Serenading Louie Star Jason Butler Harner Makes a Splash Across the Pond

Jason Butler Harner is so accomplished and wide-ranging a theater talent that the 39-year-old actor—most recently seen off-Broadway in the acclaimed production of Our Town—seems as if he should have made his London stage debut well before now. A veteran of Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love in its American debut in San Francisco and the Tony-winning American premiere of the same writer's The Coast of Utopia in New York (he played Turgenev), Harner can now be found at the Donmar Warehouse as the lone American cast member of Serenading Louie, the rarely seen Lanford Wilson play about two couples colliding in Chicago circa 1970. Now best known for his chilling turn opposite Angelina Jolie in the Clint Eastwood film Changeling, Harner took time following a recent rehearsal to chat animatedly about treading the boards in Britain, having three names, and scaring the baristas behind the counter at Starbucks.

Is this really your British theater debut?
It is, and it is really amazing. I think the play's kind of incredible. It's amazing to me that it hasn't been revived given the things that have been revived in New York, you know? No offense to those things, but I could pull out five plays that have been revived in the last two years where I sort of think, “Do I really need to see that again?”

Tell me about being the only American in an all-British cast of an American play.
It is an interesting dance. I've been the only American, or one of the few, in American casts of predominantly Irish or English plays, but this time doing an American play and being the only American here in London, I find there are moments where I think, "Is something quintessentially American or not?" You just don't know. It's also interesting because of that temperament we have as Americans, where very frequently we fall into that self-effacing insecurity complex about our own intellects in the face of English people. [Laughs.] Luckily, I'm working with three impeccable actors [Jason O'Mara, Geraldine Somerville, Charlotte Emmerson].

The funny thing is, even your name sounds British: move over Simon Russell Beale!
People think that about me, but I'm just a kid from upstate New York, so for whatever it's worth, I take it as a compliment. It has happened randomly many times, that directors from London would say, "We can't believe you haven't performed in London—you'd be a very good fit here." Does that mean I have a certain style of acting that will be appreciated maybe more here? I don't know. I just hope people get what we're trying to do when this play comes along.

You do have a great name.
I kind of regret it in a way. I sometimes wish I had a good "one syllable, one syllable" name, like Brad Pitt. I am much closer to the Butler side of the family, which is on mother's side, from where I get my middle name. My parents divorced when I was seven, and I remember as a kid always being fascinated by my full name. When we were going to Sunday school, I was Jason Thomas Butler Harner, but after a while, that went away. I remember when I got my Equity card doing the Scottish play at the Public Theater with Angela Bassett and Alec Baldwin. Alec thought I should just be Butler Harner, but I thought it would make people laugh if they had to call me Butler. My friends call me JBH. This play is the first time I've had another Jason in the cast, so that's fun. He's Joe and I'm JBH.

On the topic of names, Londoners really don't know Lanford Wilson: John Malkovich and Juliet Stevenson in Burn This was a long time ago.
Everyone thinks he's August Wilson! They say, "Oh, the black guy," and I'm like, "No." Even in America, this one is kind of dodgy. I didn't know this play, though I obviously knew Balm in Gilead, Hot L Baltimore, Burn This, Talley's Folly…

How did you come to do it?
This came at a time when I was really trying not to do a play. I had just done Our Town for the fall, and that was sort of my donation to the theater that I could afford for the year. The play was important to me and the production was phenomenal but I thought, “I need to go make some money!” I had some nice offers to do a couple of other things [on the New York stage], which was really humbling, and then I read this play and thought, "Shit, this is really good."

What did you think when you got the call?
You know that joke: How do you make an actor go crazy? Give him a job! [Laughs.] That was it! I had a bit of a mania and I tend to be this way, but as soon as I got on the plane, I knew I had made absolutely the right decision.

I remember when the play was at the Public in 1984, with Dianne Wiest and Peter Weller, but I didn't get a chance to see it.
I'd never even heard of it but I guess I’m playing Peter's part, Alex. It’s the story of two married couples who've known each other almost 20 years; they went to Northwestern together. My character is a lawyer who's climbing up the ladder. It's 1970 and everyone is talking about causes and doing the right thing, and he is about to be considered for another senior position and has anxiety about that. The play takes place at sort of that midlife moment where you're suddenly able to look at your life and say, "Well, what do you want to do? Do I even have a say in it?"—things that I have said of my own life. I'm not old, but I can't quite turn the car around as quickly as I could when I was 20. The fact is as you get older you can't just change things or be quite as laissez-faire; you're conscious of the effort and time it takes for things to happen. It's daunting, which is one of the reasons I love the play and wanted to do it. I understand some of those issues.

Did your performance in Changeling “turn the car round” in terms of your career?
Well, if anybody knows me at all, which I doubt anybody does, it would be from Changeling—the power of a role like that and that kind of movie is fascinating. I hadn't had that experience before of my first big film role and certainly my first bad guy, but it’s a case of “be careful what you wish for,” because the six months prior to that, I kept playing poetic, soulful distraught roles like Tom in The Glass Menagerie [opposite Sally Field at the Kennedy Center in 2008], which I love but I mean, do I ever get to be dangerous or do I have to be another 50 pounds to be dangerous? The great thing about Changeling is now there’s something out there to talk about.

And people may even cross the street when they recognize you.
The Starbucks ladies flinch when they realize who it is they’re giving their coffee.