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Live Wire: An Interview with The Comedy of Errors Star Hamish Linklater

What kind of Hamish Linklater fan you are likely depends on what kind of entertainment you take in the most.

Live Wire: An Interview with The Comedy of Errors Star Hamish Linklater
Photo: Joan Marcus

What kind of Hamish Linklater fan you are likely depends on what kind of entertainment you take in the most. If you’re a TV buff, odds are you know him from The New Adventures of Old Christine, or maybe Gideon’s Crossing. If you mainly watch films, you’ve surely seen his standout work in a range of projects, from Miranda July’s The Future and the old cult flick Groove to Greta Gerwig’s vehicle Lola Versus and this year’s 42. Theater junkies know Linklater from his extensive work on stage, which dates all the way back to his childhood, when his mother, Kristin Linklater, a vocal technique teacher and current chair of the Acting Division at Columbia University, made him aware of the Bard almost immediately. Throughout his theater career, the 36-year-old has starred with the likes of the late Jill Clayburgh in Off Broadway productions, made his Broadway debut in 2011’s Seminar with Alan Rickman and Jerry O’Connell, and made repeated returns to the Public’s Shakespeare in the Park, appearing in 2009’s Twelfth Night and 2010’s The Merchant of Venice. This season, the actor returns to the outdoor venue in The Comedy of Errors, which reunites him with director Daniel Sullivan and his frequent co-star Jesse Tyler Ferguson.

One of the lightest and breeziest of Shakespeare’s comedies, The Comedy of Errors concerns a classic—or, rather, exceptional—case of mistaken identities, following two sets of twins, both bearing the names Antipholus and Dromio, as they begin to cross paths after being separated at birth. The two Antipholuses and two Dromios are both played by Linklater and Ferguson, respectively, giving actors and director a remarkable challenge. The result is something uncommonly joy-inducing, and after I caught the show (which began previews at Central Park’s Delacorte Theater on May 28, and officially runs from June 18 through June 30), I chatted with Linklater about his diverse acting resumé. Unmistakably earthbound and laugh-out-loud irreverent, the supremely gifted guy had great stuff to offer, like watching Pacino “build an edifice,” getting to know his real-life 42 counterpart (the last Brooklyn Dodger alive from that day), and the priceless virtues of a great prosthetic ass.

I read that you began doing Shakespeare at the age of eight, under the tutelage of your mother when she founded the Shakespeare & Company drama troupe. Do you think it was inevitable that you’d eventually be performing Shakespeare for larger crowds at bigger venues?

I was incredibly lucky that I got to work in the family business, and that the family business was an awesome one. It would have been awesome if we were butchers, too, I’m sure, but it was great. My mom started that company when I was two, so I was just hanging out there for a while, and then when I became useful, when they needed kids to fill the scenes, they started putting me in.

When did it all start to feel like something that could be your own life’s work?

I was always doing plays over the summer at [the Shakespeare & Company drama troupe] or other places, and I went to college to be an English major. I lasted about a year doing that before dropping out and moving to New York, and that was basically because my girlfriend was a senior, and she was moving there, and I was following her. But I also knew that I really just wanted to get started with acting, since that was the most fun.

You’re no stranger to Shakespeare in the Park or Daniel Sullivan, who also directed you in Twelfth Night and The Merchant of Venice. What, for you, makes The Comedy of Errors stand out? Its tone and content are certainly similar to those of Twelfth Night.

Yeah, maybe it’s like a sort of early draft or something. It’s got that wonderful reconciliation at the end when the twins get revealed. It’s a play they did at Shakespeare & Company a lot when I was a kid—it was really a popular show. I was really surprised that they hadn’t done it at the Delacorte Theater for however long [21 years], because it’s actually a really beautifully structured piece and it’s super accessible. The language is really simple for Shakespeare. But it’s also just super fun, and the thing about Dan is that, he directs all these dramas or whatever, but he’s super funny. And with this much physical humor and stuff like that, his impeccable taste was really important. So I think both Jesse [Tyler Ferguson] and I felt really safe going into it, knowing that he would be our sort of shtick barometer, telling us what was okay and was a step too far.

The choreography of some of the slapstick elements is really involved. Was there something especially challenging about it? Because with some of the scenes, there’s so much happening on stage, your eyes just can’t stop moving.

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Yeah, it’s a big sprint. I’m like, super sore. My back is super sore. And a lot of it is from running around on the concrete beneath the stage to make the quick changes and stuff like that. My hips, my back—I’m walking around like an old man. And we’ve all been through that at full speed for like a week. So, it’s a monster, but it’s super fun, and you know, you’ll break your back for a laugh, I think, if you’re worth your weight in ha-has. So as long as it gets a laugh, then we’re up for it.

The production is rare in that it sees you and Jesse Tyler Ferguson each playing both versions of Antipholus and Dromio, as opposed to casting four actors, which has historically been more common. How did you envision, or enliven, your two characters? Because they’re quite different.

Well, I mean, a lot of it is just what Shakespeare gives you: One guy is sort of this innocent, and the one set of twins are, like, the country twins, who are inexperienced and terrified of sin. And the other ones are the sort of city mice. That Antipholus beats his Dromio all the time, and is in the whorehouse, and drinking a lot. So it’s right there. And once Dan set it in this kind of gangster, thirties world, it helped all of that. And what’s also in the text is how the city one uses much shorter words, whereas the country one is much more limpid and his language is a lot dreamier. So you go to Shakespeare’s text for clues, and that’s really fun.

What’s harder: Your incredible, breathless monologue in the final act, or keeping your composure opposite Jesse Tyler Ferguson?

[laughs] Keeping my composure opposite Jesse Tyler Ferguson, or keeping one’s composure opposite Jesse Tyler Ferguson, is a Herculean effort. I’m surprised that anyone can manage it. But then they do—I mean, look at Eric Stonestreet. They give you Emmys for putting up with Jesse. [laughs] No, but I’ve known him for a while, and I love him, and it’s really, really awesome getting to do this with him And the last monologue is just a sort of survival thing, because you’re so sweaty and so hot. So it’s been like, “Just get to the end—just get to the end without fainting.”

I do want to talk a bit further about the monologue, because it’s extremely impressive. Is there a great deal of intense prep for that? Or is it just, the more nights you do it, the more it becomes like muscle memory?

Yeah, I guess it’s kind of like that. But also, he’s just…all these crazy things have happened to [Antipholus], so then you just say to yourself, “I’ve really gotta prove the point that I’m not crazy, and that all these things really did happen.” So it’s just about making your points, and then you’ll get through to the end of it.

You have this extensive theater background, but some people, myself included, discovered you in gems like The Future, which sees you turn in a fantastic performance. Having also starred in recent films like 42, are you looking to nab more movie projects, or do you prefer the stage?

I mean, growing up on stage, I love that, and that’s what I know, and film and TV is something that I’ve had to learn a lot more. I’m so glad you liked The Future. I was so proud of that movie, and I worked so hard to get it. I was so in love with [Miranda July’s] first movie, and that was the one job that I really tried to kill to get. It took about three years to get it, but I loved it. But film acting is hard. You do a play, and there are people there, and you get to go from beginning to end, and you’re making it with the audience. In a film, you’re making it with a camera and a boom operator. So it’s a much trickier thing. Theater’s more instantly gratifying, and you only get one shot at it versus however many takes. So theater’s always going to be what I love most, but telling a great story with a great storyteller in a movie is a really, really lucky thing to get to do.

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In 42, your character, Ralph Branca, has some of the most poignant scenes with Chadwick Boseman’s Jackie Robinson, in terms of team bonding.

Yeah, I’m a big baseball fan. So when I heard about the movie I was like, “You know, if it’s two scenes, I’m fine. I just want to put on the uniform and go and hang out in those ballparks and learn to pitch properly. So that was a real treat—a boyhood, geek-out, baseball dream come true.

And are you based in New York? Because you’re so enmeshed in New York theater and even 42 is a very New York-centric. I figured there might be some personal resonance there.

I live in Los Angeles. When I moved to New York I was 19, and I was here for about five years, and then I moved to LA for a TV show. But I’ve been back and forth a lot. And my mom teaches up at Columbia, so whenever I’m here I have to stay with her. But she has plenty of room, so we don’t have to share a bed, which is nice. But I am a Yankees fan. I have a tattoo of Derek Jeter’s number two on my arm. And my guy, Ralph, was the only surviving member of the team in the film, so I got to go and meet him and hang out with him, and that was really so awesome. He still works out in Rye, New York, so I went to his insurance company to meet him. He just scratched his balls, and told me old stories.

Ha! Well, alright then. You know, it’s interesting: when it comes to lesser-known film actors, so many of them will say things like “I’m dying to work with Al Pacino, or Alan Rickman, or Anne Hathaway.” And here, being someone who bridges the stage-to-screen gap, you’ve done it—you’re doing it, working with these people. Is that one of the big perks of theater work?

Oh, absolutely. You get so much from all of them in totally different and surprising ways. I mean, when we did Merchant of Venice, it was just me and Al in the dressing room together. And just getting to ask him about stories, or just watching him put himself together night after night, and just sort of pick up the rubble from the night before and build an amazing edifice again, it’s just unbelievable to be around that. And I’m so lucky to do it onstage because, you know, in a film, you might not get that kind of interaction.

You’ve starred in CBS’s The New Adventures of Old Christine, and you have another CBS sitcom coming up, The Crazy Ones, with Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar. What can you share about that?

Well, we had a lot of fun doing the pilot. My character works in an advertising firm that’s run by Robin Williams’s character and Sarah Michelle Gellar’s character. That’s pretty much what I know. It’s tricky with these TV shows, because you don’t actually know what you’re character’s going to be until enough of the—what is it?—the testing results come back in. But as far as I know I’m the art director for the firm, and we’ll be making lots of jokes, and it’ll be awesome.

And it’s a David E. Kelley show?

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Yeah, and he’s terrific, and was a big draw. I had also done a movie with Robin Williams earlier this year where I played his son. And I signed for that because I was like, “When am I ever going to get to work with Robin Williams?” And now I’m working with him for the next seven years, or as long as TV deems it possible. But David Kelley, yeah, I was a huge fan of all of his shows, and the script was fantastic.

What was the film that you worked on with Robin?

It’s called The Angriest Man in Brooklyn, and it’s directed by Phil [Alden] Robinson, who did Field of Dreams. I play a ballroom dance instructor. So there’s another thing that film lets you do—you learn how to be a ballroom dance instructor. Although, basically, all I did for that was get a fake butt, which made me look more like a dancer. A big, fake butt.

You got a fake butt?

Yeah, I kinda learned how to do ballroom dancing, but it was too hard, so I got a fake butt.

Hang on a sec. Just so we’re clear on this: You weren’t quite sure how to do ballroom dancing properly, so they got you a fake butt to wear under your pants to make you better look the part?

It was not their idea. It was my idea. I was looking at the proper dancers who knew how to dance and they all had these incredibly high, high asses. So, I said, “The dancing is never going to look professional grade, but my ass might be able to look professional grade. So let’s go get a fake ass.” And then wardrobe agreed, so, yeah. It’s an amazing ass. My ass is amazing.

That might be one of my favorite interview answers ever.

Good.

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So when is that film being released?

I have no idea. I think they just finished it and now they’re looking to get it onto the festival circuit. Mila Kunis is in it, and Peter Dinklage, and Melissa Leo, and James Earl Jones. It’s an awesome cast.

Excellent. Getting back to Shakespeare: You’ve done so many productions. You’ve played Hamlet. Is there a specific show you’re itching to do?

I really want to do Richard III. I think he’s really funny, and I’m already three years older than he was when he died, and I also think the play is really interesting. Because he’s a war vet who’s come back to court in a country that’s completely forgotten about all the wars it set out to do and is in this happy tribe of peace. So he decides to kill everyone. I think that sounds like a fun play.

R. Kurt Osenlund

R. Kurt Osenlund is a creative director and account supervisor at Mark Allen & Co. He is the former editor of Out magazine.

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