John Glover

Whether you know John Glover from his Tony-winning dual performance as John and James Jeckyll in Love! Valour! Compassion!, the string of villainous movie roles that led Pauline Kael to dub him "the prime rotter of the '80s" or his current run as Lex Luthor's devious dad, Lionel, in TV's Smallville, chances are he's not the first person you'd think of to play Man in Chair in The Drowsy Chaperone. But Glover insists that his new role is a perfect fit—and a lighthearted conversation with the 62-year-old actor helps make the case that he's ready to show Broadway audiences his funny side. Of course, in a stage career spanning 35-plus years, Glover has played all kinds of parts, from a would-be bomber in the original production of John Guare's House of Blue Leaves to a British diplomat in the first American production of David Hare's Plenty to a man in love with a farm animal in Edward Albee's The Goat three summers ago in Philadelphia. Since signing on at Smallville, Glover has made a point to spend every hiatus on stage, notably in the 2005 off-Broadway production of Jon Robin Baitz's The Paris Letter and last summer's premiere production of Terrence McNally's Some Men in Philadelphia. Speaking from Vancouver, where he was wrapping up the sixth season of Smallville before joining Drowsy on April 17, Glover declared, "I think everyone who sees The Drowsy Chaperone thinks they are the Man in Chair. I'm just the lucky son of a bitch who gets to do it now."

I think people are intrigued at the idea of seeing you in this sunny, not-very-worldly part.
Oh, good! Because Man in Chair is who I really am.

How so?
I grew up being enchanted with musical theater and movie musicals. As a kid, I'd get lost on Saturday afternoons and my mom didn't know where I was because I'd sit through a movie musical twice.

What were some of your favorites?
Anything about the theater or about backstage life. I loved A Star Is Born.

Seriously, should people be surprised that you are joining The Drowsy Chaperone? We think of you as a sophisticated and worldly actor.
Really? Well, I've got everybody fooled, don't I? That's what acting is about—creating an illusion, exploring some part of yourself that people don't know about, but being able to do it in the form of art on the stage. So here I go, and I'm as happy as a pig in shit [laughs]. I've always wanted to be in a big Broadway musical. Someone told me once when I was very young that I couldn't sing, so I bought into that and have never been comfortable with it. And now I'm in a Broadway musical and I don't have to worry about singing.

You get to take the whole show in...
...and I never have to leave the stage. I don't even have to look from the wings.

What about Man in Chair's dumpy costume? Audiences have probably never seen you as dressed down as you will be here.
They're just letting it be me. There's a sweater I came to audition in that I bought in Milan in the '80s that [costume designer] Gregg Barnes is letting me wear. I'm wearing my Ugg bedroom slippers. I'm telling you, it's me on that stage!

I can't quite picture you at home every night, pulling out your musical LPs.
I've still got a lot of LPs! I'm not truly an expert [on musicals]; Terrence McNally is the real expert. He knows more about it than anybody, as we know from his plays. You know, I did the premiere of Some Men in Philadelphia last summer, and the scene that takes place in a piano bar? I stopped the show [in drag] with my "Over the Rainbow" [laughs].

What did you like about The Drowsy Chaperone when you first saw it?
Well, I hadn't seen it until after I auditioned for it. And I hadn't auditioned for anything in a long time. So when I was told, "They want to see you," it was like, "All right, now you've got to put it on the line, baby."

I'm amazed that you auditioned for it before you actually saw it!
I spoke to Bethany [Berg], a casting director from Bernie Telsey's office, and said, "I haven't auditioned in a long time, and I'm nervous. Do you know what they are looking for? Should I come see the show?" And she said, "No, no, this is actually better. Just bring them yourself. Let them see what you would do with the role."

Is that unusual?
I don't know! It was a bold move on her part, right? But since I was nervous about it, I just listened to the advice that she gave me.

What did you think of the production when you finally saw it?
It's amazing! And when I came back to do my first two weeks of rehearsal, I went to see the Follies that [Drowsy Chaperone's] Casey Nicholaw directed at Encores!, which was a stunning piece of theater. I know that show so well from the summer it was in New York. I saw it about 20 times [laughs]. I spent those two weeks watching [Drowsy] every night, and I realized that there was a discipline to when the Man in Chair said what he said; certain speeches are underscored. That's when I saw what a grand piece of theater it is. It's incredibly well written. It seems like this fluffy piece of fun, but there's a lot more to it than that.

I must admit to you that I have never seen an episode of Smallville.
That's all right, I don't watch it either.

You're not supposed to say that!
Oh, okay, don't write it then.

And yet you are able to analyze Lionel Luthor's psyche in great detail in the various sci-fi magazines.
[Laughs.] I've been playing this man for six years now, you know. I've never done anything so long in my life.

The show has been a good thing for your career, right?
Oh yes, we have a really good time. It's a good group of people, good actors—even the kids. The kids in a lot of those shows get very big-headed and spoiled. Our kids are interested in doing good work, which is nice. We're very lucky in Smallville.

I assume the show's fans approach you on the street.
Do they ever! They're passionate. But it might be just because I'm on television. There's something about seeing somebody in real life who's been in your living room. There's a feeling that they have an intimacy with you.

Did you expect the show to run this long?
No, and I did the pilot as a one-shot deal. Lionel Luthor is not in the comic books. They thought the character might come back a couple of times in the first season, but I don't think anybody knew he would be around for six years.

How much longer will you do it?
Another year, maybe two.

How has commuting between L.A. and Vancouver to shoot the show affected your life?
Every week and a half, I find out when they're going to need me in Vancouver and I book my flights and my hotel. I can't make a lot of plans to do things at home, but I've gotten used to that. I can't buy season theater tickets at the Taper, because I never know when I'm going to be in town, and it's hard to have people over for dinner because they could call and say "We need you" and I have to go. But for the most part, it's a very positive experience. To be on a series for this long at this point in my life? It's nice.

I can't imagine any other actor on a WB/teen show spending every hiatus starring onstage in shows like The Goat and Some Men. Do people on the set understand the two very different sides of your career?
They do now! [Laughs.] A lot of the people in the show come and see me onstage. Annette O'Toole has seen almost every hiatus job I've done. And the little girl who plays Chloe, Allison Mack, is auditioning for Come Back, Little Sheba at one of the theaters at the Music Center [in L.A.] and is as excited as hell about it. I think I've influenced her. I gave her a copy of Zoe Caldwell's autobiography, I Will Be Cleopatra, and she ate it up. A lot of people from Vancouver are coming to see The Drowsy Chaperone. It means more to them this year since it's a Broadway musical.

Do you enjoy performing plays that are in various stages of development, as you did with Baitz's The Paris Letter and McNally's Some Men?
For me, it's the most exciting. Both of those writers are collaborators—they listen to actors. I had called Terrence after I'd seen Lips Together, Teeth Apart in New York and said, "If you do this in L.A., can I be in it?" He said yes, and he came to my dressing room when we were rehearsing and said, "I've started writing a new play with your voice." That turned out to be Love! Valour! Compassion!. Robbie Baitz had sent me The Paris Letter when they first did it in L.A., but because of Smallville I couldn't even consider it. When I finally got to play it in New York, it was the same way with Robbie and [director] Doug Hughes, who is an incredible collaborator.

For someone who lives in L.A., you've managed to do an enormous amount of theater on the east coast.
[Sings] "Hi diddle-dee-dee! An actor's life for me!" I do it because I love the theater so much. I can't not do a play, especially after doing the television thing for nine months a year for the past six years. I know it sounds corny, but theater feeds my soul. I went out to L.A. more than 20 years ago to do 52 Pick-Up, which John Frankenheimer directed. I'd done An Early Frost and White Nights right before that, and I could tell from the way people were treating me that they were going to start hiring me. So I took an apartment, and then I bought a little house, and then I bought a bigger house. Something about buying a house became where I lived.

Did winning a Tony affect your career?
I don't think so. But it's awfully nice when you win a Tony, I've gotta tell you! [Laughs, then sings] "It's a great feeling, da da da da dum!" That's from Romance on the High Seas, a very early Doris Day movie. See, I'm the Man in Chair! I've got a song for everything.

I was interested to read that you went back to acting class a few years ago to renew your passion for performing.
I didn't go back, I had never been to an acting class. The theater department at Towson State Teachers' College was just forming when I was there. At the time I was doing the pilot of Smallville, I was feeling unhappy with my work. I was just lost, and didn't know where I was work-wise. I saw an actor friend, Rick Podell, who was in Sunset Boulevard, at the gym one day and he told me about a teacher named Milton Katselas. I said, "Can I come and look at a class?" And I've been in it ever since. He's an incredible teacher.

What do you get out of it?
It's like a gymnasium for working actors who want to deepen their work. It's very exciting: You see a good scene and you think, "What is he going to say?" And he finds a way to talk about it so that everybody realizes how it could be deepened. It's a master class on Saturday mornings; Doris Roberts is in it. Funnily enough, Milton calls it his "masturbation class."

Is your career where you thought it would be at this stage of your life?
Oh boy, I had no idea when I was a kid what I would be. I didn't think I'd still be alive at this stage [laughs]. I don't think I could imagine being past 40 when I was in my 20s.

Was turning 60 a big deal for you?
It was glorious. I had a great party. I bought out a little restaurant over in Silver Lake, where I used to live, and filled it with friends and we had the best time. My 40th birthday was great, my 50th was even better and the 60th was the best yet. I should probably do them every five years at this point. There's a song called "Wait 'Til We're Sixty-Five": [Sings] "Ten, twenty, thirty, then we're forty, wait 'til we're sixty-five." That's from On a Clear Day…, which I saw with Barbara Harris.

Over the years, you've never really been publicly identified as a gay actor, and you've played all kinds of roles. Do you think the professional landscape for young gay actors like Neil Patrick Harris and T.R. Knight has changed from when you started in the business?
I guess so. When I started out, people hid. They didn't talk about their sexual preferences; it wasn't brought up. Now people very boldly are able to be honest about themselves. Ian McKellen had a lot to do with that.

Did you identify with the way Some Men chronicled the evolution of gay life?
When I was doing Some Men, I was just trying to get to the truth of the characters I was playing; it's not like I was acting a political statement. The beauty of Terrence's writing is that he writes from his heart and soul, which is why audiences are so moved by his work. I saw [the off-Broadway production] when I was rehearsing Drowsy and it's wonderful. Terrence has rewritten a lot of stuff, but it's got this beauty to it. And David Greenspan, who plays the parts I played, is just bizarrely off the wall in those roles. He's wonderful.

You never experienced any problems as an openly gay actor?
I'm a character actor, and people aren't interested in our sex lives like they are leading men.

Nathan Lane said that people only care if the actor is good looking—not that that's a reflection on you!
I think we're both saying the same thing [laughs].

Were you ever tempted to get married?
When I was in college, yes. I'm still friends with the woman I was going to marry.

I meant to a man.
Oh, to have a ceremony? Well I've been with someone for 14 years [sculptor Adam Kurtzman]. Um, I don't know [long pause]. It's more exciting to live in sin the way we are. Who knows, maybe on my 75th birthday we'll get married.

See John Glover in The Drowsy Chaperone at the Marquis Theatre.