Bluebird's Simon Russell Beale On Chatting with Taxi Drivers, Jonathan Groff and Marilyn Monroe

Voted by the U.K.'s The Independent as the greatest stage actor of his generation, Simon Russell Beale has made his mark on plenty of Shakespeare's most well known roles, including Othello's Iago and the title roles in Hamlet and Richard III. Beale has returned to the New York stage (he earned a 2007 Tony Award nod for Tom Stoppard's Jumpers and served as the first King Arthur replacement in Spamalot) to lead the cast of the Atlantic Theater's Bluebird, playing a London taxi driver with an interest in conversing with his passengers. Broadway.com recently chatted with Beale about his own experiences with taxis, working oppossite Jonathan Groff in the West End revival of Deathtrap and his turn in the upcoming Marilyn Monroe-themed film My Week With Marilyn.

Welcome back to New York. What attracted you to doing a show in a small off-Broadway theater?
Small is the operative word. It just came along at the right time. It’s a bit of like when I did Spamalot [on Broadway], which also came along at the right time. I was sitting there in London thinking, “Who wants to do another Shakespeare show?” And then Spamalot came along and I thought, “That’s perfect.” I’ve been doing quite big theaters like the National Theater in London and the West End, which I love, but I thought I wanted to do something smaller. I also wanted to do something in New York. Then our director [Gaye Taylor Upchurch] had this idea [of doing Bluebird] and the Atlantic Theater said, “Well come and do it with us.” Also Simon Stephens' plays haven’t been seen in New York and he’s a great writer.

What about Bluebird itself did you find alluring?
I was sent it by Caro Newling, who is a friend of mine and sort of Sam Mendes’ righthand woman, and I found it completely compelling, very sad and beautifully written. I thought, “That will be a push for me.” [The main character Jimmy] is from Manchester, and I’ve never had to do a Manchester accent so that’s interesting technically. But more importantly, the play itself is very emotionally accurate.

You play a taxi driver who listens to his customers reveal their personal stories. Are you enjoying taking in what your co-stars have to say each night?
The first time we did a run, I said to someone, “Well, this is great. I have plenty of time to warm up, where you lot have to be immediately on, but I get to just be driving and listening.”

Do you take taxis a lot yourself?
I’m a taxi addict. My favorite word is taxi. I’m a black cab man in London.

Do you usually talk to your drivers?
Sometimes I do. It’s interesting playing a taxi driver because you think about what motivates taxi drivers to talk back. Sometimes you get into a taxi and there are drivers who want to talk and find that is part of the job. Then you have those taxi drivers who couldn’t give a damn and just want to get you from point A to point B.

Did you talk to any drivers to get advice for the show?
I haven’t. Our director spent a day with a cab driver in London who very sweetly took her around and showed her how the system works. They also showed her the locations that are mentioned in the play.

Have you noticed a big difference between London and New York taxi culture?
I’m living right near the theater so I haven’t really had to take any. I don’t know how different they are really. I suspect they’re very similar. The thing about [London] drivers is the knowledge. That’s a black car thing, which is fantastic. There’s a fearsome exam the drivers must take to get to know the streets of London, so the black cabs are fantastically well trained. The minicab drivers are slightly different because they don’t go through all that training. There’s sort of an aristocracy.

The show is set in London. With Jimmy picking up all these London citizens, do you think the play itself is very English?
That was talked about when the director first mentioned [the play] to me. I’ve been reading other plays lately though that I think are much more English. There are references in the play, like Marks & Spencer, which is a department store in England, that are particularly English, but none of the Americans have said to me, “Oh, this is really English,” which is interesting. In terms of the emotional landscape, it is quite English though because it’s very restrained.

From prostitutes to drunks and the father of a murder victim, Jimmy encounters a lot of interesting passengers. Which of his interactions is your favorite?
They’re all intriguing. They’re all fascinating little stories to tell and they all get more neurotic as the evening wears on. I supposed the big one is my wife, who’s played by Mary McCann.

Without giving too much away, their relationship isn’t doing too well.
He’s in a very extraordinary situation. He’s done something so awful that he essential regards himself as unforgivable and therefore he’s sort of switched off his life really. He’s just living day to day. Just going from minute to minute. I think that’s a fascinating psychological situation to be in. He has these funny sort of entirely arbitrary, random short relationships with his passengers and that’s it. That’s his life and I found that an intriguing situation to be in. He doesn’t seek to be forgiven by his wife, that’s not what he’s asking for when he sees her.

While you’re performing Bluebird, your former Deathtrip co-star Jonathan Groff will also be off-Broadway in The Submission. How was it working with him?
It was terrific. He’s a marvelous actor. He’s a very natural stage actor in terms of his ability to use language and the physicality of language, which is great for someone—I want to say so young, but really I’m just so old [laughs].

Your upcoming movie My Week With Marilyn [starring Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe] will premiere at New York Film Festival shortly after Bluebird's run.
Well, I’ve only got about two lines in it [laughs]. [My role] is ludicrous. I was doing Deathtrap at the time, so I was bearded, which is not right at all for the period. I play a man who owned a house that they were trying to rent and have Marilyn Monroe live in. 

Are you a big Marilyn Monroe fan?
I don’t really know much about her actually. I know Some Like It Hot, but that’s about it.

You mentioned Spamalot earlier. After playing so many serious Shakespeare characters was it a relief to do a silly musical like that?
It was so stupid but so much fun.

Do you approach a comedic piece like that differently than you would a dramatic play?
It really depends on the role. It depends on the amount of research and pre-work that’s necessary. I don’t really like doing research too much because it can sometimes distort your view of a play. I like learning parts before doing them. Just learn it, that’s the only work I really do for Shakespeare. When I played King Arthur, he was a deeply committed king, his surroundings were just insane.

Are there any great roles you’ve yet to play that you hope to tackle one day?
Well, there are two big Shakespearean ones: Falstaff and King Lear, which are both actually in the pipeline, but other than that not really. I’d love to do a Sondheim musical, but I don’t think there are really any parts for me.

He could write one for you!
[Laughs.] That’d be nice.

See Simon Russell Beale in Bluebird at the Atlantic Stage 2