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Go Inside Opening Night of SEA WALL/ A LIFE with Gyllenhaal and Sturridge!
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Oct 30, 2022
Sea Wall / A Life, starring Academy Award nominee Jake Gyllenhaal and Tony Award nominee Tom Sturridge, opened officially last night, August 8, at the Hudson Theatre (141 West 44th Street). Written by Tony Award winner Simon Stephens and Olivier Award nominee Nick Payne and directed by Carrie Cracknell, the acclaimed production comes to Broadway following its sold-out engagement at The Public Theaterthis past spring where it had audiences roaring to their feet.
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0:00
Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World
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Following a critically acclaimed, sold-out run at the Public Theater, Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge have come to Broadway with Seawall Alive
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and we caught up with them just minutes after the opening night curtain rang down
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It was a really emotional show tonight and such incredible audiences. I don't think I had any idea the response that this audience would get
0:20
I mean, this show would get from the audience. We all fell in love with this at the Public, and I told you that
0:25
You have taken this somewhere else, the two of you. I mean, it's just beautiful up here
0:30
What was it like going back into rehearsal for Broadway? We had two days of rehearsal
0:34
We had two days of rehearsal and two days of tech, and then we were on Broadway. So what was it like
0:38
For the three months in between, in the interim, I was, you know, rehearsing my lines in weird cars at different places in the world as I was on a press tour for a movie
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So I was like, it was a very awkward rehearsal process for me to be, like, in Asia doing a monologue in the middle of nowhere
0:54
But then we got away two days, and it was great. It was like we were back home. And we just went right up, and it felt comfortable
0:59
It felt right. And being back on stage with Tom again, you guys are so connected
1:03
I know you watch each other in between. What's it like being on Broadway with him? I mean, it's so odd
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It's almost as if the universe works in such funny ways. I had done Sunday in the Park with George at the Hudson
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and he came in right after and did 1984. And I knew him a little bit, but I didn't know him that well
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And just the idea that I was like, so when you leave a show, your heart's sort of breaking
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that you have to get off the stage. You're like, why are they coming in to take over this stage
1:27
I'm like, who's Tom Sturridge? And now we're partners in crime and I love him so much
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It goes to show you never know where the world's going to take you. So finally when you took your bow tonight back on Broadway
1:39
do you remember what you were thinking? I got to say, you know, from the first preview of this show at the Hudson
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performing this show in front of a thousand people the energy is beyond overwhelming and beyond emotional And tonight was incredible to open it and to be in our run now
1:59
But every audience has just surprised us. Every single one of them
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It feels like a rock concert. There are two monologues and they feel like some sort of rock concert. It's so crazy
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Openings are strange animals. But I think we gave a good account of the players
2:15
You were terrific. Jake said you only had two days of rehearsal. Two days of rehearsal, yeah
2:20
I think it's a testament to the genius of our director, how she managed to turn those two days into a Broadway opening
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So what was it like? I mean, we fell in love with it to the public, and I didn't think you could escalate any higher than the two of you have
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And you have. What's it been like working on this for Broadway and being up here
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What's extraordinary about it is it feels more intimate. Like, there's a thousand people in that room
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but there's something about the way that this theater wraps around a thousand people
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It just feels like you're having a conversation with a single consciousness
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And just working together, because I know you watch each other in rehearsal
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you sit backstage and watch each other. So what's it like being up there with him in the wings or whatever
3:02
It's thrilling. I mean, he's been the most extraordinary partner in crime in this experience
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I genuinely have never had a closer relationship with an actor professionally
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And him too, right? And that guy. Simon Stevens. I love him as everybody else does
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He's a legend. He loves you. I mean, he's one of my best friends
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What's it like saying his words? Because the plays are written by two different people, but they're so similar
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I mean, it's the third time that I've worked with Simon. and I think this piece of writing
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is one of the most exquisite pieces of writing that I've ever read. So it's an absolute honour and a pleasure
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Jake said every performance from the first preview is like a Broadway rock concert He said it just two monologues but it incredible I mean the intensity of the reaction has been kind of amazing but it simply because these are experiences that people can everyone has gone through
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And I think people are excited to be acknowledged by a performer and to be heard
4:00
My final question is, when you took your bow tonight back on Broadway, do you remember what you were thinking
4:06
I was thinking, I think I'm a little bit hungry. Talk about working with Jake and Tom
4:11
You worked with them separately first, but they were both in the rehearsal room at the same time
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Explain. It felt really important that they had a company and that they could watch each other work
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and share a sort of style in the way that they were performing and also have the kind of the morale boost in a way
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that just comes from being together, knowing each other, growing a sort of support between the two of them
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So that was a really big part of the process. What were the challenges for you as a director directing two one-hander
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Just an enormous amount of requirement for energy, like sustained energy in rehearsal
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and actually having to watch really actively the whole time because they were performing to me
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which I've never had because normally they perform to each other and you're observing from the outside. So I became kind of the scene partner as well as the director in rehearsals
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and so that was kind of bizarre, actually. Talk about the two different playwrights, yet they both feel the same
5:03
Yeah, they are good friends, actually, both of the writers, And I think one of the things that's beautiful is that Nick has really rewritten a life to kind of fit Seawall inside it in some way
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And both of the pieces now, I think, really speak to each other. And they share a real kind of honesty and a sensibility as writers and therefore as pieces, I think
5:20
Audiences love this show. What do you hope they walk away with? Just this feeling of kind of wanting to connect with their own families and be more present somehow in the way that they live with other people
5:32
and I feel that every night People come out quite stirred up and open and emotional and that really moving i known tom for 10 years he been this is our third collaboration we hung out and kind of spent
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time and he's a dear friend and somebody i really cherish and care about as a human you know like
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if we're both bus drivers together or you know both bartenders together i'd care about him very
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much as a human. I think tonight was as good a performance of this play that I've ever seen any
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actor give and certainly was as good a performance I've seen Tom give. An actor of extraordinary
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humanity and intelligence and care. And Jake, I've only watched as a fan, really. I've not been in
6:18
rehearsal with him because he's doing Nick's play. But the level of commitment that he has to this
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show, the level of humanity and the level of detail and the love that he brings is genuinely
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humbling. I love to watch audiences. I've seen it, I saw it twice down at the Public, I've seen it
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twice on Broadway. Every demographic, everybody falls in love with these pieces. As a writer
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what do you hope people walk away with after seeing this? I think it's a play of, I think the
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the coupling of the plays is really optimistic. You know, for me, you go to a very dark place
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It's a very fragile place, a very raw place. But I think what we do with the two plays together is
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you know, we're connected. That's the thing. It's a play about living in a city
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In the end, the coupling of the two plays is about the experience of living in a city
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where it can feel as though you're absolutely atomised and totally dislocated from everybody else
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but actually we're together. We share our humanness. We grieve together. We love together
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We kind of like make families together. And in that, there's an innate optimism that I think is really fundamental
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I've shared every opening
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