a real privilege to be back with this play and with this cast and with this director
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Yeah. You are a revelation on stage as Joe Pitt. I have seen, we talked about this upstairs, I have seen all other New York productions of his play
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But you bring this new level of emotional pain and yearning for something else that your Joe wants that I had never seen before in anyone else
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For all of you who have, how many of you have already seen the show? I know you've seen it
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Well, for those of you who haven't, just to watch this man work along with this incredible ensemble of actors is pretty phenomenal
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What is it like living in this play by Tony Kushner? I mean I wish I could say it was fun
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but it's not it's not fun at all it's there's it's I mean it is painful
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it's painful and complicated and there was something I saw in the character
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when I first started working on it that was just very vulnerable about him
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and once I saw that there was no way to escape it
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and that's really the situation I find myself in right now is every night kind of having to be vulnerable in this way
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and with this room full of people that's I guess the best way I could describe the experience
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is that. You know it's like when you say too much to people you don't know
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and you walk away and you feel a little bit like... And that's a little bit what I feel like
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This was a play that you always wanted to do, isn't it? It is a play
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I first read the play when I was in high school. I was 15
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I went to a high school in the suburbs of Houston, Texas. and um and i mean i didn't know i mean i was 15 what do you know when you're 15 um and uh
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and the fact that this play landed in my lap at that age i think was completely transformative
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you know in my understanding of you know life and love and identity and you know what this country
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is and what it's capable of. And so I've known it for a long time
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And I would love to, I wish I would have had, you know, when you have, when you write in
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your books, which I did when I was 15, kind of, you know, pathologically
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But you lose those books along the way during your moves and stuff, and you don't have all
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those notes you read. but I would have loved to have had my copy of Angels
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to see what my impressions of these characters were and what this world was
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Because, I mean, I hadn't gone through a breakup at that point. I had no idea about, you know, what these things were, you know
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But now I'm, you know, playing this character inside of it and I do know a little bit more about what they are
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And, yeah, so it's a different impression of what the play is
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Having Tony Kushner in the room with you when you were rehearsing
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was he there a lot? Not a lot, not a lot. But I did a movie that Tony wrote called Lincoln
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And he, yeah. So, I mean, what a thrilling few days on set that was
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Because we shot in Richmond, at the state capitol in Richmond. and there was this incredible room full of actors
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And they'd all been assigned, okay, you'll be a Republican from Maine, you're a Democrat from Indiana
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And they'd all read Doris Kern Goodwin's book about Lincoln. And they had perspectives on what their state was fighting for
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And so when we got in there and we started arguing this stuff, it was like this incredible, big, loud improv
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that happened. I mean, I've just never seen kind of actors working on that scale before
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You know, so many, it was like 200 people in the room and they all kind of had a character and a
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point of view and, you know, and it would just erupt with this big argument. I mean
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talk about a scene partner. But that was, that was, so that was the first time I'd met Tony and
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and, but he wasn't around the rehearsal room too much, but we've talked about
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We got outside and had coffee and talked about, you know, so many things
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I could listen to Tony talk all day and night. He's just the most poetic, insightful person, you know, and he's got such an extraordinarily big heart
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And I think you see that inside this play, you know, the level of grace in adversity, you know, kind of crushing adversity
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To have grace inside that is, you know, not easy. And, but he shows you it's possible and necessary
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Did you have, like, insightful conversations about Joe or the time period he wrote the piece
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Like when you would go out for coffee Oh yeah yeah Many conversations about Joe and you know who he is who he is today I think a lot about Joe
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I mean, it was done 25 years ago on Broadway, this play
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and that's just not too long ago. I mean, that's not really history
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That's today, really. You know, that's not too far back. and so I think a lot about
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who Joe was then and who he might be today beautiful your portrayal of Joe
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Pitt is the perfect melding of artist and role how do you connect to him
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so personally? Is it through the text or well I mean I guess it's
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with this character there was there was when I approached it, I kind of thought, well, because we're very different in so many ways
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But I couldn't help but think like, where, you know, where are we similar? And I, and I
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within the play, Joe goes through the most excruciating three months of his life
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the most painful, transformative, you know, it's like the house just burns down so that he can
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start again um and who i mean everyone knows that right we all know that we all know that moment
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where you know the person you've been madly in love with is just not the person you can live with
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you know the person that you thought you were is not correct you know and that's what this man
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goes through. And then you show up with that. And with the, I mean, I take in the play
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the metaphor of the snake shedding his skins and how painful that is
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When a snake gets its skin, it sheds it from the eyeballs
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Everything, everything goes away. And I think about in my own life
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those moments where it's been like, I think it's time to grow, you know, to address the things that need to be addressed and really look at
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Joe, it's important to him to be a good man. It's important to me to be a good man
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You know, that's another kind of connective tissue with him. to do the right thing with the time you've got
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to treat people well, to make an impact that is positive and meaningful and thoughtful
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And I believe Joe wants those things, and they're very important to him
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And given the challenges that he's given in the play, he meets those challenges with a real sense
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of what is the right thing to do now. Like, who am I now
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I don't know. I'm in the middle of playing him, so I could just bore you all day about what I did
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No, not at all. No, listen, there's all actors out here, you know, figuring out how you craft a role
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Talk about working with and sharing the stage with this remarkable group of actors
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all at the top of their game. I mean, it's, I mean, can I just say watching them work
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is phenomenal because if I'm not on stage, I'm backstage kind of watching what's happening
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And like with Andrew, for example, I don't have many scenes with him, so I get to watch a lot of what he does
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And the amount of energy and artistry that he's bringing to that role is astonishing
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to see what he does every night. And with Nathan, I get to share, you know, some scenes with him
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And it is every bit as good as you can, as you're thinking it is
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To see how he masterfully attacks this beast of a role is just thrilling
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Like, thrilling. Every night, there's, within this kind of, you know, very thoughtful parameters of the character that he's made
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There's this living charm and ferociousness to what he does. I mean, I was telling you backstage
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I'm still learning about what that relationship is. I'm still learning about, oh, that's what that means
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That's what I'm trying to communicate there. No, that's what I learn in that scene
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And it's just, I mean, a privilege. And every night I think that there's a scene in Millennium in Act Three that is, you know, the scene where I go in and tell them I can't take the job, which is, you know, for the whole first half of the play
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It's just been like, ah, this job, if I can just get it together to get to Washington, then everything is going to be fine
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You know, it's like Moscow and three sisters. You know, it's like if I can just get there, then everything will be fine
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Everything will be fixed. And it's just a fantasy. You know, that it could happen
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So it's like a real moment of reckoning going in there. And what he meets me with is this, you know
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ferocious reality of either you're a winner or you're a loser, you know, in life
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You know, which is, to Joe, to hear that at that moment is
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you know, it's like the walls of the castle come tumbling down
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It's so interesting because it's such this beautifully, It's like a beautiful claustrophobic scene
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It's just the two of you going back at each other, and then that explosion happens. Really great
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You were working with one of the finest directors with Marianne Elliott. What specifically makes her such a wonderful director
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I mean, she's a visionary. She's got this, you know, that she's cracked this play open in the way she has
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is remarkable. Her conception of the angel of America in this moment in time, her interpretation of Tony
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I mean, it's just creativity, you know, working at this incredible level
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And there nothing I admire more in someone than who is you know creative in that way that she is You know it cool that I mean the set just is Dope Like the neon it just it it that
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Putting all those pieces together is I think what you know, I I've loved about working with her as to being a part of this
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This vision that she has of this world It's brilliant because after seeing all these productions you wouldn't think that anybody could bring anything else to this
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and then she has just cracked the eggshell and taken it somewhere else. And the way she finds the symbols
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I remember she was talking to us about Act IV and Perestroika
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which is the whole middle act of when you watch it. She said, it's acid
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It's acid green. It's the way Ethel describes the star. I've been praying and dreaming for your death all these years
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and I've made a star in the sky because of it. The whole play is that kind of
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or that whole act is this acid green. And I think about it every night
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because it is the hardest act for the character that I'm playing
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It's after I've, you know, stripped bare on Joan's beach and I'm trying to live an authentic life
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But, you know, it's not working out. You know, I had the privilege
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of seeing both parts of Angels on the same day. what are double days like for you
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I mean, it's like, let me just describe this to you. Like, do you watch, I'm a huge fan of the Olympics
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Who else likes the Olympics, right? Is like one of the high divers get up on the diving board
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and you see them kind of stand there and like look at how far they're about to drop
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and just take a breath and remember how they're going to flip their body
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and spin and turn and somehow land safely in that water. That's what it feels like when you start an act of this play
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Because you know, all right, I've got to do these things, but who knows what's going to happen, actually
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You know, many, I mean, who knows what's going to happen? I mean, it's different
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It is different every time. It really is. So that's how it feels, and it's terrifying and thrilling
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and when it's over, it feels so good to kind of just feel like, there, that's done
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You know? I didn't die. That's a perfect metaphor, exactly. And I have to do it again
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I didn't die. I have to do it again. I have to climb the ladder again
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Get up on the diving board. Like you just said, exhausting but exhilarating
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all at the same time. Yeah, it is. And challenging, too. And I love a challenge
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I love that, you know, there have been times working on this that I've really thought, I can't do it
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Like, it's just, it's too, why would I want to? You know, it's too, you know, what's the benefit of putting myself through this
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What is the, it's, I mean, God, I hear myself talk sometimes and I sound like such an actor
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I love it. But I do think it. I mean, in rehearsals, I would go home
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and it's just like, this isn't fun at all. This is just misery
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Like having to confront myself with all of this and get yelled at
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And, you know, um... God, I'm really talking myself out of going to the theater tonight
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But that's what it's like on a day before you have to go to the theater at night
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It's like, why? Why would I do that? Why would I? Only crazy people would, like, kind of willingly, you know, get onto the subway
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Go to work. And go all the way uptown to do this, you know
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Yeah. In front of people, in front of a bunch of strangers you haven't met
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to get up there and, you know, just... Oh, God. I love that
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No, we had David Tennant here. That's perfect, yes. David Tennant was at BAM, and he was doing this long, like, four-hour show
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And I was like, why did I sign up for this? But he says, once you walk on, he said, it's a whole different world
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It is. It is. But you look it off, and you're like, I have to do it again. Why did I sign up for this
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It's like drugs. Stay off drugs. Stay off drugs. No, but it is great and thrilling, too
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It's like when I walk off that scene I was just talking about with Nathan
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I'm about to do a quick change to go into Prior 1, to go on as this, you know, 15th century apparition for Prior
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And there's not a night that I don't say to Brian Shannon
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who's my dresser on the show, like, ah, that was great
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you know, to do that scene with Nathan. So, yeah, there's that, too
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It's just insanity. It's all good in Saturday. I love that. How do you stay fit and healthy during this grueling yet rewarding work schedule
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And at the end of the show, how do you unwind? Well, I run. I'm a runner
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So I run. I think it's... I should be running more. You run on stage
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Yeah, I run on stage. But it's... Yeah, I run and it's..
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You know, I always think the running is just not about your body. It's about your mind
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It's, it's, I run like as far as I can. And it's about will
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It's about, you know, staying with yourself and just doing it. Just one foot in front of the next
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It doesn't matter if it hurts. You just gotta, you know, you know, be there for yourself
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You said you're going to do the run, do the run, you know? And so it's exercise, but I think it's more exercise for my mind and my spirit than it
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is for, you know, for my body. And it feels so good after you finish a run
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Beautiful. So, and unwinding, I mean, I just walk the dog. And I think, oh, my God
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I have 10 hours off. I have 12 hours off. Let's go to Pete. Let's go to sleep
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Do you need a lot of sleep? Huh? Do you need a lot of sleep? I wish I had more sleep, but who doesn't? Yeah
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You know? I mean, because Pete needs to get up and go for a walk, you know
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and so I'm up early. Yeah. But yeah, I love sleeping. You know what I love is a nap Yep right nap Right Like in adult life there nothing more luxurious than a nap Like just like an hour where you like actually get into bed
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in the middle of the afternoon. It's just, you know, it's like luxury
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Just close your eyes in the middle of the day and sleep
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I'd like to go back to the beginning. And growing up, where did your love for performing begin
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And what were your earliest creative outlets? Oh, what a great, I love that question that you ask
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Long time listener, first time caller. I, I don't know
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I was my, well, I was a swimmer for years. And I swam competitively
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and I had a bunch of problems with my ears and they had to do a lot of operations and stuff
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and I had to stop swimming and it broke my heart. I loved swimming so much that not doing that
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for like two, three hours a day was, I was like, I don't think I'm going to live
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Maybe that's what, that kind of drama was what made my mother say
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you should try theater arts. And I remember, I remember her, like we were sitting out in the
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in the parking lot outside of the school. We moved around a lot when I was a kid, and I was going into a new school
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and I had to choose an elective, and I couldn't think of anything to do
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and she was like, you should try theater arts. And, oh, that makes me laugh just to think about
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And I was like, you've got to be kidding. That sounds like a terrible idea
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And we had just gone to Texas at that time, So Texas, the Texans will make anything competitive
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And so there was competitive acting, you know, where you would do these speech tournaments
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like the speech and debate tournaments would have these acting events where you would do
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like a scene, like a 12-minute scene with your scene partner or like 10 minutes out of a play
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by yourself in a classroom on a Saturday and compete. was going to be the best
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So I, yeah, I just remember. So that's what I would, those were the most creative outlets
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But it wasn't, I mean, I guess it was creative, but it was fierce competition
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With our acting skills. I love that. Do you like to audition
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Were you always good at it? No. No, I don't like to audition
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Who likes to audition? Some actors we've had here love it, and other people are like, I don't think so
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No, I don't. I mean, you have to. No, it's much better to play it, to play the roles
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You know, I don't even... I mean, I don't know. I'm not always good at it
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I wouldn't say good at auditioning. I actually think somehow I get roles in spite of auditioning, you know
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for some reason, you know. I don't, I mean, I wouldn't say I'm good at it at all, actually
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It feels like I'm back in, like, the high school forensic acting, you know
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kind of standing in there by yourself with stuff you prepared by yourself
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That's not anything what it's like when you actually do it. When you do it, you're not by yourself at all
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You're working with, I mean, I would say, like, just to go back to the scenes with Nathan
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I mean, everything that I'm doing is him. everything is response to what what he's doing and kind of thinking together that's how you create
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those alive moments auditioning is nothing like that it's by yourself it's like acting for you
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know for a mirror there's that's no fun yeah yeah another question is when you create a character
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do you create them all the same way like when you're working on a character is it the text
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like how do you create oh i mean it's always it's always different i mean i couldn't there's no map
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i don't i don't think i think that there's well there's just i mean the director really i mean
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that's where it all and the things that you find out and the things that inspire you and the research
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that you do because you just find yourself you know learning things and remembering things and
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thinking about your life and in different ways and you know it's always different i mean the only
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The only thing that's the same is that, you know, you just think about it all the time
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When it's something you really care about, when it's something really worth doing, you can't stop thinking about it
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And that's really the process is, you know, walking the dog and thinking about it and
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staying up at night thinking about it and, you know, thinking about it when you ride
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your bike around town, thinking about it and talking about it with the people you're
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working with and the people you're not working with, you're just talking about it with
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thinking about it is the process. Like living in the world of that character 24-7
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Well, yeah, just thinking about it. Yeah, letting your mind kind of just do what it does, you know
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and structuring that in a way. But, I mean, that's all you really have up there, you know
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and when you're playing the character is your mind. My final question is, what is the best bit of advice that you've been given
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that you live by either personally or professionally? Oh, don't take yourself so seriously
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That's, I think, a big one. Be nice to people. I mean, no, I mean, boy, you meet some assholes in this job
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So, you know, be nice. And because we're so lucky to get to do this
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We're so lucky to be able to tell stories for a living
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You know what I mean? And enjoy it. That's the best piece of advice
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Like, remember it and enjoy it. You know? Don't complain about stuff
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Who cares? You know? Just have a good attitude, I guess. But that's for anything
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Yeah. You know? I love it. I have to tell you, this has been one of the most insightful afternoons
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I have done this for a long time. This has been a real dream of mine to sit with you. Oh, thank you so much
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Ladies and gentlemen, Lee Pace. Go see him in Angels of America
26:56
Thank you, thank you. I'm going to walk out this way. Okay, let me grab my tea
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