The "It" Guy

NOVEMBER 2000: Fans of The Rocky Horror Show are looking forward to seeing such established theater talents as Alice Ripley, Jarrod Emick, and Tom Hewitt in the about-to-open Broadway revival of the show but are wondering what to expect from the exotically named Raúl Esparza, a relatively unknown actor who has been cast in the pivotal role of Riff Raff.

OCTOBER 2003: Raúl Esparza has become so beloved of audiences and so sought after by casting directors that he is almost literally juggling offers: Courted for a major role in the McCarter Theatre production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Anna in the Tropics (which is soon to transfer to Broadway), he has chosen instead to play London club icon Philip Sallon in the semi-autobiographical Boy George musical Taboo, set to open at the Plymouth Theatre on November 13.

It’s hard for an actor to build a career in the theater nowadays, but Raúl has managed to make quite a name for himself since he burst onto the New York scene in Rocky Horror. Over the past three years, he’s been acclaimed for his Off-Broadway performances as Jonathan in tick, tick…BOOM! and Gethin Price in Comedians, for his Broadway stint as the Emcee in the Roundabout Theatre Company’s long-running revival of Cabaret, and for his brilliant work in the Kennedy Center’s already legendary Sondheim Celebration productions of Sunday in the Park With George and Merrily We Roll Along in the summer of 2002. Most recently, he was terrific as the Arbiter in The Actors’ Fund of America’s benefit concert presentation of Chess at the New Amsterdam Theatre.

No doubt about it, Raúl is hot-hot-hot. I was lucky enough to catch up with him recently for an interview over lunch.

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THEATERMANIA: We’ve talked about your specific roles in past interviews, Raúl, so I thought it might be interesting this time out to have a general discussion about building a career in the theater — how it happened for you, what advice you may have for other actors, and so on.

RAÚL ESPARZA: Well, when I was starting out in Chicago, I took every job — no matter what. I was really hesitant about coming to New York because I thought, “I don’t want to start at square one again.” Not that I was any kind of Chicago star, but I was working at the Steppenwolf and the Goodman and I felt safe there. It’s very easy when you’re starting out; you take anything that comes because every director, every theater, every role will open another door for you.

TM: Tell me about your training.

RAÚL: I studied at NYU. My acting teacher was Michael Mayer, who is now a hotshot director. Michael’s classes were wonderful because he was tough on me; but, other than him, I didn’t really have any acting teachers who kicked my ass in class. I felt like I left school without really having learned anything particularly applicable to making a career or what it takes to act on stage professionally.

TM: So, the first stretch of time you spent in New York was when you were at NYU?

RAÚL: Yes. I grew up in Miami and my first professional job was at the Coconut Grove Playhouse. That was a huge thing because they didn’t really hire local actors at the time. It was a version of Tartuffe called Mixed Blessings by Luis Santeiro, set in a Cuban household; it was an AT&T Onstage production and it was a gigantic success. I had thought that I wanted to be an attorney, but that experience made me think, “What the hell, maybe I’ll try to be a professional actor.” I actually applied to NYU because one of the girls who was working backstage at the theater got accepted by the school and I thought, “Well, if she can get in, I can!” I had done this thing called the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts program; I had to put together an audition for that, singing and doing a monologue or two. They put us through this competition for a week during senior year and they told me at the end of it that I would never be an actor, I would never get accepted to any of the drama schools. They said that I hadn’t really studied and I didn’t know what I was doing. I was, what, 17?

TM: Sounds like an awful experience.

RAÚL: It was horrible. I went back to high school and we didn’t really have a theater program there, but I had this amazing Spanish teacher and we put together a workshop to encourage theater in the school. We had invited people to come in from other schools to teach the students who were interested in drama. My Spanish teacher was, like, “This is our star actor!” I went and hid behind the podium and wouldn’t come out. She said, “Yes, the one over there in the fetal position is the one who we think is really good.”

TM: Did you really decide that you wanted to study acting at NYU because that girl at the Coconut Grove had gotten into the program?

RAÚL: Yes! Before that, I was planning to go to Amherst to study English and eventually become an attorney. I had it all mapped out: I’d go to Georgetown and study international law. But this girl got accepted at NYU and I thought, “If she can get accepted…!” I have a way of making choices in my life seem inevitable. I’m not saying that’s a good thing, but I have a habit of eliminating my options, almost as if I’m finding a road that I knew I wanted to take in the first place. In a weird way, I made it inevitable that I would end up at NYU: I didn’t apply for financial aid at Amherst properly, I didn’t visit the school for orientation, I didn’t take the steps.

TM: But, in retrospect, you don’t feel that NYU was very helpful to you?

RAÚL: There were some good teachers there but, honestly, I’m not an advocate of studying theater in undergraduate programs. To be a good actor, I think you should get on with your life. I’ve learned more from working with other actors and directors than I ever learned in class — except maybe for Michael Mayer’s class because, as I said, he was tough on me. Anyway, by the end of my time in New York, I had eliminated all of my options here. I didn’t apply for work, I didn’t audition for summer stock, I didn’t do the performances for agents and things like that. One of my teachers at NYU happened to have a contact in Chicago, so I went out there and auditioned. It was completely impulsive but it felt right. When I got off the plane, I thought, “This is the right thing to do.” That turned into nine years in Chicago.

TM: Wasn’t it the Evita tour that led to your coming back to New York?

RAÚL: Yes. I was hired out of New York for Evita but I was still living in Chicago at the time. The Duva-Flack Agency called me and said, “They’re casting Ché in the national tour.” I was at my high school reunion in Miami at the time and I was feeling very, very small because all of these guys had houses and three kinds of lawns and cars and kids already. That wasn’t necessarily what I wanted, but I felt like I’d worked just as hard as them and had nothing to show for it. I had wanted to play Ché ever since I had first heard the Evita album when I was 15, so I gave the audition everything I had. I think they put me through seven auditions, and I got it. Natalie Toro was Eva and the director was Larry Fuller. They spent millions on the show; it was supposed to come in to New York but that didn’t work out. The show was a major learning experience because I hadn’t done a musical in many years, I certainly had never done a tour, and I had never played anything as big as Ché. I was in slightly over my head. Our musical director was Kevin Farrell; he told me there was an apartment in his building in Manhattan, and I figured I might as well try New York again. I knew that if I didn’t, I would always regret it. So I moved here and it happened that Rocky Horror was the first job that I landed after six months of auditioning. I didn’t even want to go to the audition because I was afraid. When you’re not getting the jobs, what you feel is, “I suck.” When the offer came for Rocky Horror, I was afraid of not being brave enough to play that strange Riff Raff character — but I realized that I shouldn’t turn down a principal role in a Broadway show out of fear.

TM: You left the show to do tick, tick…BOOM!

RAÚL: That’s right. From a purely business standpoint, that didn’t seem like a good business decision. I thought, “Why should I leave a Broadway show to do something Off-Broadway at the Jane Street? I’m not going to be making as much money. How am I going to pay the rent?” But I responded very emotionally to the script and the songs; tick, tick…BOOM! really spoke to me personally.

TM: As I remember it, what happened next could be classified as an actor’s nightmare. Can you give me a recap?

RAÚL: I left tick, tick…BOOM! to do Assassins for the Roundabout, then Assassins was canceled and I didn’t have a job. It was only for about two weeks, but I was in a panic. In terms of “planning my career,” my next move was complete luck: The Roundabout needed an Emcee for Cabaret and they offered that to me. At the time, I was doing a workshop of Urban Cowboy — which I took just because I needed a job — and I got a phone call from Elin Flack saying, “They want you to be the Emcee in Cabaret. Are you interested?” I was, like, “Okay!!!” I was only supposed to do the show for two months, but so much came out of it. I have a theory that the attention you get, the press you get, sort of climaxes during your third job in the city. I think people here wait to decide whether or not you’ve got the goods. That’s what happened to me with Cabaret: The Times came back to review the show and then they did a profile of me.

TM: You’ve said that, when you heard about the Sondheim Celebration at the Kennedy Center, your first thought was that it would be great to get tickets. Did it really not occur to you to audition?

RAÚL: No, it didn’t. I heard about the Kennedy Center when I was doing Rocky Horror. I was nobody. But then I got some attention for tick, tick…BOOM! and for Cabaret. Chris Ashley was directing Merrily for the Kennedy Center, and I thought he might consider me for a major part because we had worked together on Rocky Horror. Steve [Sondheim] had already approved me to do Assassins and he had also been involved with tick, tick…BOOM! slightly. There was a lot of approval involved in doing the Kennedy Center and recreating those parts. Steve, Hal [Prince], and James Lapine had to give approval — a whole series of things was going on behind the scenes that I had no idea about. I don’t think I’m ever going to recover from working with Steve. The level of excellence and brilliance that is expected of you is incredible. You’re there because they think you’re capable, but you have to be better than you ever thought you could be.

TM: After that, you went back to Cabaret.

RAÚL: Yes. I didn’t feel that I was quite done with the show; I think my performance during the last four months, after I returned, was better than the first time around. Also, by then, I was someone that people were interested in seeing. People were actually coming to the box office and asking, “Is Raúl Esparza performing?” It’s something that happened without my realizing it. Then Comedians came up — another Off-Broadway show. It wasn’t going to pay a lot but I really wanted to do a play again and not sing for a while. And the cast was unbelievable; Jim Dale is one of the most talented people I’ve ever worked with. It was a good part for me and a very rewarding experience. The Duva-Flack Agency had closed but Elin Flack and I continued working together. We realized that we should try to expand my options by moving me to a bigger agency, so now I have the best of both worlds: Elin is my manager and I’m with William Morris, a place where I wouldn’t necessarily have belonged a few years ago.

TM: In a nutshell, how has your life changed over the past few years?

RAÚL: Now, I can make choices about what I would like to do next. It’s a beautiful position to be in but also a delicate position. The reality of Broadway today is that you have to continue to move forward in terms of film and television work in order to increase your visibility. But I think you should only take a job if you feel you can do it well; audiences can tell if you’re doing something out of vanity. In a way, Taboo is exactly where I wanted to be: If I was going to do another musical on Broadway, I wanted to create a part in a new show. I flew to London just to meet Philip Sallon.

TM: Tell me about him.

RAÚL: He’s a clubgoer and a promoter. I call him a people picker — you know, one of those guys at the door. Philip has been this outrageous sort of fixture on the London club scene all the way back to the punk era. He was really the first person to kind of mentor George; they’ve been friends for 30 years. He’s a narrator of Taboo, but there are multiple narrators and the stories conflict. It’s interesting.

TM: The Roundabout has announced plans to produce Assassins at Studio 54 after Cabaret closes, but you may be busy with Taboo for a while. Is it frustrating to think that you might not be able to do Assassins?

RAÚL: It’s very frustrating because I would love to do Steve [Sondheim]’s work on Broadway. I don’t think Assassins is ever going to be a commercial success, but it’s brilliant. You know, Douglas Sills is doing Little Shop, Joe [Mantello]’s directing Wicked, I’m doing Taboo. We were all supposed to do Assassins, but how do you hold everyone together? We did a reading after September 11 that broke our hearts; we knew we weren’t going to be able to actually do the show but they just wanted to hear the cast read it. Because of September 11, the show felt like it was a piece about American grief, and that’s not what it’s about. Steve said, “The show has to be received on its own terms. I don’t want it to take on a different meaning because of events that have occurred.”

TM: Now that you’re with William Morris, do you feel increased pressure to do film and TV?

RAÚL: No, I don’t. I never necessarily wanted to be a star; I just want to be an actor. Those are two entirely different things. Becoming a star is like being struck by lightning. I’ve believed for years that the cream rises to the top and that, if you work to the best of your ability, someone will notice. I’m doing what I dreamed of doing: acting on stage professionally in New York. A film career would be exciting in that it’s a different kind of acting, and I would love to try it. But if you’re happy where you are and that makes you unavailable for other things, then you just have to let the other things go by. David Mamet wrote in True and False that he can’t understand some of his Chicago friends who move to L.A. and sit by the phone. He calls them and says, “I’ve got a play for you to do at the Goodman,” and they say, “No, I can’t come, it’s pilot season!” When students ask me about building a career, I tell them that it’s about luck and timing and, also, some careful thought about what kind of actor you’d like to be. I say: Get the work, get the experience, get yourself out there. To me, it’s shameful that some people spend years in school in order to not deal with life; they’ll go to undergrad, then to private coaches, then to grad school, and so on before they even think about approaching a career. I had friends in Chicago who were mad at me because I was working and I wasn’t being “true to my art” — as if getting paid for being an actor is, in some way, selling out! I don’t agree with the idea that, in doing academic work, you have a purity as an artist that becomes tainted when you take a job.

TM: So you must think it ridiculous that some acting schools don’t allow their students to work professionally while they’re studying.

RAÚL: I really do. I mean, I had Danielle Ferland — who had already been on Broadway twice — in my acting class and they were telling her, “You can’t go and work.” Danielle was, like, “See ya!” There is a time and a place to say, “I am now going to dedicate myself to this art.” But it’s a kind of alchemy, isn’t it? You think as this person, this character, for a while — and then you don’t. How do you teach that? How do you explain it? How does it get into your body? I pray before I go onstage, not because I feel like I need protection but because I just want to say thank you. Whether you believe in God or not, I think there’s something we can’t control about what we do onstage. It’s a wonderfully strange and interesting conversation that we have with the audience every night, and if you try to control it, it’ll be terrible. As actors, we all want to tell the best stories we can, and you have to get out of your own way in order to do that. To say that a school can’t help would be wrong of me, but I think the best goal for an actor is to work and work at what fills your heart. Because of my experience in school, I feel as if I go back to the beginning with every project I start. I doubt my abilities. Sometimes, I’m embarrassed going into the first day of rehearsals for a show. I think, “This is the one where they’re going to find me out.”

TM: Are you feeling that less often and less acutely as your career continues?

RAÚL: No, it’s getting worse! At our first rehearsal for Taboo, I spent the entire time with my face in the script — and this is a show for which I’ve already done three readings! I was like, “Well, they have a week to decide whether or not they want me to do this.” On the first day of rehearsals for Sunday in the Park With George at the Kennedy Center, the pianist played the arpeggio that opens the show and everybody sort of looked at me. It’s like I was waiting for Mandy Patinkin to say, “White. A blank page or canvas.” You know, “Where’s Mandy?” I wish I could relax, but…

TM: …maybe it’s better that you can’t.

RAÚL: Right. Some actors that I truly admire are the same way, I think. Carole Shelley should be able to relax, but she doesn’t, and I think she’s great because of that. Maybe those are the best actors — the overachievers. Carole would actually hold my hand backstage at Cabaret. I’m noticing that I have more stage fright than I used to, maybe because I know what’s at stake. I used to be fearless and raw and make crazy choices because it was fun. It’s still fun, but now, I don’t know — there’s this moment that happens to every actor when you look at yourself and think, “What am I doing? This is ridiculous!” You go out onstage and it’s like walking a tightrope. I want to be the best that I can be every time I hit the stage. I don’t know how to give less than 200 percent. I want to be exhausted!