Stick figure animator oscar
But the personal experience I had with losing Heath was, there’s this excess amount of energy that gets left behind because there was so much more to do. He was in his late 20s and we were doing the Terry Gilliam film together, and it’s just a very impactful thing when such a great artist leaves us at the height of their powers.
When someone has that much energy and inspiration and passion and impact on the world, and they die at a young age, at the age of 35, in terms of the specifics of Jonathan’s death, I think they leave… I remember when Heath Ledger passed away.
And there was another element that was interesting, which is a more spiritual element of the energy of Jon and the essence of Jon and his spirit. It was more about just allowing the Jon in me to emerge and to come through. I felt so akin to him, even though I’m not a writer myself, let alone a musical theater writer, I felt like he already was alive in me somehow and there wasn’t much interpretation I needed to do. And then, of course, having started to do films and then kept my theater work going and my theater muscles moving with “Death of a Salesman” and “Angels in America,” arguably two of the masterworks of the last century in terms of theater, when I was introduced to Jon Larson and his work through Lin and him asking me to come onto this project, it was like, again, just kind of being introduced to an old brother that I didn’t know existed. They suddenly feel like, “Oh, I’m not as alone as I thought I was.” It’s a real kind of community that you get jumped into. I think that’s what most people who engage in the theater feel. I felt most allowed to be my whole entire self. It became my second home, maybe my first home, maybe my predominant home, actually, and I felt most myself there. and I fell in love with theater in drama school and even before that in high school. And then I did theater for three years in London, in Manchester, and around the U.K. I studied in drama school in London, at the Central School of Speech and Drama, and graduated when I was 20. So I was wondering how your experience on stage in both “Death of a Salesman” and “Angels in America” really helped you kind of understand the world that Jonathan Larson worked in and lived in and helped you approach performing his work?ĪG: Yeah, I mean, I’m a theater actor first and foremost. I wanted to start with “tick, tick… BOOM!” and your experience on stage because “tick, tick… BOOM!” started as a stage musical and is all about the theater, obviously, as Jonathan Larson was a composer. Gold Derby (David Buchanan): Andrew, it’s such a pleasure to talk to you today. SEE SAG Awards nominee profile: Will third time be the charm for Andrew Garfield (‘tick, tick… Boom!’)?