Sitcom star Eric will grace the West End stage
◆ Eric Mccormack, star of long-running US series Will & Grace, tells Naomi Clarke about exploring fatherhood in his West End debut, Wild About You
How does someone prepare for a West End debut? Well, Will & Grace star Eric Mccormack is giving 7am spin classes a go as part of his training.
“I’ve got a month to get my act together, which is exciting,” he tells me over a video call from his Los Angeles home after finishing his early morning workout. “I love having something that makes me nervous, that is going to be challenging, that forces me to focus and and want something.”
The stage is not unfamiliar territory for the Torontoborn actor whose talent was fostered in theatres across Canada before he landed his starring role as lawyer Will Truman in the hit US sitcom, alongside Debra Messing as interior designer Grace Adler.
He later tried his hand on Broadway in The Music Man and Gore Vidal’s The Best Man, which were both Tony nominated, and he returned to the stage last year to feature in the comedy The Cottage.
Next month he will cross the Atlantic to star in a new musical, Wild About You, which will have its world premiere at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.
The show will also feature choreographer and Rupaul’s Drag Race star Todrick Hall and stage actors including Wicked’s Rachel Tucker, & Juliet’s Oliver Tompsett, Moulin Rouge’s Jamie Muscato, and Tori Allenmartin, who appeared in TV crime drama Unforgotten.
Wild About You tells the story of a woman named Olivia who has to dig through her messy past to work out which of the loves of her life is her emergency contact after she finds herself in hospital with a limited memory. As she begins to recall moments from her life, she explores her right to be flawed and loved in all her human complexity.
Mccormack was brought into the project by his friend and Broadway star Chilina Kennedy, best known for playing Carole King in the musical Beautiful, who has written the music and lyrics for the show.
“I’m very flattered that that she thought of me,” Mccormack says. “It’s a six-person cast of brilliant singers, I’m pulling up the rear here, I can’t believe it’s me and a bunch of West End, brilliant vocalists.
“But this is very much my wheelhouse. Lately, I’ve done much more pop music in terms of concerts rather than Sondheim or anything more heavy musical theatre. It’s exciting and nerve-wracking because it doesn’t [feel] artificial.
“I’ve just got to open myself up and sing and act this stuff with some real honesty.”
The actor notes the musical is a “very personal story” for Kennedy, but that it also resonates for anyone with an adult child or who is “navigating the waters of being a grown-up”, which he feels he is only getting to at the age of 60.
Mccormack’s character is a departure from his own personality in that he plays someone who is “religious” and a “very straight arrow”, but he has been connecting to the exploration of fatherhood in the role as he has a 21-yearold son, around the same age of his son in the musical.
“Thirty years ago, I got a role in a TV movie playing my first father role to the Olsen twins.” He’s talking about 1993 Halloween film Double, Double, Toil and Trouble. “I remember just putting it on like you pretend to be a doctor or anything else. But once you’ve actually been a father, particularly the father to a son, there’s stuff I can bring to this that I maybe couldn’t have even ten years ago. Some of the scenes in the second act in particular, I’m looking at these lines going, ‘Yeah, I’ve said those exact words’.”
Mccormack’s time on Will & Grace, which aired from 1998 to 2006 before it returned in 2017 for a further three series, also prepared him for his time on stage as the first run was filmed in front of a live studio audience.
“It kept me in theatre game in many ways for a long time, I love connecting to an audience,” he says. “But more than anything, what Will taught me over time was that it’s what I bring to it.
“I think when we’re young people, we spend a lot of time looking across the room [thinking] ‘Who’s that guy that I’m auditioning against? What’s he got?’ Well what he’s got is what he’s got. If it’s what they want, there’s nothing I can do about it. And just trust that if I’m the right guy for the part then I am. So I think I’ve learned to bring as much of me as possible.”
The show will have a twonight run in the West End which Mccormack hopes will help secure a future for Kennedy’s music and the story. A concept album has been released with vocals by Mccormack as well as theatre stars including Lea Salonga and Katharine Mcphee. However, the rudiments of the musical were first developed by Kennedy when she released her debut album in 2015.
“The album that I made years ago was very personal, it was very introspective,” she explains. “It was about a lot of relationships and I think that sparked this idea of ‘Who is this woman?’ and if we were starting from her perspective and centring her voice, ‘Who is [this] person who feels all of these feelings for a few different people and is confused about certain parts of herself and her identity and her sexuality? And ‘what does it mean to be a mum?’
“I think we’re entering a time period now where we can ask a few more uncomfortable questions, and we can maybe explore more sides of ourselves these days than we could maybe four years ago.”
Wild About You is at Theatre Royal Drury Lane on 25 and 26 March, with tickets available from the show’s website.