Christian Borle Knows He's the Villain of the New Elton John Musical Tammy Faye

Back in June, the actor Andrew Rannells announced on the Tonys red carpet that he was departing the London-born, Broadway-bound production of the new Elton John musical Tammy Faye. “So I slipped in there,” Rannells' Falsettos co-star Christian Borle readily admitted to Paul Wontorek on The Broadway Show. Full credit goes to Borle's agent, Borle said, for “dup[ing] them into thinking I was the right person for the role. And now they're stuck with me because we're two weeks into rehearsal. They cannot stand my nasal voice.”

Tammy Faye tells the story of the rise and fall of televangelists Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye's ministry empire. The production, which features a book by British playwright James Graham, is less interested in the potential for camp—Tammy Faye is actually a no-camp zone—than thoughtfully examining big religion and the U.S. culture wars.

“It’s so funny and it’s really political in a great way,“ said Borle. “There’s a British sensibility to it that kind of cuts against the potential sentimentality of it … I sound like such an actor, but it’s got muscle to it. It delves so deeply into faith in a really earnest way.”

Borle plays Jim Bakker, whose precipitous fall included a sex scandal and five years in federal prison for fraud. (Most recently, he made headlines for promoting fake coronavirus cures.) “A lot of actors are like, ‘I can't see my character as a villain.’” Borle has no such qualms in this case. “He’s a villain. It’s a fascinating, exciting role—it's not something that I've done before.”

In Borle’s view, insecurity plays a big role in Bakker’s behavior. “It’s easy to excuse bad behavior because we’re all insecure fundamentally,” he noted. “But I think when [Jim] got in front of the TV cameras and realized that he didn’t have ‘it’, and that she [Tammy Faye] was the superstar, I think that sent him down a rabbit hole trying to find his own sense of self-worth.”

On the other hand, the show really champions Tammy Faye. In contrast to the grubbily conniving Jim, Tammy was an outspoken gay icon, a supporter of gay advocacy groups who pointedly interviewed an HIV-positive gay man on live television. She died in 2007 at the age of 65. She was, said Borle, “a beautiful human being.”

Borle fell into an “instant brother-sister relationship” with Katie Brayben, who is reprising her performance in the title role, for which she won her second Olivier Award. “It's one of those jaw-droppingly huge roles and she just makes it seem like it's nothing,” said Borle. “Her Tammy Faye is really a glorious creation.”

Borle being a two-time Tony winner, of course the two of them compared notes on their respective trophies. “We’ve talked about how the Tonys spin,” said Borle, whereas "apparently the Oliviers have a sharp kind of crowny top.” (The Olivier Award features a crowned bust of Laurence Olivier as Henry V.) “So it’s more of a weapon.” Similar to an Emmy Award, Borle said, an Olivier Award “could do some damage."

Happily, the director Rupert Goold is fully supportive of Borle’s god-given knack for unearthing new comic gold out of his scenes, wherever and whenever it might be found. “I was like, ‘What if I…’ He's like, ‘Yeah, yeah, try it.’ And then he came up to me the other day: ‘Can I give you a gag?’ I was like, ‘Are you kidding? Yes. Please bring me all of the gags.’”

Plus, “the songs are really kick-ass Elton John songs”—including a new song for Jim, added to the show by John and lyricist Jake Shears (formerly of the Scissor Sisters) since the West End run. It was written, in a sense, just for Borle. “I can't believe they made this song for me. Like—this is a new Elton John song.”

Borle’s last Broadway show, Some Like It Hot, played its final performance at the Shubert Theatre on December 30, 2023. Borle didn’t have anything in the pipeline: no readings, no workshops. Sure enough, he was plagued by insecurity. “I didn’t know what would be next or if anything would be next,” he said. “And I’m not an idiot. I’ve worked enough and people know me enough that it’s not like I was never going to work again. But those months of just, like, I hope something comes along…” Borle trailed off meaningfully.

Tammy Faye, then, was a gift. “Even getting a dressing room put together is so fun.” He’s going with a “deep, dark purple” color scheme with a ’60s/’70s pop-art style peel and stick wallpaper on one wall. “And I found a great French retro Batman 1966 TV movie poster of Adam West—paunch and everything. I think it's going to be cool.

"All that stuff is almost as fun as doing the work itself. And the lifestyle around the theater is, to me, so deeply fulfilling and fun—and the regimen of it. I'm so excited to be doing eight shows a week again.”

Perhaps best of all, Borle is surrounded by Brits who say his first name with a distinct, unsoftened ‘t’ sound and three individually enunciated syllables; Borle's eyes widen eagerly as he recollects the utter deliciousness of it. “I love it.”