Broadway made a legend ‘tough’
The show may not go on for a while yet, but Patti LuPone stays as busy as ever.
Holed up in her home in rural Connecticut, Patti LuPone has been working furiously during the pandemic. The theaters are dark, but the two-time Tony Award winner doesn’t need a stage to perform. As a bona fide Broadway royal, she has the power to turn even her cellar into one of the world’s most coveted venues.
LuPone has been on a whirlwind virtual publicity tour for “Hollywood,” the Ryan Murphy Netflix limited series, in which she plays a failed silent screen actress who becomes a Hollywood mogul with a socially progressive agenda after gaining control of her husband’s studio. (File under the genre: alternative history.)
Between social media check-ins with her fans, a good many shot from her theatrical romper room of a basement, she has been lending out her formidable talents to award shows, benefit readings and special events, include the starry birthday bash that was held for Stephen Sondheim’s 90th. At a time when musical theater buffs are suffering extreme withdrawals, she’s been a singing cavalry, rescuing the deprived with her Broadwaystyle bel canto.
LuPone, 71, was supposed to be performing the role of Joanne in the Broadway revival of Sondheim’s “Company,” which came wreathed in raves from London. But COVID-19 stopped the show in previews, leaving many of us lusting in lockdown for her version of “The Ladies Who Lunch.”
We arranged to do the interview by phone rather than on Zoom, because she was coming straight from her morning workout. She swears she has been styling herself for her recent media appearances, but who can bother with hair and makeup these days?
How are you coping with the pandemic?
I’m not handling it well. I worked out and did Yoga With Adriene, a 30-day program. I did Day 1, so let’s see if I can do Day 2. Structure is eluding me. If I don’t do something in the morning, the day’s gone. And I find I have more blue days than I had when this whole thing started, because it’s just going to go on forever.
I’m having a really hard time being stuck in a house all day stocked with food.
We have freezers in our garage and they look like meat lockers. I don’t know who to believe, so we’re stocking it like survivalists.
You’ve been on a media blitz of late.
There’s something to be said about being overexposed in quarantine. I’m starting to feel that. The interviews are primarily about “Hollywood,” which I’m happy to do what I can to promote. But I’ve been getting so many email requests. My husband said I’m busier now than when I’m working.
How did “Hollywood” come about?
When I was doing “Pose,” I was told that Ryan wanted to know what I was doing in the fall. “Nothing, why?!?” “He wants to write a role for you in ‘Hollywood.’ ” And then he emailed me that the character would be a failed silent-film actress who gets pregnant by someone who becomes a studio mogul. They get married, have a kid and she’s relegated to the corner, a failed actress and a failed wife. But she inherits the studio and makes movies only for gays, minorities and women. He said it was very loosely based on Irene Selznick, who was the daughter of Louis B. Mayer and the wife of David O. Selznick. I read her memoir “A Private View,” which was kind of boring when she’s in
Boston and New York. But then she gets to L.A. and it becomes this fascinating history of the beginning of Hollywood.
Was it fun venturing back to the golden age?
Ryan said he wanted “over-the-top glamour.” When I went to my first fitting at Western Costume, I walked into the lobby and almost burst into tears. There are all these pictures of Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Humphrey Bogart, Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable, all adorned in their costumes. It was a crazy dream come true for me. As a kid, I knew I was born for this business, but who doesn’t want to be a movie star?
“Hollywood” shines a spotlight on the casting couch. Does Broadway have a #MeToo problem?
I was never approached. I was either shown the door or hired, but I didn’t have to trade [laughter]. I was so rejected! No, I take that back. What I experienced was emotional abuse, not sexual abuse. Emotional abuse at the hands of directors.
You have a reputation for speaking your mind. Were you born tough or made tough?
I was not born tough. I was made tough by this business. Because I was not going to be denied the right to perform. I knew where I belonged, and I knew I belonged on the stage. My personality is controversial. I was getting in trouble when I was a toddler, so nothing is new. But when it came to the ability to work, I met a lot of resistance. It started at school, at Juilliard. They didn’t cast me because they didn’t like my personality. And then when I was a professional, there was a lot of rejection, a lot of heartbreak, and a lot of developing of survival instinct. Which is necessary.
I find now, because of the longevity of my career, a much more collaborative environment between director and actor. But the constant dismissal of an actor’s input by directors is so debilitating.
Does gender play a role in this dynamic?
I always said it was a Patti thing. I didn’t say they were picking on me because I’m a woman. I suspected it, but more often than not they’re not listening to me or they’re being aggressive because it’s me, Patti. That’s the way I looked at it.
Do you think your reputation is unearned?
In Interview magazine, they asked Mira Sorvino what’s it like working with Patti LuPone. Well, why didn’t they ask what’s it like working with Holland Taylor or Joe Mantello or Jim Parsons? I see that a lot: What’s it like working with Patti LuPone? You would hope they’re asking the question because they think I’m fabulous as opposed to thinking I’m a pain in the ass.
I’ve had my share of problems with other actors. There are actors I will never work with again because it’s just not worth it. For the most part, I’m a trained ensemble player. I remember getting the most important letter of my career from Zoe Caldwell after she saw me in “Sweeney Todd.” She basically said I didn’t suck the oxygen out of the room, and I understood what she meant, that I was a team player. It was the roles that created this larger-than-life persona. I am an ensemble player, but when you’re cast as Evita, when you’re cast as Lady Bird Johnson, when you’re cast as Maria Callas, when you’re cast as Reno Sweeney, where you’re cast as Madame Rose — those are largerthan-life characters.
I read after the Broadway production of “War Paint” that you were through with musicals. What lured you back to do “Company”?
Marianne Elliott. I saw “War Horse” at Lincoln Center Theater and was just gobsmacked. And then I went to London and saw
“The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” and I just put out into the universe that I have to work with this woman. And then I did “War Paint,” and it was incredibly painful at the end. I thought I just can’t do musicals anymore. My body is broken. The repetition of eight shows a week. And then Marianne called and I went, “No, no, no no.” And then I remembered what I had put out into the universe. I want to work with this woman, so I said yes for Marianne. She’s an extraordinary, brilliant conceptualist director. She’s also a very wise person. She know what she wants and knows how to guide an actor to it.
Does Sondheim still make you nervous?
He came to a couple of [“Company”] rehearsals and the last two previews before we opened in London. And he was very, very happy. He actually cried when he was talking to us. We all were just thrilled to death that he was there. All of us were very nervous. We knew he was in the audience. We were supposed to open the Broadway production on his birthday. It would have been historical.
I am sad for so many reasons. I’m sad for the uncertainty of Broadway, sad for the fact that we are going to be waiting a very long time to come back to Broadway. I think live performance will be the last thing to come back, if it comes back. It’s scary, a scary time.
How was it to take part in the online birthday gala for him?
It was hard. Steve thanked all of us individually for our participation. I wrote to him saying we all wish we could have done better. It’s different when you have an orchestra behind you. I had one AirPod in my ear, so I was singing “Anyone Can Whistle” to what I was hearing out of one AirPod in my ear. I had to do it two or three times, and then I sent it off saying, “I can’t do it any better.” I kind of gave up on it, because it was really hard.
One last question (a followup, sent via email): Have the recent Black Lives Matter protests given you any hope that change is underway in America?
If actual change occurs. Not in this administration, I fear. But I am in awe, inspired and moved to tears by the protesters in this movement/revolution. It’s overdue. I just wish we had compassionate and intelligent leaders instead of what we actually have. As long as there’s a stalemate in Congress and a deluded, out-ofhis-depth president, we’ll be spinning our wheels.