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You've done more than 1,000 performances as Mufasa - do you
still get nervous or excited before each show?
Not so much nervous anymore. Excited. Uplifted. Inspired. I
get to watch all these wonderful puppets and the wonderful
work that people are doing with them, so it uplifts me. I
only get kind of nervous when it comes to the stunty things
that I do - the dangerous things, like falling off the wall.
You actually do
stunts in the show?
Well, it's funny, when you're doing a Broadway show, people
don't consider the things that you do stunts, because they
think stunts are done on television and in the movies. But
if you do something that's incredibly dangerous every night
� I don't know any stuntman who would do a fall off of a
wall 1,000 times in his lifetime!
Have you ever
had any close calls?
Yeah, even though I'm attached to a cable, there are very
specific things that have to go absolutely right every
single night or someone could get very hurt. It is a
dangerous show, but that also makes it exciting
performance-wise. A couple of times, in the scene where the
lions are caught and things didn't go right, I ended up
falling very hard - falling at 32-feet-per-second hard! But
it's taught me a lesson about falling.
And what's that?
I used to always wonder why you would hear these news
stories about babies surviving 12-story falls. And probably
the reason why I've survived all these falls is because I
was very relaxed, just like a child. I didn't even know I
was falling because it happened so quickly. So by the time I
hit the floor, I just go, "Wow, what was that Mac truck that
just ran over me?" One time, the fall knocked me out for a
little while. According to the lionesses, I just kind of lay
there and grimaced and made funny noises.
OK, so let's
back up, how does your day at the theater start?
I arrive at the theater earlier probably than most people in
the show and even the crew, except for stage management. I
get there at about 4 or 5 o'clock because I have a long
preparation, and I have to shop.
Uh � you have to
shop?
Yes. I have to get candles and incense and little toys for
people in the show and around the theater, just to keep our
spirits up.
That's
wonderful!
And I get something to eat. At 6 p.m., I start my prep: I
take a shower and start putting on my makeup, which takes
about 45 minutes. At 7 p.m., I start to warm up, and then at
7:30 I get dressed. And by a quarter to 8, I'm on the stage
ready to come up Pride Rock and start the show. Then Rafiki
sings "Nants ingonyama bagithi baba." You know what that
means, don't you?
No �
"This way a lion comes." She's announcing the arrival of
Mufasa.
Oh, that's
great! So, is it crazy backstage during the show?
It's like a circus backstage. There's as much a show
backstage as onstage. Backstage, we have what we call
tracks. You stay on that track and you don't vary from it
because things are going in, coming out, and people are
changing costumes, making entrances and exits. And if you're
in the wrong place, somebody can get hurt. Nobody is going
to be there to tell you to get out of the way when the
boneyard is being lowered.
During your
warm-up, are you doing any mental preparation to get into
the mindset of Mufasa?
Yeah, I'm turning into a 350-pound lion. Mufasa is quite a
different person than me. I'm a 53-year-old man who would
prefer to sit down, read the newspaper, and enjoy a nice
glass of wine. But Mufasa lives on the African savannah, and
he's a protective 350-pound lion. And the physical things
that he does onstage transcend my physicality, so I have to
kind of let him take over. And I'm always constantly
surprised at what I'm capable of doing when in the character
of Mufasa - making turns that are cat-like and very quick,
and leaping and jumping and not even thinking about how I'm
going to land or how far I'm going to go. There's something
that takes over, something very cat-like and animal-like,
that protects me through the whole show.
Are you like
Mufasa?
Yeah, I have a very protective nature. I think Mufasa is
very loving toward Simba, and I feel the same way about my
children. And also the children that I teach - my wife and I
have a performing arts school and we spend a lot of time
with the children because we do about eight productions a
year. But I don't move like Mufasa if I don't have to. I
keep in shape but I don't tend to climb trees.
Have you gotten
used to wearing the amazing costume?
The costumes that Michael Curry built are not as heavy as a
lot of people would think they are. He's managed to take all
of the weight out of them, but because they're large they
have what you call inertia. So even though that huge helmet
is very light, when you turn your head, it wants to keep
going in the direction that you just turned.
What's your
favorite part of the show?
My death, because then I can sit down [laughs]. My favorite
parts of the show are when I'm with Simba. The kids are
great. All of the boys and the young ladies have been
absolutely wonderful, and they're very special children to
me and to the role. It's just fascinating to do a
performance with somebody that small and that inexperienced
and watch them grow over the six-month period.
And they
literally grow, right?
They come into the show when they're tiny little kids.
Because the show is so physical, after about six months,
they turn into these fine physical specimens of youth. And
they also weigh more! I have to pick them up and do a lot of
physical stuff with them so by the time it's six months down
the road, it goes from "yes" to "ugh!" But we manage to get
through it. There have been so many of them and it's so
heartbreaking when they leave that I hate they actually grow
up, but that's all a part of life.
Which guests
have you been really excited to meet?
I've met just about everybody I could possibly meet. But
there was one person that just blew me away: John Glenn.
He's my hero. I come from that generation where an astronaut
was a crazy person who sat on top of a bomb and got blown
into outer space where we had never been. And just to be in
the same room with a person who had that kind of bravery and
foresight and who went back again as an older man. He exudes
the strength that a hero is. His wife is also a hero because
she survived it.
What did John
Glenn say to you?
He just thought that it was the most amazing performance
that he had ever seen. I thought he was just saying that,
but his wife pulled me aside and said, "No, he's being very
honest." His wife says he has this feeling for me through my
performance. I can not explain to you the connection between
us. I just felt like I knew him so well, like he was my
father or something. It was really great, 'cause I never
thought I'd ever meet John Glenn.
Has anything
funny or memorable ever happened with the audience?
As actors, we have to make the fourth wall exist because we
have a lot of children at the performances and they'll talk
to you during the entire show. They say the lines to you and
they know what's going to happen. So just before Scar says,
"Long live the king," you hear the kids say it. It can be
disconcerting to actually hear them. I usually don't pay any
attention to them. But one night, I came charging up the
staircase for the hyena attack and I must have been
particularly fearsome, because it just scared some kid to
death and he was screaming and crying. I'm not supposed to
even pay any attention to the audience but the kid was
crying so much I couldn't help it. So I just turned and
looked down at him and smiled and he stopped crying! The
audience seemed to appreciate it. And I just felt terrible
about it because I had broken the fourth wall but I couldn't
help it -I wanted to let him know that I wasn't mad.
Wow, you must be
a pretty convincing lion!
It's an interesting story, that whole thing about being a
lion. I do a lot of growling in the show, and I get asked a
lot of times, "How do you do the growling and not lose your
voice?" [Before the show started], because I didn't know
particularly how an animal growls, I'd go to the Bronx Zoo
every day and study all the growling animals, specifically
the lions. And each time, I'd try a growl and the lion would
just yawn or walk away. I thought I was never going to be
able to find something to make the creature react. So one
day, I started working on trying to put the sound not on my
vocal chords but up into my soft palate which is where I
thought animals were putting their growls. And I started
getting better and better at this noise and decided to try
it on the lion. I went to the Bronx Zoo and I stood by the
lion's cage and I went, "Arghh!" And he actually jumped up!
Do you have any
words of advice for the actor who's playing Mufasa in the
new Los Angeles production of "The Lion King"?
Hang on! Because when Mufasa grabs you in the midst of the
moment, and when you're doing what the director Julie Taymor
wants, he will take you on a trip. Enjoy the role. It's a
wonderful role to play. And take care of yourself- drink
lots of juice and stay fit. And be very loving to everybody
in the company, especially the two guys who are in charge of
making you fly. You do not want to make them angry! |