Taking over key roles in midstream
By ROBERT FELDBERG
BERGEN RECORD COLUMNIST
Sunday, July 20, 2008
More and more, actors with impressive résumés are stepping into already-running shows. Here are a couple of stories:
Sam Robards on how his acting career started and his current role:
“After I got kicked out of college, I needed a job, and I figured I’d better give this a rip.
“My mother told me it’s really a tough business; my dad didn’t tip his hand.”
Advice, or its absence, takes on a different dimension when your parents are Lauren Bacall and Jason Robards.
In any case, Sam Robards followed their path, and if his career hasn’t reached the pinnacle theirs did, he said he’s happy with where he is.
“I have a good career,” he said. “I never wanted to be a star.”
A busy stage performer, Robards, 46, was nominated for a featured-actor Tony for the 2002 revival of Arthur Miller’s first Broadway play, “The Man Who Had All the Luck.”
Now he’s taken over the lead role in “The 39 Steps,” the fast-moving British spoof of the famous Alfred Hitchcock spy thriller, with four actors portraying all the characters.
“It’s highly stylized, and it’s very challenging,” he said.
Robards plays the extremely dashing and extremely English Richard Hannay, who’s on the lam for a murder he didn’t commit while simultaneously trying to get the goods on a pack of foreign agents.
“I’ve played lots of roles with accents,” said Robards, “so that part isn’t difficult. I tried to steal as much as I could from Charlie [British actor Charles Edwards, who created the role].
“I watched him in the show many, many times, but one time his understudy went on, and I was able to see a different interpretation.”
That helped him, said Robards, to feel comfortable developing his own style of playing Hannay.
When he isn’t onstage, Robards can be seen in episodes of the teen TV hit “Gossip Girl,” where he plays Nate’s formidable father.
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Filed under: 39 STEPS
