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Tonys Talk: Benjamin Walker Talks Tackling a Classic in ALL MY SONS
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Oct 31, 2022
He has already captivated Broadway audiences as Andrew Jackson and Patrick Bateman. This season, Benjamin Walker leaves his bloody onstage past behind him to tackle a classic Arthur Miller role. Walker has just earned a Tony nomination for the conflicted offspring of Annette Bening and Tracy Letts in All My Sons.
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Welcome to Backstage with Richard Ridge
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I'm in the Tony Award Suite at the Sofitel, NYC, which is the official hotel of the 2019 Tony Awards
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and I'm sitting with one of this year's nominees for Best Featured Actor in a Play for its heart-wrenching performance of Chris Keller in Arthur Miller's classic, All My Sons
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Please welcome Benjamin Walker. Well, first of all, thank you so much for sitting with me
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Thanks for having me. Well, of course, you are mesmerizing at all my sons
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Thank you. Which I think I have told you before. What is it like living in the world of Arthur Miller and this play
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It's excruciating, frankly. I mean, the play is kind of a trap because the first scene is so comfortable
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It feels like you're in a backyard in the Midwest and everything's going to be fine, and then
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it very quickly is not. And it's exhausting, but kind of the most gratifying
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play I've ever done. And to work with the Net and Tracy, it really is
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as long as I'm buckled up, I can endure it. Because sometimes the scary ones are the best
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where you really want to say, oh, I don't know if I should do this or whatever, I'm scared of this
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Will you push yourself as a performer, as an actor? You should. Yeah
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And this is- Cowards. Cowards, exactly. But that must be great though when you go into something like this. Yeah
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And, and I, I, you know, I don't think any of us would be able to do it without everyone else
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It's a great group, and we've really kind of become a little family. Yeah
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And we support each other. And just the other day, we're passing this cold around
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And Annette heard me warming up and just brought me ginger tea. You know, that's just the kind of woman she is
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Yeah. It makes sense that she plays the mother because she is mothering us off stage as well
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She's really remarkable. That is great. What was it like being in the rehearsal room
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Like, you got cast. Then it's that first day of rehearsal. You've got this incredible company, Annette Benning, Tracy Letts, I mean, everybody else in the company, guided by Jack O'Brien
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So what was that like just rehearsing? It was daunting, but also Jack has such confidence about him, and he's earned it
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He oftentimes asks a question knowing full well what the answer is and just allows you to figure it out
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but also he's like I was saying the other day he's incredibly punk rock in that
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he has been doing this so long he's actually done this play before
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he did it as a teleplay and in spite of that he still
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says I don't know let's figure it out and in that way it is a real
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collaboration and you really feel like you're building something together and it is also very gratifying
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it's not a carbon copy of anything else which is really great when you come to think working with the director who's done it
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before but they're like, no, we're going to start from scratch and take this journey all of us
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together discovering this play. Let's re-figure it out. Yeah. How well did you know the play
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before you started this? I'd seen the Lithgow production and I'd read it in high school
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And frankly, I've loved this play a long time and I've been chasing this part a long time
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I was even, I was trying to get into the old Vic version. You know, I was like, who's doing the
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play and when can I be in it? And so I was, it, it, it
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kind of came together at the perfect time with the perfect cast and the perfect director at the roundabout. I mean it
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It's a kind of a dream job one of those that comes along maybe once twice in a career and
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I really trying to enjoy as much as much as I can Well let just talk about Chris Keller like when you start to work on him for this production like how did you see him what are the similarities between you two
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Just talk about the role and how you, like, it got unlocked for you. Well, initially, I think Chris can be
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it has some pitfalls because he kind of reads as a hayseed who has these ideals
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that potentially makes him seem a bit naive. And I think a lot of times you miss an opportunity with a character like Chris
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if you don't really delve into what the war was really like
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especially the more we learn about PTSD today, that applies to Chris
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You know, that the reason he is kind of blind is because his vision is impaired in a way
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And his, I read this great, blurb by Aalya Kazan about Chris
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that his need for Anne is his need to build the life he imagines
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it is that desperate and it's not country boy comes home falls in love
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it is as desperate to survive as any character I've ever played yeah
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how much research do you like to do when you're working on a show or on a role
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as much as is helpful okay we were also another characteristic of Annette that I love
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she came in with something like 35 books on World War II and Miller
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and she even had a book made of her family members that had served in World War II
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So we had this plethora of information, and we had all of Miller's notes
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So you use everything you can and then figure out what you actually need
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And so research is invaluable, I think. you know, when you're making a meal, you throw it all together, see what tastes good
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and then start removing things as opposed to starting with, you know, just the broth
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No, what's interesting about this production, which I love more than anything, is you know when the show starts
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you're looking at a net betting, Tracy Letts, and of course you, it all just fades away really, really fast
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Good. And you're looking, no, but you're looking at the Keller family. I mean, you so embody the roles you play and everything else
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and I'm sure that's really challenging to do. I mean, it is and it isn't
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because luckily, I mean, like Tracy and Annette, I know I kind of go on about it
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but it really is true. There are, you can be thinking about what you had for lunch
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Yeah. And when Annette comes on and she's dealing with the denial of the morning
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of the grief of her son, you're not thinking about your salad anymore
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I mean, it really is wild. It is a wild experience. It kind of removes you from your own body in a way
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And I think with another group of actors, that probably would not be the case
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And also one thing that Jack was incredibly smart with is that it's messy
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The play is written as poetry, but he encouraged us to talk like people
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which is to talk over each other, to speak quickly. They speak as quickly as they think
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And in that way, I think a lot of people expect to come see this potentially dusty old Miller play that they feel like they've seen before
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And it kind of gets away from them. Even people that know it well are gasping at the end
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And for example the last moment of the play is profound and it in a different spot every night It true to the script but it still sortles everyone including us
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I know this play inside out, but that last scene, the curtain comes down
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the audience just sits there, after the lights come up. You can't get up
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You literally just to listen to your vocal, what comes out of you
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and everything else is just breathtaking to watch as an audience member
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I can only imagine what it must be like to perform. It's excruciating, but also I had a young man come
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the doorman of the building where I was staying in an Airbnb. I invited him and he came back and he brought one of his friends
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who was a Black Hawk pilot. And I think this was the first play he'd ever seen
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And he was so profoundly moved and kind of taken aback. and it was not what he had expected
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And he said, with tears in his eyes, he said, I've had those conversations with my wife
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And if you can touch one person like that through the course of a play
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you've done something right. And it was a privilege for him to come
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and for him to be open to it. And that's a testament to Miller
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I mean, what, he was, 1947, and he had the guts after
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coming out of kind of the most righteous war that has ever existed on the planet
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to then take a step back and in that high of after the war, re-examine it. Yeah
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Takes a real intellect and a bravery that leads us to be asking the same questions
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that the play posed in 1947. Because my next question, it's so relevant for today
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I know. It's shocking. I mean, I told you that opening night, I'm like, you think you know this piece
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and you go and you're like, Miller was so brilliant. he could have written this two days before you see it
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It's chilling. The third line of the play is I don't read the news section of the newspaper anymore
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And there's a collective groan in the audience. And you're like, no
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It's profound and poignant. And we're lucky to be able to be doing it at this time
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And that's the roundabout. That's Todd that has that foresight. And again, to be doing it right now in this part
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is really lucky. So I was going to ask you, no one does shows better than Roundabout
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I think so. Hands down. I mean, the teams they put together. I mean, the look of this show
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I mean, everything, like you said, you walk out there, you're living. I'd like to live on that set, right
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I know. I mean, the clothes, the lighting, everything about that show
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I mean, what have you enjoyed the most about working at Roundabout? Well, the support
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Yeah. I really, really enjoy the education program. the fact that they bring in middle school and high school kids to see it
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And, I mean, like the set, for example, it seems at first glance to be this kind of quaint, beautiful Midwestern backyard
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but the house is oversized. It forces the action out into the lap of the audience
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It's imposing in that way. And that kind of forethought and creativity is
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the roundabout gets the best of the best and kind of makes our job easy
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See, I love that was played so forward. It's in your face. Yeah
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And we feel it as well. It does feel like a kind of collective experience
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those moments where you kind of turn out to the audience and they right there It really a pleasure You know we lose you sometimes for film Sometimes But you always come back
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You have to. Tell me why. Well, in television in particular now is starting to tell some really exciting stories
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But plays like this can really only exist in theater. And with everything that, with social media and the internet
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internet, there's something I feel like we're losing, which is this is a collective experience
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that we're having now and it will never happen again. It might happen tomorrow night, but it won't
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be the same. And we as a group of people coming together to tell the story and to share it
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with an audience, that's a one-of-a-kind human experience. And I love it. I think it's important
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and the people that are still willing to support the theater and go see plays and see musicals
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there are what keep the arts in America going. You know, theater is also life-changing
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because people may be coming to this show, I know they have, because they know you from film and everything
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and other things you've done. But they're going, oh, I'll see this play because Benjamin Walker's in it
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And it's going to change them forever. Even if it makes them think another couple of seconds
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It's been a success. And that's another thing that plays do. You get an opportunity to see actors that maybe you know in another context
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do something you've never seen telling a story that you hadn't imagined. Finally, if you could sum up the best part of the experience
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it's a big question of working on all my sons, what's it been for you or what is it for you
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You've heard me tell the story, but it really is one of the pivotal moments for me
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We were doing a talkback with the roundabout education program, and this young man asked a question at the talkback
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I think he was maybe 13 or 14. And he said, Chris, the guy who played Chris
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what were you feeling at the end of the play? And I said, well, it's probably more interesting to know what you were feeling
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And he said, well, I don't have a father. So I don't understand that, but I have a really good teacher
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and he's right over there. And the fact that the roundabout supports that teacher
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and that teacher valued theater and this story enough to bring a bunch of teenagers
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Those little moments are not that when my friends see it, it's not as profound
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but that someone who wouldn't necessarily be here and wouldn't necessarily respond does
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is a testament to the roundabout, to this cast, to Jack O'Brien, Arthur Miller
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and to American theater today. It's alive and well. And there's a whole new generation of fans
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and creators and artists on their way up, and it moves me, and it's a privilege to be part of it
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even if it's in a small way. Yeah. It's a big way. Well, thank you
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But we're so lucky to be able to do this for a living
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and then to have support. and then on top of that for people to kind of celebrate your work in some way is there's kind of nothing better
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I'm incredibly lucky. Well, I thank you for dropping by here today
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And I thank you for continuing making magic eight times a week is what you do, my friend
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And thanks for supporting us and being interested in asking astute questions
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Like you're a fixture of American theater, and it's guys like you that keep us going
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So thanks. Oh, I love that
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