Mandy Patinkin on Making Music and Making Art: ‘I Don’t Know Any Truly Gifted People That Aren’t Afraid’

The last time Mandy Patinkin sang "Finishing the Hat," the Stephen Sondheim masterpiece that he debuted in 1983, it was early October on one of his final days on the set of Homeland, and he was oddly in costume as CIA agent Saul Berenson.

No, the Showtime hit isn’t ending its eight-season run with the kind of musical episode Patinkin’s Broadway fans would love. Instead, Patinkin was revisiting his Sunday in the Park with George triumph in a private performance in front of cast and crew as a gift to Homeland creator Alex Gansa.

"He told me repeatedly over the years that the reason I was in Homeland was because Sunday in the Park with George really affected his life," Patinkin told host Paul Wontorek on the latest episode of Show People. "I asked the director, 'When I finish this scene, could you just leave the camera rolling?' Because I knew [Alex] was watching the monitor. I sang it a cappella and I was so nervous because I wanted to give him this gift. I had to start three or four times because I couldn’t remember the first few words. But then I got it."

What a Mandy moment! Intensely theatrical. Passionately meaningful. And no doubt beautifully performed, for those lucky enough to have witnessed it. With Homeland now wrapped (the final season premieres in February 2020), Patinkin is delivering many Mandy moments with his 30-city concert tour. He’s hit to road to promote his Nonesuch Records release, Children and Art, his first studio album since 2002, a wonderfully eclectic mix of songs from Laurie Anderson, Lyle Lovett, Taylor Mac, Randy Newman, Tom Waits, Rufus Wainwright, Teitur, Patinkin himself and, yes, the album's titular song from Sunday in the Park with George by Sondheim.

Children and Art was born out of a new collaboration with hip pianist/producer Thomas Bartlett, who filled a void for Patinkin after his longtime musical director Paul Ford retired. "[Thomas] didn’t know a single Broadway show tune," Patinkin said. "He sent me 300 songs to listen to on Christmas Eve of 2017. I listened to all 300 and picked [my favorites], and then we went into the studio and started hitting the record button."

Patinkin is well-loved for Broadway turns in the musicals Sunday in the Park with George, The Secret Garden, Falsettos, The Wild Party and, of course, Evita, which won both him and co-star and friend Patti LuPone early-career Tony Awards (Patinkin teased a future concert collaboration with LuPone on Show People: "We have a fun idea.") But he’s also had a long career as a solo musical artist, with five one-man concert shows on Broadway under his belt, and a robust discography: his 1989 self-titled album, Dress Casual, Experiment, Oscar & Steve, Mamaloshen, Kidults and Mandy Patinkin Sings Sondheim are all must-listens.

It's Sondheim that remains a constant through his career. Patinkin has recorded over 50 of the musical theater great’s songs on his solo albums, from "All Things Bright and Beautiful" (cut from Follies) to "You Could Drive a Person Crazy" (Company). He's even recorded several of the songs more than once. Always adventurous, Patinkin's new take on "Children and Art" finds him playing both artist George and grandmother Marie. “There’s nothing that he writes that I’m not a fan of," Patinkin said.

Working on the development of the original production of Sunday in the Park with George, from early workshop to Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway legend, afforded Patinkin a front row seat to Sondheim’s genius. "I always wondered as a young actor: 'What was it like being a part of Shakespeare’s company?' And then one day, I went, 'What do you mean, what was it like?! You know Steve Sondheim! You worked with Steve Sondheim. That’s what it’s like.'"

When Sondheim was struggling to finish "Beautiful," the duet between forward-thinking George and his backward-looking mother, he called Patinkin for a phone chat. "We had a long conversation about our mothers," he revealed. "And trying to connect [with them] and missing [each other] like ships in the night. It was one of the more extraordinary conversations I’ve ever had with any human being in my life… Three days later, he brought a poem of that conversation put to music. It was his art, but I got to be a little part of it. It was a thrill beyond words."

Patinkin was also present when Sondheim first sat before a piano to play "Finishing the Hat" in the basement of the West Bank Cafe on West 42nd Street, just hours before it would be added to the evening’s performance of Sunday in the Park with George across the street at Playwrights Horizons. "By the time he finished, we were completely undone," he remembered. "I’m kind of in a state of shock and he was drenched [in sweat]. Came in dry and he was drenched, from terror I think, some kind of fear. That [fear of] 'What if it isn’t good enough?' I don’t know any people that are truly gifted that aren’t afraid, aren’t fragile, aren’t always saying, 'Is it good enough?'"

During his wide-ranging Show People interview, Patinkin shared the first time he discovered the power of musical theater and details his early career start while growing up in Chicago. He also revealed the jaw-dropping fact that another iconic musical theater role could have been his, if he’d bothered to care.

It was the late ‘60s and Patinkin was performing in the play Jimmy Shine at the Candlelight Dinner Playhouse in Summit, Illinois. "There was this young guy in it," he said. "And he’d come backstage and play these songs on this ratty guitar: 'Listen to this! Listen to this!' And I’d say, 'Yeah, yeah.'" The next year, Patinkin graduated high school and headed off to the University of Kansas when he hears from his former co-star again: "He said, 'You know those songs I was playing for you?' I said, 'Yeah.' He said, 'We’re going to do it in Chicago and I want you to play the lead!' I said, 'Well, I can’t. I’m going to college. My parents would kill me.'"

The show opened in Chicago and, unbeknownst to Kansas-trapped Patinkin, becomes a hit. A massive hit. The kind that gets the attention of Broadway. The friend calls again: "We’re doing the show on Broadway, and I’d love you to come and play the lead." Patinkin's response? "I can’t do it! I’m in college!"

The friend was Jim Jacobs. The show was Grease. The role? Danny Zuko. "I’ve seen him over the years and we get a big kick out of it," Patinkin laughed.

Watch the full episode of Show People with Paul Wontorek below!

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