485 shows. 100 actors. 80 people working backstage. Two theatres. Five rehearsal rooms. Three and a half years. Two countries. One pandemic. Two Olivier awards. Four Tonys. Two wigs. Four costumes. Two wives. One Tom Stoppard (There’s only one Tom Stoppard). An obscene amount of beard whitener. Countless new and lifelong friendships…..
One family
Professor Doctor Ernst Kloster 2019 -2023
I’m terrible at keeping this thing updated but oh my, what an incredible pinch-me-I’m-dreaming ride 2022 has been. Mostly due to this incredible play that I still look forward to doing every night, even after nearly 300 performances. Here are some shots from our opening night in early October. Which I am posting 3 months late. I am very bad at Instagram…
Believe in the Hail Mary. Thanks to Phil Lord and Chris Miller for believing in me and putting me in the Spielbergian sci-fi blockbuster of my dreams. Sitting round a table improvising with Sandra Huller and Ryan Gosling? I mean come on! I kept waiting for the tap on the shoulder telling me there had been a terrible mistake and they actually meant to cast someone else.
Anyway, excuse the gushing and have some BTS shots, thanks to the amazing @mintmilana .Greg Fraser (Dune, The Batman) really knows how to shoot a filmI’m not tagging anyone because I am terrible at Instagram
So, here it is. The thing that kept me busy last year. We’re all quite proud of it. Hope you enjoy.
Down Cemetery Road with Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson. From the book by Mick Herron. On AppleTV
See you on October 29th
For the last two seasons, I’ve voiced the character of Mizrak in Netflix’s Castlevania. A fierce warrior monk who has an unexpected, primal yet tender, gay love affair with a hot vampire. A beautifully written queer love story that I loved being part of.
I was not, however, prepared to for the internet reaction…
(Swipe to see. The last one is of course my favourite. Duh)
Good people of the internet… I love you 🖤
He was the best, wasn’t he?
I missed his earlier stage work. I was too young. I always regretted not seeing A View From The Bridge. But I was lucky enough to see Volpone, Skylight, The Caretaker, Endgame, No Man’s Land, Krapp’s Last Tape and his Falstaff. Each one unforgettable. Roaring, almost animalistic power, with the vulnerability and soul of a child. Mesmerising. I learned so much every time I saw him. You had to go early. Within the first two weeks ideally. Gambon got bored and started mucking around. The mucking around though. Part of the legend. When he played Flastaff, the National was about to transition to being a smoke-free building. They delayed it, on Gambon’s insistence, and I’m very glad they did. He’d hold court in the backstage bar day and night, telling stories through great clouds of smoke. And oh the stories. They were the best stories. Whether they were true or not, who knows? That was part of the fun. He put a fart machine in the royal box at the Albery when he did Cressida and operated it from a remote control hidden in his underpants (definitely true). How he put out a cigar (accidentally) on Drew Barrymore’s Chihuahua while they were having dinner (Source, Gambon; truth, unknown), how he took a friend up in his Cessna to help cure his fear of flying and then faked a heart attack when he was up there (Source, Gambon etc etc). As Nick Hytner said “Does Michael Gambon lie? Is the pope Catholic?” But you never minded. You always felt you were being let in to the inner circle, the sacred temple of acting, where the greatest told cheeky stories to the neophytes. It was thrilling. (Continued in comments 1/3)
