Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge in dialogue about taking their conjoined monologues to Broadway.
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Also, they are wearing matching gold chains.
Both monologues reveal a tragedy at their centers, which might make them seem like acting exercises.
One thing Gyllenhaal is sure of is that the show has been subtly enlivened in its transfer.
If nothing else, by the weather outside.
People referred to it as stark, he says.
This show is no longer stark.
This show is in the summer!
Jake Gyllenhaal:[Laughs] Can you imagine?
By the end of this interview, wed hate each other.
TS:I dont know how you came into contact with Nick [Payne].
I immediately fell in love with it.
Why did you want to do your piece?
The majority of the play is about the birth of a family and how wonderful that is.
That is rare onstage because were supposed to make things interesting by everybody hating each other.
I thought,These circumstances are very similar to my own.I dont think I ever hesitated.
Was it a leap of imagination to think of it as theater?
JG:It felt blazingly, gloriously, insanely clear only because it was so filled with feeling.
TS:Did you think you were going to play Nick Payne?
There are moments when it bleeds in, but I resisted that.
He wrote a lot of things for me, too.
My rhythms and my way of speaking are incorporated.
Its a strange mix of the two of us and the way we speak.
Thats where we meet.
TS:Struggling to find language?
JG:I think I still continue to grapple with how personal moments of it really are.
Sometimes I feel like Im potentially violating fiction and nonfiction, whatever that boundary is.
I would do it when I would wake up and I couldnt sleep.
I do it, still, whenever I wake up, even if its in an unconscious state.
Its rare that I think a performer gets the opportunity to do something again and to rediscover certain things.
Theres an audience there, but they should know theyre watching an experiment.
But I think the exciting thing about returning to it is going into even more detail.
Before, we were just going, Can we get through these ten minutes without people falling asleep?
Now we can really do surgery.
JG:Do you think about me and my story coming up next?
TS:Im completely conscious of the baton I pass on.
JG:I mean, monologues already have that perception of actor indulgence.
These are monologues about loss.
How do you get out of that box?
I want to ride the roller coaster of a million different feelings.
TS:Thats the contract we ask of the audience: Have faith in love in the beginning.
Were here to create a community together and to do something beautiful.
Not Here we go, this is going to be really depressing.
The audience really does dictate the way things go.
Its not a bad thing.
Im acknowledging you coughed, whatever, your phone can go off, were here together.
JG:Come to Broadway, citizen.
Thats why we brought it to Broadway, because the public felt such ownership of it.
JG:If were speaking honestly, there was sort of that desire for indulgence, the acting indulgence.
And then all of a sudden, the show became a show.
JG:When I didIf There Is I Havent Found It Yet,I was nervous every night.
When I didSunday in the Park With George,I wasnt nervous any second of it.
JG:Even when we did it at City Center.
You are enveloped and wrapped by a 25-piece orchestra, or I was.
But I knew somewhere that it didnt work unless I wasnt hiding anything.
All the audience loves is that imperfection.
Its what we all lean forward for.
JG:Are you not entertained?!
Is there something youre afraid of, going into this new experience?
JG:I mean, we have two days rehearsal and two days of tech.
We havent done the show in four months.
TS:Fair enough, Im afraid now.
Sea Wall/A Lifeis at the Hudson Theatre.
