Luke Evans and Sam Pinkleton on Reviving The Rocky Horror Show

The 2026 Met Gallow is just around the corner, and if you're anything like me, you're probably already wondering how guests are going to interpret this year's Red Carpet Dress Code fashion is art.

Be the first to see every arrival by joining Vogue's Met Gallow live stream on Monday, May 4 at 6pm Eastern, 3pm Pacific, streaming live on Vogue.com and YouTube.

Don't miss Fashions Biggest Night. See you on the Red Carpet. [Music] This is The Run Through. I'm Marley Marius, senior editor features and news. Today I'm joined in the studio by Luke Evans and Sam Pinkleton, the star and director respectively of the Rocky Horror Show on Broadway, which is actually just been extended through July 90th very exciting, due to untamed demand as the press released on tape.

“And I was like, honestly sure, to the way I see that, before we really get into it, what are we wearing today, because I, what's our with you Luke?”

Oh, I'm wearing Todd Snyder. Oh, Fab. And some Levi's. Okay, cool. Yeah, like this John Dutile, like this John Dutile. Yeah, I love it. I chose it out of a pile of ties. I love the bit the paisley, a little homage, part of the paisley design.

That's just nice. You know, when you wear and fish nets, jokester up in corset eight times a week, so sort of put clothes on. You can do it all. You can wear it all, everything. And you Sam, what's the shirt? This shirt is acne. It's acne from the like super headquarters in Stockholm.

I've never seen it anywhere else. And I love it so much.

I love it so good. Did you go to Stockholm to what?

“I did, I mean, not it. I didn't just go to Stockholm to buy a shirt, but if you go to Stockholm and you're like, close, you have to go to the accurate.”

Well, okay, congratulations to you both certainly on this show. I went with my mom to the mat nae on Sunday. And we had such a good time. I was so found. It's funny to walk into a show on the three P.M on a Sunday and just sort of be like, when am I in for and then it being amazing. And he walked out and it's fat, we staged or it was a whole thing. Oh, my mom is obsessed with doing this.

Like she loves to have everything signed. So we had the whole experience and it was, yeah, it was so exciting. So congratulations. Did I sign? Sure, Dad. He sort of saw your adorable dog. Oh, you had a lala. You had a lala for the day. She's just a moment.

More on her later. I'm going to like circle right back to that. But at the time of recording, we are, I think, a week out from opening night on week. How are we feeling, guys? I'm good. I'm ready. I'm like, every day we finish the show, we spend every afternoon rehearsing five hours, tweaking, layering, adding new ones.

You know, doing all these fun, exciting things and then we put them in every night. And I go home and I decompress, send Sam about 300 text messages. As I'm sure he's like closing his eyes and re-text again, but just because it's, I'm present in that moment and talk about the experience and what I think worked. And I love it. And I think you enjoy it to the process of tech and work because it's, it's like, you still have the license and the freedom to try things and change things up. But if we open tomorrow, I feel very, very good about what we have where we are at and how I feel when I walk out on that stage.

So that's a nice feeling. How are you feeling?

I feel giddy. It's like always with live theater.

You could tinker until death and at a certain point you have to be like pencils down. And I think with this show especially, I mean, we've had such a good time making it and we have such deep love not only for each other, but for the material that the experience of previewing it has really just been about

“getting to know the audience. And at a certain point you have to be like, okay, we have it.”

Yeah, I definitely, I do obsess about details. I think one of the reasons why we work so altogether is because at midnight, we are both like very excited to talk about details that only matter to you. And it's time. Like it's time to just have a show. And I'm so proud of it. Yeah. That's very exciting. And I mean, I guess maybe we can jump right into that. I mean, everyone sort of has their sort of rocky horror origin story. And I'd love for you going to both kind of talk about how this show kind of first came into your lives.

Looks as better than mine. It's not that great. I mean, I, firstly, I mean, I was brought up as a Jehovah's Witness. So this kind of show would never have been seen in my, on my television at home. Sure, sure. Well, I wouldn't have seen it on screen in the cinema or definitely wouldn't have been to the theater to watch it. So I was very late to be in an introduced to the show. And it was actually when I was a musical theater college when I was in London. And I was about 19 and we did a showcase. And we were asked to pick a song from a show that was showy and impress the potential agents in the audience.

Yeah. And all these very back show. It was the orchestra to take the whole time.

Yeah, I thought maybe this is my last time to do something crazy because in musical theater colleges are a bit like fame. You know, you get up the time. You can just do what you want. And where you anchor warmers and plants around King's Cross and you know, do that. And that was, I was coming to the end of it. So maybe it was my last horror of being free and liberated and do something so sort of against type for me. Sure. Which is sort of the attraction that drew me to it 35 years later. Is this immense challenge for me and what people think of me and who I am, but to want to see a question. It was when I was 19 years old.

Sam, I knew that I canography of Rocky Horror just from being a human being. Like I knew what it looked like.

I knew fish nets. I knew Tim Curry. I knew. But I don't think I saw it until college.

And the thing I remember is feeling rage. Deep rage that I had not seen it sooner.

“I grew up in a small town in Virginia. And it just was a thing that I think would have been”

a liberating force for me if I had encountered it when I was 13 and I felt like I was denied something. In a way, the gift of getting to do this now on Broadway, I've been working on a version of the Rocky Horror Show for like eight years. And so so much of that work has been just talking to people whose lives have been affected by the Rocky Horror Show. And so many people have that story.

Oh, I saw it when I was 15 and I realized that something else was possible for me.

So I think the little bit of bitterness that I don't get to have that story. This is the kind of show. And I guess the film is this way too. We're like, if it found you at the right time, it seems like it really sticks on people's bones. And I wondered sort of, especially being so deep into it now, if you have like, yeah, a better sense or a different

“sense of why that is. I think, you know, being a gay man and remembering what it was like to be”

a gay kid and an environment where I wasn't allowed to express that or even a knowledge it. If I had have been able to have watched or seen just even a snippet of the film or all the stage production, I think it would have allowed me to go, okay, well, I'm not exactly like any of these people on that screen. But there's something that they are doing and being fine about and being and feeling that themselves, which would have triggered a massive reaction in me as a young kid,

if I'd have had that opportunity. So answer to your question. I think what it has done and I know this because for the last three and a half weeks, I go out to the stage door every night. I meet 50, 60 people every night and during that progression from one side of the barrier to the to the end, I meet people in their 80s down to 14-year-old trans kids saying, like, this show changed my opinion of myself. I saw something in some character that made me see myself and allowed

me to go. I'm not alone. Which is an extraordinary thing. Whether Richard O'Brien knew this when he wrote it for 53 years ago, who knows? I don't know Richard. I know who he is and I know a lot about him. But the effect it has is profound and as funny and as silly and as absurd and as ridiculous and head and as thick and batch it crazy, the show can be, there's messages that are

“timeless, right? And I think that's what I'm hyper aware of every night when I open my mouth and say”

certain lines that I know have been around for that amount of time, half a century and the reaction and you hear gassed in the audience because they're going, he's right. You know, you know, you feel a real responsibility of gravitas of these lines within this colorful spectrum of crazy, there's some really strong timeless words and lines that I think resonate with every generation. They don't get old and people feel many things about it and often those things are

in contradiction to each other, which is one of the things that I find to be the most delicious, the most impossible, the most worthwhile about Rocky Horror is like I agree to the dominating narrative for people who have been transformed by Rocky Horror, have a great affection for Rocky Horror, is some version of I felt seen, I felt embraced, I found my people, I found a way that I could expand and there's so much nuance within that conversation and I know nuances

hall on popular in 2020, say. We can't do complexity, but it's actually what's so irresistible

is the collision of experiences and histories that people bring to it. It's a thing that's really special about doing it on Broadway, it's like for every person who's like, I know every word, there's somebody who's like, what is this? And that is, it's this like incredible, again, impossible and really beautiful thing to say like, it's been this thing for 53 years and this

is what it is now and whatever you're showing up with is perfect. I've never encountered anything

actually, that's not true because I was talking to her friend the other day who's writing the new Star Wars and I was like this, it's the same. It's the same. It's the same, like some people have their stuff with this thing and we have hours and we're finding new stuff every day. Yeah, it's wild. That's amazing and I mean, it's so exciting to think that like you are part of the Rocky Horror that's going to be like people's first experiences on the horror, the thing that makes them obsessed with

“Rocky Horror like that's such a cool thing. Yeah. No pressure. I mean, it's a strange thing, isn't it?”

You know, picking up a piece of work that has lived for so long successfully has broken records, has been in cinematic release for the world record for, you know, being in a cinema somewhere in the world every day, every night for 50 years. It's very special and it's not often you get to do that. You know, original stuff is very exciting to make. When you pick up something that's been around, you don't just pick up the product. You pick up everything that's attached to you.

You pick up the legacy in the end. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the crowd. Yeah, they're unique in their own way.

Luke, this being your first time on Broadway after having done a lot of work on the West End. I mean,

people who work in New York and London sort of all have their kind of observations about the differences between the audiences. Or are you kind of picking up on anything? I'm trying to play. I mean, you mean, are you saying compared, like a Broadway audience compared to a West End?

“That's what I'm asking. But for custom. So fortunately, I can answer this very clearly,”

because I two years ago, I did a play on the West End, which was a comedy. So I have a very fresh memory of how audiences respond. And they're very gracious and they love the show. But they're much more contained in a very British way. You know, even though it's a 21st century, but you know, there's a certain way British audiences are. And then there's a Broadway audience, which like it's another planet of energy that I wasn't expecting. You know, I've watched many

many shows, you know, there's this thing that American audiences do. Broadway audiences do where,

you know, every time the actor comes up for the first time in there, here's a round of applause.

You know, which does not, I started to happen in the UK, because everything finally reaches us. But here, it's a thing. It's like, yes, you're here. Well, I did, I know you. I mean, then they come down. And of course, I'm playing Dr. Frankenford, who has probably, like, as far as I can see, the best entrance of any male musical theater leading man could ever have a stage, right? And I have this wonderful moment, you know, which is so iconic in the film.

Yeah. And you know, when there's this vamp that starts, and I would say 85% of the audience know what's coming next. Yeah. And I'm standing behind a shutter. And I can hear the starting to scream over my poor actual colleagues' lines, because they know he's about to arrive. That doesn't happen in the UK. It's very, very, it's like I said to you, it feels like I'm doing a rock concert every night, in full, you know, Gene Simmons, Freddie Mercury, you know.

And I stand there and, you know, I mean, it's a buzz of like nothing else I've ever done. And this show, you know, has an expectation behind it. You know, the audiences come expecting

“something, you know. And so you, or you have to do his delivery and just and absorb it and just”

try and feed off it, which is exactly what I'm trying to do every night. We have a lot of steam. We need to let off as a culture. Yeah. And possibly, and this is the show to do it. I mean, the latest, well, and true. Everybody arrives at the theater, having been through it. Through it. And I'm ready to let you know that they're enjoying the sound. I mean, I wondered, Sam, this being your second production that you're opening on Broadway as a

director. Like, what they're kind of like less sins from kind of the oomer experience that you're kind of applying now are these quite different beasts sort of in your experience. They're totally different. I think they're united by a spirit of just wanting to absolutely delight sick twisted people. You know, and I mean, I mean, that like their mission aligned in, I think they're belief that everyone is deserving of a great night out of the theater,

that you can only get by putting your pants on and going into a room with strangers and all of

eight weeks with our dumb friends. And then something else happened. So it has been a very different

“experience knowing from the beginning that we would make this on Broadway at Studio 54. And frankly,”

nobody knew what Omery wants. Totally. Right. I was like, what the hell is that? Right. Like, people. I'm married hot like that. And this is like, oh, awesome. You're doing Star Wars. Yeah. Yeah. But I, I love

working on Broadway. Like, it's the second try of directed, but it's crazily my 10th Broadway

show. Right. Yeah. As a, as a something. Sure. It is for a thing that is, you know, in many ways, for the masses and for hopefully people from all over and for many different experiences. Like, it's just a lot of nice people coming to work every day trying to solve problems. And Studio 54 especially, and I don't know if this is because of the greatness of roundabout who is a producer or just the ghosts of Studio 54. Like, it's really felt like making theater in a real way and not in a like,

this is a Broadway musical like sponsored by Pepsi. Like, that's not the vibe. Yeah. Yeah. So in a way,

“I think it's linked to Omery and frankly, other things that I'm the most proud of in that it's just”

felt like a process with people. Do you agree? I absolutely agree. And I think the marriage of the Rocky Horror Show and this unique space that is Studio 54, it just, it's so poignant to me. I remember when we first spoke and you said, did they tell you where we're doing it? I was like, no, no. And it's like Studio 54. And I was like, this just makes so much sense. Tell me. Even though it isn't theater, you know, you walk through the stage door and you

are literally on the stage. Yeah. There's no sort of like four more little box that somebody inside getting you to sign. It's just like, you are there. It's an intimate space. Even though there's the thousand plus people in the auditorium. You know, you walk in and there is an energy. There's a, the paint may be peeling backstage or you look up and you think you see something up there and you think that's not been touched since 1982. You know, and it sort of feeds into

the history of what we're doing and what we're bringing back to the stage and it's original form. And it just feels very, very special. It feels like the theater is one of the cast. You know, it's not our place of performance. It's one of the, it's part of our show. Sam, this is maybe a slight tangent, but I understand that like you, as a high score,

“would come into the city and volunteers in Austria at Studio 54. It's true. What do you remember”

of that experience? I mean, well, this is for, this is the incredible iconic cementous production of cabaret with Alan coming. And it was like the most formative experience of theater for me, that production. Yeah. And I, yeah, I would, I would come up on the weekends and volunteer usher and sit on the stairs in the mezzanine and watch cabaret. It's really wild. But that

production was, I don't know, I just had never seen a thing do what it did with musical theater,

which often tell that point was like a very specific kind of jazz hands thing. I couldn't believe I got to be there. It felt like naughty in a perfect way. And it's studio 54 has always been my favorite theater. So yeah, the serendipity is bonkers. The run through will be back with more from week ovens in San Pincleton. Comprehensive. Whitty. Speculative. Critical. Insightful. Perfound. Why ranging? Hopefully it doesn't take itself too too seriously. I'm David Remnick

and each week on the New Yorker radio hour. My colleagues and I try to make sense of what's happening in this chaotic world. I hope you'll join us for the New Yorker radio hour wherever you listen. Depot gas. The thoughtful. Exquisite. Just, you know, real.

I did so for also when I asked up putting this amazing cast together like the Sun's Humbles

unbelievable. And I wondered actually sort of like which was maybe like the easiest part to cast in which kind of Tokyo on a bit of a journey. It very much, you know, I mentioned I spent a lot of

threads through all of it was that Rocky Horror has always been this kind of receptacle for

folks who you're like, how did they end up here? It's what makes sense about it is that it doesn't make sense. Even when you watch the film, you're like, who are these people? And how did they, how are they a family? And that is a thing that I love about casting period and making theater period is putting people together. You wouldn't expect to see together. Totally. And that felt really high stakes for Rocky Horror. And so it was thinking about folks from different corners of

experience, right? Like from Broadway, yes, but from drag, from like alt performance from comedy,

“from film. I also, and I hope Luke agrees, like, I really believe in like kindness and generosity”

and collaboration being in the front seat when you're making something especially something challenging. And so I had a pretty fierce, no asshole's policy. Oh, good. And I take that seriously. And I vetted that seriously. And I succeeded. I think he said, yeah, I just, I think that being like, okay, so there are some people in the room who I know so well, like, you know, Amber Gray or McKayla J. Rodriguez, we've worked together quite a lot. There's people I've admired

forever, Mr. Luke Evans. There's people who are a wild card. In some ways, I think the hardest part to cast was actually the phantoms, the ensemble and our ensemble, the amazing larken and star and radio and Paul and our amazing swings are such weird shapeshifters. It's a part of the rocky horror show that can go in a million different directions. You know,

“in the film, it's like a ton of people in Tuxedo and finding folks who were able to really”

dip into the unknown there because there's it is a kind of undefined piece of it. They're incredible. And they're playful and they're weird and they're different and they host the audience with real generosity, which can be really scary sometimes. And that was like an old-fashioned casting process.

That was five, six, seven, eight. Like something is happened. We always mean my collaborators,

the choreographer and the music director, like we always stand in the back and look at each other and we're like, we got them right. We nailed it. I mean, is it Luke in the story that Adrian Miller wrote about the show for our April issue? You talked about how when you got the offer to be frank and further, you were a bit nervous to tell your parents about this because they're both them being about their whole experiences and you were quite surprised by their action. I wonder, I guess

kind of how you understood the way that they, that they kind of like embraced this part for you. Yeah, well, I wasn't nervous to tell them because I've been doing this now for a very long time. They've, they just accept that anything could come out of my mouth about my next job or whatever it may be and they just sort of, and I just let it sit with them. But they happen to be in Lisbon

with me and my partner. And I always like to pass something by them because they see the world

very differently to me. They live in a terrorist house in a very small village in South Wales. They will not move. They're very, very content. Their life on a map would be a dot that just does this and they love it. But their world is small. It's not blinkered, but it's small. So it's very interesting to get an opinion from people who see the world like that. Obviously, they're all surreligious. So there's that aspect as well, which all plays into why I'm always

fascinated to see what their opinion would be. Of course, I have to give them the proper explanation of what this show is. They don't know it. They don't have any idea of what it was. Yeah. And I just, well, I've been offered this thing in this Broadway. But I was wanted to do Broadway because I started on the stage. Yeah. And I explained the show and I said, like, he's he's an alien who has taken the form of a man, but loves to dress in women's clothes.

Uh-huh. He's a big character. But the show has been around for 50 years. Yeah. It's really captured a huge fanbase broken. He's record blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't know what to do. What do you think? Just interested whether they're a pin that final opinion would have been would have swayed. My pin I don't know, but it always I want to hear what they're supposed to say. They said, well, it sounds really special. The way I described it,

“they realized, yes, you should do it. And then I took into you that night. Yes, I first”

time. I cried in a parking lot when you told me that story, but you, I remember you called me and you were like, I've talked to my fans about it. Yeah. They happened to be here. You know, it was so, it was moving because it's um, and I just says, it says a lot about who my parents are. You know, they have their beliefs and their life and however small and quaint and content it is, but they were able to look outside their bubble, see my world, and have a very

beautiful. And it was a lovely thing to hear that come out of their mouth. I love that. As someone

“who truly cannot walk and heels at all, like, like, really, really had, not even a block heel,”

I would love to know, like, how long it took you to sort of, like, what sort of the rehearsal process was like in this year, you're wearing them this show and also like how physically painful that was? Well, the minute it's not easy as anybody who wears heels will tell you. I came over in December for a fitting. I was here for four days and the wardrobe design, the costume designer David Renault. So, and his assistant Matthew, they associate Matthew,

gave me a pair of boots to take home and they were a six-inch stiletto heel boot. Just so I could try wearing them. By the way, I was shooting a TV show in Wales back in the UK. So, and I wore suits through the whole show. So, I'd come home at night, take off my clothes and then put a pair of boots on and make dinner. And it changes everything about your posture.

“The muscles in your legs start to activate core muscles to stabilize you because you're basically”

tipping forward the whole time in your heels and they were six-inch heels. Anyway, I thought, okay, I'm ready to start rehearsals. And then, of course, two weeks into rehearsals, I go for a fitting and they show me these seven inch platform boots. I'm like, okay, well, this is a whole different, this is a whole different animal, but you learn, you learn, and what I love about them mostly is that I walk very differently out of

heels, but as soon as I put them on, by the way, I'd never want heels before. We'll be

on a trip and mum and some problems with it. He's really full this all. Everybody thinks I have this other life that no one's worked out, I have where he was all the time, but I worked out the trick of where you place your weight, how you can do it sexily. He can

“just Frank, you know, he can't struggle at the stage, you know, he's going to work out how to do it,”

and there's something that happens when you put these boots on to me. And I thought I would feel really self-conscious, very uncomfortable, very nervous and vulnerable, and literally none of those things happen when I put them on. I felt confident, I felt strong, I felt powerful, I felt torn. I could have, it made my shoulders go back. I was like, wow, you know, I mean, I wouldn't want to wear them for more than two hours a night, but there's something special about heels,

and they really are, they inform me how I sound, how I walk, how I feel. It affects everything. So yeah, it's been a journey, but I love wearing them. No, no, no, no, no. You're working. It's very strong. We're seeing walking around the stage. It's inspiring, Frank. And I mean, I also wanted to ask a little bit about the experience of doing our shoe with Norman Jean Roy and Tony, just because I will say, like, obviously, we run a lot of theater stories,

we love all of them. We don't get the response to pictures that we get to that we got to this one time. You know what I mean? Like, the eyeballs to the story were unpositive for a theater feature, and I just wanted to hear it actually for just a little bit about that shoe day. Like, every being with the cows to be with those. It was, it was also the first time

everyone had met. Which was, yeah, that was the most incredible icebreaker. That's so funny.

That does happen to the shoe. It was so incredible. And I'm not just saying this because I'm on the Vogue podcast. Like, Tony and Norman got it on a molecular level. And I have to be honest, like, I was like, oh, dear, we're going to do this shoot before we've made the show. And like, that feels really tricky because we don't know what it, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we were able to talk and advance in this purely creative way. And I just felt like

they understood it at the root. And I feel like I certainly came into it with a fair amount of fear on the day. Yeah. And I saw everybody. And I saw all of the stuff. And I was like, oh, it's like the DNA of the thing we're doing somehow. I actually feel like that shoot set up half for making the show in a way that I didn't totally expect. I agree. I 100 percent agree. I mean, my journey to that day was I landed evening before with my dog, my partner,

my luggage moved into our house, woke up jet-like to help. I'm going to go for the shoot the Vogue now. And I'm going to meet the whole cast. Oh, and by the way, I'm going to go behind a screen.

And I'm going to come out for the first time and see everyone, including the Vogue team, which is huge.

In Stiletto's fish nets and a leotide standing behind. And there was a small mirror and Michael

colour-styling wall. Oh, Michael. He's like, really? If you're not met them, I was like,

“perfect. I don't have to do it. No, remember, just I think that's where the courage started.”

I don't know what I'm talking about. This is it. I mean, this is how I'm going to have to live and be here in front of these people who I'm going to learn to love and they're going to love me. And we're going to become a family. But right now, this is the biggest baptism of fire. I can ever wish to experience and I woke up. Oh, it was, I remember there was a moment. You like got off the elevator in that like leotard and those heels and those pearls. And we're like

strutting towards me. And you went into the room with Norman. And I texted on a Taj the choreographer and I said, we're going to be just fine. Oh, it was incredible. It was like this arrival. Like, okay, there's no turning back. There was no turning back. And anyway, it was a very interesting way to meet your colleagues. It was amazing. Yeah. And it was a very fun day. It was sort of how Vogue shoots in my dreams were meant to be. Oh, it was. Yeah. A room full of makeup artists. And

everybody, one minute, I saw Juliet and then I saw her again. I didn't even recognize it. It was amazing makeup. And everybody went through this transformation. And I have to say the photographs are incredible. I had dinner with Anna when taught before it came out. And she'd seen the pictures. And I could just see in her eye. It's something special. I had a curd on that day. Because Anna doesn't give up confidence easily. She's very contained and I love that about her. But

there was a moment at dinner. And she just went, you're going to be very happy. Oh, my gosh, it was an opportunity. We were able to really actually be impulsive and creative in a way that I

“didn't know was like, remember that photo of us that you're not getting published. We were just”

taking a shot together. And you were like, should I put my trousers down? You know why? Because I, so it was a strange structure to the day. They put me in full costume and and Liatad and fish nets and makeup and everything. And then they said, we're now going to do a formal look

between you and we're going to put it on board soon. And they said, but the problem is, you

are then going to have to go back into the Frank costume with the Frank costume that Tony had a decision. There's like, it's 430. I am not taking this costume up. Because it was not easy to get into you. No, checking bits in, not scagging the sides, putting the boots on that were least up. So I just, I went, well, I just put the Tom Ford suit over the top. You're not going to be able to see that. And then we did the image, which was wonderful. And then I just

said to Tony, I was like, it's just going to tell you that I do have the full Frank outfit underneath and she was like, you're kidding me. I mean, I should just drop my trousers alone. And she was like, what are you doing this? No, I'm not going to do this. That's the picture that I did at

becoming the first picture in the interview. I got it. So good. So good. That's amazing. And

well, given the adrenaline of the show and these long rehearsal hours, how are you actually? And you said that you are texting a lot and sort of talking about details after you're done. But like, how else are you kind of like unwinding at the end of the day at this point?

“Oh, gosh. Do you want wind? I mean, I mean, here's the thing. I said this to my collaborators last”

night as we were like kind of banging our heads against a wall about something absolutely stupid. I was like, you know, I'm so sorry that we all have to make an amazingly fun Broadway musical. It's cheesy, but like, I genuinely love what I do. Yeah. I love it. And like, right now we are at the world cup of what we do. So I'm not like advocating for destroying our bodies and our minds, but actually like, I am addicted

to this part of it. I want to be in it. I know that's not sustainable at this frequency forever, but like, right now as we're still making it, like, actually, I want to keep talking about and wanting to keep solving the puzzle. I'm enriched by that. I feel exactly the same. Yeah. It's like I'm swimming in a really perfectly temperate pool. And I don't want to get out of it. Yeah. Because it doesn't feel right to get out. And I feel like if I stay in there,

I'm safe. And I feel that way right now. And you know, like, just for example, at last night, I've texted you at midnight at 9 a.m. this morning, I texted you again. You know, it's like, my brain doesn't want to leave this world. But it takes me about to think I was already

thinking about it. Oh, my gosh. I'm always by the way. I always go, I shouldn't take this,

because he knows this, but I just can't go help myself. But I, because my head is in that space as well. And it is a lovely place to be right now where you know, you just love where you're at and who you're playing. And to have dialogue is a wonderful thing. It just feels like such a collaborative experience to everybody and everybody brings it every day. And I really love the people I'm working with.

Hi, I'm Rebecca Ford. And I'm John Ross. And we're the host of Little Gold Men,

“Vanity Fair's podcast for film, TV, and awards lovers. And just because the Oscars are done”

for now doesn't mean we are. Join us every week for coverage of the biggest stories in Hollywood interviews with today's brightest stars and so much more. Listen to Little Gold Men every Thursday wherever you get your podcasts. It should forgive me for making like a brief for a back into Omery land just because all of us are so excited about my revolving. The god like we cannot resist it. I like Walter, Uncle Bear,

on my computer last night, just extremely giddy. I did just wonder about like what transitioning from Mary to Mary kind of looks like. Like what is that process? Because you've obviously done a lot of times with such different performers, such brilliant performers. What does that look like on the back of you? Sure. I mean, it's been when we first made Omery, we were not thinking at all about

anybody playing the part other than Cole, or our amazing understudy Hannah Solo. And I actually

said this because we started rehearsal with Maya on Tuesday. And when we all gathered together, I said, you know, when Cole and I were first making Omery, we were like, well, no one will ever play this part other than Cole. I mean, no one could really do it other than, I don't know,

“like, Maya wrote off. So we're really getting our words now. But I think the thing that I've learned”

over the kind of seasons of doing Omery is Mary to subtly get us such an amazing character. There's no one like her, much like Dr. Franken for them. She is a character who is largely misunderstood by the world who knows that she contains greatness, who wants to show the world and the audience, all of the things she's capable of, much like Dr. Franken for her. And that describes literally all of my favorite actors. Right. And so the joy of casting it from Jankerkowski to

Jingsman soon to Titus Burgess to Betty Gilpin to John Cameron Mitchell. I mean, it goes on and on on. Yes. Is finding weirdo, geniuses who contain multitudes that the world hasn't yet seen. And because it uses the full toolbox of someone, much like Dr. Franken for her.

So it's been, you know, it continues to be this amazing puzzle of who can surprise us and

surprise themselves. And it's a part that can be played by anyone crazy enough to do it. I mean, we have my Rudolph and Catherine Tape going into the role in three days of each other. Genius. I've described on our like work slack. Oh, Mary is kind of like alt to call go like where is her amazing. So I'm like casting decisions that's like just gags every one in the world. Anyways, I'm a very excited. I'm just sort of wondering if there are any shows that you kind of

associated with the level of nostalgia that you would just like love to see revived. I have a real sweet spot for this is a nerdy, but I've a real sweet spot for you're a good man, Charlie Brown. Oh my god, adorable. Talk about nostalgia. I was in it. My in high school. I was a very miscast Charlie Brown. Like obvious. I'm a Snoopy or Linus. And actually in the same van. I mean, this is my favorite musical on ironic late, which is Annie.

Oh, my God. I have about two. It's a perfect musical. Annie is a warm hug. Like when when the world is falling apart, we still have Annie. You know, and luckily we have like many different

versions of Annie. So that to me is like the, I always want to be embraced by Annie.

It's nine. Oh, selfishly of course. That's a great part for you. I have always loved that idea

“big time. And I think it deserves a revival. Has anyone ever asked you to do it?”

I'm going to do it. No man when they do it. It's podcast. But also stuff I've heard, but in nothing is ever come of it. But and it took me a moment to really like think about that show and how it fits into this world. Right now, you know, I think it could be really, really interesting. And of course, selfishly it's the main character. No, it's such an amazing musical. I think it's a very, very clever musical. I just think it's very clever. I think I would love to.

Oh, it's such an amazing world. So funny. I was talking to Julia. Julia Lewis yesterday about

But we were, we were talking about, because there's a few musicals that have come from Fellini, and it's just like the greatest world in the world to dip into. Oh, my God. Let's start the

Luc ovens in nine can. Let's make it happen. And I mean, it's finally, you mentioned like,

when you're sort of doing the stage door and you're meeting people of all ages, but certainly young people, what I guess advice to both of you have for people who want to go into the musical theater, honestly, like who in this day and age are like, that is the world I want to be in, but where do I start? How do you kind of advise? Well, I can only go in my experience. Yeah, I did it. I got into a college when I was young. You don't have to be young,

“but if you are and you have that very clear idea that that's what you want to do,”

college is a very important part of the process, I think, because as you get old, you don't go back to formal training. You may have a teacher or you do like a class a week, but, you know, formal college when you actually go and do it six hours a day, five days a week, you can't

do anything wrong. You're just always learning, you're absorbing absorbing, it's also a safe space,

and you're surrounded by like-minded people, wonderful teachers. If you're very lucky, I had some amazing teachers throughout the three years I was in college and it's a good place to learn a lot, not deeply, but to learn a lot about a lot about different partnerships. And then you, you've finished as you go through and you work at what you really want to do, and sometimes during those years you go, I'm going to be a singer or I want to, I want to join a contemporary dance

company, or I want to write or I don't want anything to do with this business after I leave.

“And that is absolutely fine because it is not an easy business. Sure. It's not fair. So you need to”

be incredibly resilient. I was brought up as a Jehovah's Witness, so we had doors slammed in our faces from, to me being in a, in a, in a stroller through to the, you know, 15-year-old heating knocking someone's door. So, you know, having not getting a job for me was just like, all right, fine, there's another door next door and well knock another one, you know, and coming to Broadway and seeing how a life and loved and big the community is here and how people just they eat it up every day from a

Monday night through to a Sunday matinee. Yeah. I love it. It's really special. Yeah. And I mean, it's lovely to experience Broadway. Broadway theater, live performance is the opposite of the robots taking over, right? Like, it is the opposite. And I'm, I think that is worthwhile and a life in it can look a lot of different ways. And I love what you say, Luke, about like, actually finding the thing that lights you up. I don't, I mean, I went to musical theater school and I hated it. I was

terrible at it. And it was heartbreaking because I thought that's all I wanted. Yeah. And, you know, but, but it's stoked a curiosity that then pointed me another direction and actually taught me what I did love or what did light me up. I think that there's, I think, you know, if something

“feels good, maybe that's because it's good. If you want to do something, maybe that's because you,”

you should. Thank you guys. Thanks for everything. So fun. Lovely. And that's it for the run-through. See you next week. The run-through with Vogue is produced by Chelsea Daniel, Alex DeParma and Alex John Burns with Help from Emily Elias, is show is engineered by Brand Bandie and mixed by Mike Kuchman. Bye.

Comprehensive. Whitty. Speculative. Critical. Insightful.

Profound. Why ranging? Hopefully it doesn't take itself too too seriously. I'm David Remnick and each week on the New Yorker radio hour. My colleagues and I try to make sense of what's happening in this chaotic world. I hope you'll join us for the New Yorker radio hour wherever you listen to podcasts. The thoughtful. Exquisite. Just, you know. Real. From PRX.