Patti LuPone: “I Was Born to Do What I Do”

TRANSCRIPT

Patti LuPone: The more I act, the more I understand. As actors, we do not have to work so hard if we trust the text. And if the text is as good as a mammoth play, you simply have to say the word. You don’t have to supply a lot of extraneous stuff. You have to trust the playwright. It’s not our responsibility to improve on a playwright. It’s simply our responsibility to deliver the playwright’s ideas.

Dan Rubinstein: Hi, I’m Dan Rubinstein, and this is The Grand Tourist. I’ve been a design journalist for more than 20 years, and this is my personalized guided tour for the worlds of fashion, art, architecture, food, and travel. All the elements of a well-lived life. And welcome to the first episode of season 11. This fall, we have some incredible episodes lined up after our summer break, so make sure you stay in touch by following us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and especially by signing up for our newsletter, The Grand Tourist Curator at our site, thegrandtourist.net.

Before we meet some incredible artists, architects, designers, chefs, as well as visit some amazing locales, we have something special planned for our season premiere. This summer, I’ve been thinking a lot about performance today in the world of The Grand Tourist, what kind of visual culture would we be in without opera, concerts, set design, the spectacle of it all? From Oskar Schlemmer’s minimalist costumes for the Bauhaus to the fantastical opening ceremonies of the recent Olympics in Paris, which brings us to today’s guest. She’s a singer, performer, actress of stage and screen, winner of three Tonys and two Grammys, and a rare cultural icon that crosses over so many boundaries.

She defines categorization while all the while being just simply fabulous, Patti LuPone. This fall, Miss LuPone adds professional spell caster to the list as she stars in the new Marvel miniseries, Agatha All Along, that debuts today on Disney+, alongside Kathryn Hahn and Aubrey Plaza. Not only that, but she’s currently back on Broadway, starring in a two-woman show, The Roommate, with her longtime personal friend, Mia Farrow. To me, Patti LuPone is a fantastic paragon of the age she came up in. She was raised on Long Island, New York, much like myself, in a middle-class, suburban household, but one destined for success. Her late brother, Tony LuPone, was also a highly successful actor, dancer, and director.

Patti trained at Juilliard in the late sixties and early seventies and found herself in the midst of a Cultural Revolution in terms of theater. She’s long credited her own success to working so closely with the likes of David Mamet and Stephen Sondheim and her career that took her all over the country, as well as abroad was defined by so many performances, but two, of course stand out more than most. She was the first Fantine in the original London production of Les Miserables and the original Eva Perón in the pivotal Broadway musical Evita. When it comes to TV and film, she’s done so much. It’s almost easier to mention what she hasn’t done.

Despite all of her success not to mention her reputation as someone who is no shrinking violet, what I find the most appealing about Patti is her utterly genuine journeyman’s view of her career. She’s good at what she does, but at the end of the day, she’s here to do work and work hard and relies on the talents of others to put on a good show. I caught up with Patti LuPone from her home in New York to talk about the dark underbelly of Long Island, her pioneering days at Juilliard, how she landed the role of Fantine that changed her career, her thoughts on retirement, her favorite tale of a haunted theater, and much more.

(MUSICAL BREAK)

I was wondering if you could share with me your earliest memory of life as a girl in Northport.

It was an incredible place to grow up because at the time, Long Island was still very rural. While I was growing up, Suffolk County became the fastest growing community in America, but when I was growing up, it was potato farms, horse farms. Where I lived on Locust Road, there were three farms, and my dad bought in the apple orchard of one farm, and my best girlfriend lived diagonally behind us on another farm. It was just because we’re surrounded by water.

All of our lives came alive in the summertime. Northport’s very interesting because it has a dark underbelly. It’s a very beautiful town. And then there have been murders, et cetera, et cetera, drugs, et cetera, et cetera. It’s a highly creative vibe and just a dark underbelly. It’s an interesting town.

Oh gosh. And your parents were Italian-American, but they were born here, correct?

My parents are first-generation Americans. My grandparents came from Sicily and the Abruzzo in Italy, and they grew up in Jamestown and Buffalo, New York, and how they ended up on Long Island, I’ll never know. But I always said, how did my grandparents, the Patti’s and the Lupone’s, how did they go 12 hours north to Buffalo when they could have gone 12 hours east to the Hamptons?

Right. Well, I don’t think the Hamptons were anything back then.

Well, just think about it. Why weren’t they? Why’d they go there? I still can’t figure out why they went up to Buffalo. I don’t know what the industry was. When I finally met my grandparents, they didn’t speak any English, so I don’t know what they did.

All right. Well, Buffalo was a booming town back then.

They were in Jamestown and Dunkirk.

Well, it was kind of a booming region. It was kind of like the Queen city and…

Gateway to the west.

I went to school in Buffalo so I can talk up Western New York a little bit. Was it a strict upbringing out there in Northport, your parents?

Yes, I would say, I don’t know because I was rebellious, so I can’t remember if it was strict, but I think it was strict because I got in trouble a lot as a kid.

How were you rebellious?

I have a rebellious nature. I have a curious nature. If you say don’t, I do. It’s in my DNA. It’s not anything to do with, I’m going to do it because you punished me or whatever. I’m going to do it anyway. It’s in my DNA that I’m incredibly curious. And that leads to problems with, I think, parents in the fifties who had to live by a certain moral code to fit into a society. And so we were Catholic, but we were Sunday Catholics. My dad was principal of the only elementary school in Northport, the Ocean Avenue Elementary School. So we were held to a different standard because he had a responsibility.

But then I was born, nobody counted all that. I remember when I was very, very young. I woke up in the summertime and it was a beautiful day and nobody else was awake. And I wandered outside and I crossed fields to go see my best friend at the other farm. And by the time I got there, the father was screaming, “You better go home. They don’t know where you were.” I think when I got home, I saw fire trucks and police cars, and I hid under my bed so that I was missing for even longer. And when they finally found me, I was severely punished and never knew why.

Never knew that my journey through a beautiful summer day amidst butterflies and bees and Queensland’s lace would be punished. So my parents brought me up the way their parents brought them up.

And as a young girl, do you remember, how did singing and acting first begin with you? What was the first inkling of that?

When I was very young and my mother used to… She must have known something because I can remember being trooped out in front of guests to do my Marilyn Monroe imitation. I couldn’t have been more than three or four years old. I mean, I didn’t even know how we knew about Marilyn Monroe, but obviously from television. And there was just my mom’s side of the family, very boisterous, very Italian, filled with laughter, but also filled with…

Drama.

Well, drama, but I’m trying to think of the mafia word for it. Not that my family was mafia, not at all, but there was a lot of drama and there was a lot of laughter, and there was a lot of drama. It was high intense emotions, and I was born to the boards. I knew that when I was four years old, and it came as a surprise to my mother and my father. But you just know, I was tap dancing and I looked out at the audience and I fell in love with the audience, and I never looked back. I knew that this is where I belonged, and my parents have no show business or theatrical inkling at all.

Was there ever a point in your childhood, maybe this, first tap dancing or anything, someone who pulled you aside and said, “Hey, you could go to Juilliard. You could do something with this,” and encourage you in that way? That was very specific like that?

Well, this is the story. My brother and I started dancing. Bobby fell in love with my hula skirt and started dancing with the Miss Marguerite dance studio. We then moved on to the Donald and Rosalie Grant dance studio, and then to the Andre Bonny and their friend Betty dance studio. Bobby excelled at dance. At one point, I don’t know who encouraged this, but both of us went in to audition for the Martha Graham dance studio. Bobby got in. Bobby would take the Long Island Railroad after high school, three o’clock train into Manhattan, take classes with Martha Graham, come home on the 10 o’clock train, became an incredibly strong modern dancer.

He went to Hofstra and then he went to Juilliard. He auditioned for the dance division of Juilliard and actually came out of Juilliard their strongest. He majored in ballet and minored in modern because he had been studying with Martha Graham for that length of time. I, being a rebellious teenager, didn’t want to go to college. I just wanted to move into New York City. I knew what I was going to do with my life. I knew exactly that I would end up on the Broadway musical stage because of my voice. Not that I wanted to, but that’s where I knew I belonged.

And Bobby came to me one day and he had already graduated from Juilliard from the dance division, and said they were starting a drama division. And I only auditioned for my mother and my brother because I didn’t particularly care whether I got in or not because it was the late sixties, and we were partying hardy in New York City. I got in and then I went, “Okay, well, I got four years here.” That’s how that happened. And I’m very grateful for my Juilliard training. It is the reason I am still working to this day.

Were you a good sort of Juilliard student?

No, they wanted to throw me out of school.

Really? Why so?

I’m a rambunctious human being. For some reason, there’s a strain in me that just wants to create havoc. It’s just exciting.

Did you overlap with your brother during your time at Juilliard?

No.

He graduated right as you were coming in.

I can’t remember when he graduated, but I was the first year of the drama division of the Juilliard School. And in order for them to move to Lincoln Center, they had to become a complete performing arts wing. And so they had to add a drama division, much to the chagrin of Peter Menon, because if this was the Juilliard School of Music, and then these actors showed up, and I wasn’t the only one that was misbehaving. If we were in fact misbehaving, I think we were just, the creative output was allowed to happen because John Houseman found 36 of the craziest people he could find. And I was probably the least of the crazies.

It was a crazy first class, so we didn’t overlap. But I have to tell you, I went to Juilliard Preparatory when I was a kid because somebody thought I should be an opera singer. I had absolutely no desire to be in opera, but I have a soprano voice, and I studied with Marian Mandarin, and I would smoke cigarettes on the Long Island Railroad on my way to sing opera. Back in the day.

Probably not the best.

I had actually a concert, I guess a concert, whatever. And when I was done, I saw my mother and my brother’s face, and they were horrified. I must have stunk. I didn’t even care. It was like, “This is not my field.” I did it because they told me to do it like we were told to do when we were kids. You do what you’re told to do. And then when the drama vision happened again, it was like, “Yeah, all right, I’ll audition if that’s what you want me to do. I don’t want to do this. But okay.” But then as I said earlier, I’m so grateful for my training and I wish to this day that I had listened better at school, worked harder.

… and after school, you toured with The Acting Company, which was new at the time, I believe, and still around today. I was wondering if you could explain to people from your own point of view, what is The Acting Company and why was it so beloved and such a part of history now?

We studied classical theater 13 hours a day, six days a week. We did classical plays. What the Juilliard Bible, back then… It’s no longer. Back then was taking an American actor and training them in European and Russian techniques, and then doing classical theater. French plays, Italian plays, German plays, English plays, Russian plays, and then it was Mr. Houseman, John Houseman’s idea to form a repertory company, sort of along the lines of the APA Phoenix or the Mercury, have an ensemble of actors that would do classical theater.

And so our class, when we graduated, he handed as an equity card and a seat on a Domenico bus. And we took our third and our fourth year productions from Juilliard and toured them, only to discover that we only knew how to perform for three performances because that’s all we ever did. And the fourth performance fell apart. So we had to learn on the road as we were working maintenance. And then, of course, these sets were not built to tour. They were built for the Juilliard… The John Houseman Theater now, not the Juilliard Theater. That’s the orchestra’s theater at school.

So we had a skeletal crew, stage manager, wardrobe supervisor, prop person, and they had to figure out how to load in these sets that were not built to tour. We had, and I think of him often, a bus driver, Bob Blount, who drove that bus like it was a plane, because we also broke all equity rules, because of the way they scheduled our stops. Sometimes we had to travel 10 hours to get to a place. And Bob, he just drove that bus like it was an airplane. And I can’t remember the name of our truck driver, but it was somebody that you’d think, “Okay, this guy scares the shit out of me. He’s got to be a Hell’s Angel.” His girlfriend would come, and his dog, and he was tattooed, and one night we were doing Three Sisters and he backed the truck up to the loading dock and started revving the engine because we weren’t going fast enough for him.

I’ll never forget it. But we would invite him to these parties and he fell in love with these young actors. So it was an incredible experience, because it also encompassed not only unbelievable training for young actors in technique, but also, we encountered heckling. We encountered having a flu, and then having to put on a corset and go out and do measure for measure at 11:00 in the morning because we had no understudies. It built a muscle that very few actors have today, and a technique that very few actors have today, because people don’t think that acting is a craft. And it is a craft that needs to be honed.

And had you traveled… When you get out of school and you’re in this traveling company, had you traveled outside of New York as a child? Or was this your first time kind of free and out and about around the country?

Well, Bobby, Billy and I performed in the New York State area, but not like this. Not like this. We traveled to several different… I guess I’d never been to Texas before, Missouri, California, that was my first time in California, 1976. Oh man, it was great. San Francisco, yeah. We did it for four years. It was hard. There experiences that were… To this day, we… On the same bus, we were in… Oh, I can’t remember the name. I can’t remember the name of the times. They’re escaping me. We were in the Midwest or we were in the plains and we were stopped. We were one of the first vehicles stopped because a blizzard was coming through and we were stopped at one of those… I can’t even describe it. Like a Holiday Inn, but it covered like several blocks. You could buy tires and a girdle, and the lobby was a shipboard. You know what I mean? You could play shuffleboard and ping… I mean, they’re insane blocks long motels.

And we were lucky enough to get rooms and then we thought, “Oh, we have no money. Let’s ghost.” So four of us. Two of us would check in, and four of us would sleep in the room. By the time we woke up in the morning, people were sprawled out in the lobby because this was a serious blizzard. Also, we performed paycheck to paycheck with the Acting Company. So losing that date meant we lost our paycheck that day. Or the company didn’t get paid, the actors didn’t get paid. I mean, it was an incredible experience in dedication, learning a technique, understanding the tribulations of our business and the ecstasy, the joy. I’ll tell you one other experience. We were in the Midwest… Oh no, we were in Conway when I said we were doing the Three Sisters. And I went, “Ugh, why do we always have to do Chekhov in the boondocks?” And they were ahead of us that night. They were so anxious for this play to be there. They had studied it and they were faster than we were. It was a big lesson.

(SPONSOR BREAK)

And some of the first other early shows that you had done whereby David Mamet. And I believe the first one of the first at least, was the Woods with Peter Weller, who my generation knows better as Robocop oddly enough. Of course for my generation, he’s immortalized as that. Do you remember meeting David Mamet and what that was like when you first started interact with him?

Yes. It was the last year of… It was our fourth year on the road, and several of us were going to leave because it was… As much as it was a wonderful training ground, it was also arduous. And we thought, “Okay, it’s time for us to get our career started really.” So about maybe four of us, five of us were leaving and a new artistic director came down and basically said those of us that had formed this company and were the senior members of this company would not be getting the leading roles anymore that other actors would be getting it. And like 11 people left, half the company left. At the same time, John Houseman commissioned David Mamet to write a play for the company. So he got on our bus from Louisville Kentucky to Columbus Ohio. And when we got off the bus permanently, he took Kevin Klein, Sam Chouchevitz, and me to Yale Cabaret to do All Men Are Whores. It’s why we were there. He handed me the woods, and that was the beginning of my relationship with him.

And what would you say to someone who no idea about anything David Mamet? What made his writing so wonderful that you kept coming back and wanted to keep working with him?

Oh, well, and I’ve said this out loud several times. The two greatest teachers I’ve had in my career are David Mamet and Stephen Sondheim. To speak David’s language accurately and to attempt to understand his characters and to be able to express the rage of David is so fulfilling. It’s so fulfilling. His language is incredibly musical. He himself is very musical, but the language is musical. And I love being able to… I don’t want to say conquer, but achieve his rhythms. And you can’t paraphrase David. You can’t drop anything from his… It’s a lesson, it’s another acting lesson to accomplish a character in one of his plays.

And for all the passion that he puts into his writing on the personal level, just like working with him. What was that like? How would you describe that?

We had a blast. Well, we had a blast because Kevin Klein and I lived in Chelsea, and David moved into Chelsea. We lived on 21st. He lived on 20th Street, and he would come over a lot and I’d cook breakfast. And I remember walking down the street with him in New York in the theater district, and we went right by a marquee that said, “Water…” Oh, water buffalo. American Buffalo. I’m thinking Water for Elephants. American Buffalo, David Mamet’s American Buffalo. And we looked at each other and went, “Oh wow. Oh, there’s your name up in lights. Wow.” I’ll never forget that night as long as I live. Because David was just David until David became David.

And of course you mentioned Sondheim, and I was watching this wonderful interview you had with Stephen Colbert where you mentioned that what you had just said about them being the two biggest influences. And I was wondering Sondheim and Mamet and these people who lead other creative people, whether a conductor or an art director or an editor even. What makes a good creative person who leads other creative people? It’s kind of like what makes a good director, but in a more universal sense.

That’s a difficult question because there’s personality involved and sometimes you have to negotiate the personality to get to the information. And sometimes they’re not necessarily desirous to lead or to instruct. You know what I mean? So in Stephen’s case, he was a task master. He wanted his music to be sung purely. There’s no riffing. No, I mean, he said to me one day, “Don’t slide up to the note. You’re not doing your cabaret acts.” And I thought, “My cabaret act, I didn’t think I was.” And I didn’t even know I was sliding, but I understood that I was sliding because I was afraid I wasn’t going to hit the note on pitch.

So he taught me that. But the method in which he taught me that was a little cruel. David is a natural teacher. He’s just a natural teacher. And because he has such a command of the English language, he can consolidate an idea in three words so that it becomes crystal clear. To this day, I use quotes of David’s like, “Do not act upon the words. Let the script do the work. You have the phone.” And what does that mean? You don’t need to impose anything on the words. Let the definition of the word ring by simply saying the words, let the definition of the word ring by simply saying it, as opposed to “I’m mad.” It’s easier and more potent to say, “I’m mad.” I don’t mean that you’re changing your emotional life, and that’s a bad example, but it’s more about give each word its proper weight and that’s another one of David’s expressions. And the more I act, the more I understand Bella Mooney’s to Paul Mooney. Paul, “Less is more.”

As actors, we do not have to work so hard. If we trust the text and if the text is as good as a Mamet play, you simply have to say the words. You don’t have to supply a lot of extraneous stuff, either movement or inflection. That’s a very valuable lesson for an actor. You have to trust the playwright. It’s not our responsibility to improve on a playwright. It’s simply our responsibility to deliver the playwright’s ideas through his words.

Of course, late 70s and into the 80s, two massive productions that you are now, of course synonymous with, Evita and also Les Mis. There’s a story in the Times Review for that first Les Mis that describes how you listened to a tape of a song in the plane ride over to London while you were doing another production and it’s like something clicked in your mind where you said, “I got to do this new play.”

You mean for Les Mis?

Yes.

That’s all incorrect.

Oh, is it?

Yeah.

Oh no, the New York Times is wrong.

Yeah, but it is not the first time.

I was doing Oliver, Cameron McIntosh was producing Oliver, and he came into my dressing room and he said, “Oh, you’re perfect for the next musical I’m doing.” “When and where?” “London, nine months.” I went, “Well, there goes that.” Then John Houseman was going to do a production of the Cradle Will Rock. And we did that, and then we were invited to perform that at the old Vic.

So it was in the newspaper that I was coming to London with the Cradle Will Rock. Cameron came to my apartment before I left for London and played me the French original recording of the Alain Boublil Claude-Michel Schönberg Les Mis. I heard four bars and knew it was a hit, just my Sicilian witch instinct. I went, “That’s a hit.” He said, “Do you want to stay?” And I went, “Yes.” When I should have said, “Call my lawyer.” But that’s how that happened. When I went to London for the Cradle Will Rock, I started rehearsals for Les Mis. I would rehearse during the day and then do the show at night.

And when you look back now on that original run of Les Mis, what do you think? What takes you back?

Well, it was amazing. First of all, I went so New York on this cast. This was a Royal Shakespeare company with a few outliers like me, Michael Ball, Frances Conway. Frances Conway, oh God bless her, she’s so brilliant. Frances Ruffelle. We were rehearsing in what was the Royal Shakespeare Company’s home, which was the Barbican. And I walked in the building and I went, “Why does this feel familiar?” And so basically, I felt, eventually when I learned my way around the Barbican rehearsals rooms and stage, I felt like I was back at Juilliard. And then on opening night at the Palace, Trevor came to me and said that my being in the Royal Shakespeare Company made perfect sense because Michelle Sandini was a co-founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company and he was a co-founder of the Juilliard School of Drama.

I didn’t do it in New York because one night at the Barbican, we hadn’t even moved down to the Palace yet, I was on stage in the dreaded barricade scene, listening to Colm Wilkinson sing, Bring Him Home, which I did every night and went, “I don’t want to do this in New York because this is the perfect cast in the perfect musical, in the perfect environment.” And the only thing stage actors have are their performances and the memory of it. And I have said this ad nauseum, I’ll never know whether I made the right decision or not by not doing it in New York, but London was my company. I belonged to the London Company. It was magical.

And was there a difference between doing something in the West End versus doing something in New York? Is there a culture shift you have to get used to?

Well, I’ve always said audiences are audiences around the world. If it’s good, they will react the same way. Because we’re the same person. We are humans. I find Broadway disturbing now. I find it… It’s just not, I don’t know. It’s not the same thing. I question the quality.

The quality of the audience, or the quality of the production or both?

No, not the quality of the audience. The quality… It’s so expensive that corners are being cut and there goes quality.

Sounds like magazines.

Yeah.

You once told the Times, “I’m a tragedian, I’m a comedian. I’m fearless on the stage. I’m scared to death in my own life, paranoid, terrified. Put me on a stage, and there’s nothing I won’t do to the fullest. It hasn’t been easy.” And actors are known to be superstitious and I’m wondering, in all of the stress of being paranoid and putting your life out there on the stage, is there a Patti LuPone routine before any performance that you do, what’s your day like? You’re like “I got to perform today.” What is the steps in your head you got to do, from before you leave the house and before you step out on stage?

Well, that’s one of the great things about being a stage actor. You know where you have to be at 8:00 at night, so you can structure your entire day. When I do film, I don’t know if I’m working every day. And I find that if we go late, your lunch is later. On set with the stage, I eat at a certain time, I work out at a certain time, I rest at a certain time. I show up at the theater at a certain time. I’m coming home at a certain time and I like that discipline.

So I have a complete schedule of what will occur once we open. And then when I get to the theater, it’s all about, okay, this is my environment. We decorate our own dressing rooms, because it’s a second home, really. I’ll sleep there, I’ll eat there, I’ll do my ablutions there. You know what I mean? It’s my second home, so it has to feel like home. And there are certain mementos that reminds me of my career, of my dedication to this craft, and then I hit the deck after I spend time in my dressing room. When I hit the stage, that’s where the responsibility kicks in.

Any superstitions?

Oh, all of them. Absolutely all of them.

Which are you the most stickler for?

Well, one of the ones that really shouldn’t happen. And I was teaching a young stage stage manager today. I said, “Don’t ever check anybody in,” because she checked in Mia and she checked me and I went, “Don’t, don’t, don’t check anybody in. Make sure people sign in because somebody might be missing. And you’ve checked them in and nobody knows that they’re not here.” So you have to sign in. You have to put your initials on the call.

Oh, I see. You do it yourself. You can’t have someone else-

You have to do it yourself. Whistling backstage, using the name of the Scottish play, we actually kicked Arthur Lawrence out of the theater during a preview of Gypsy. He was backstage. He named the Scottish play, Lenore Nemitz who played Mazepa freaked out and she said, “Patty, get him out of here. Get him out. Somebody get him out. somebody’s going to get hurt. Get him out of here. Get him out of here.” And I said, “Arthur, come with me.” “What?” I said, “I’m going to put you out this door.” He said, “What did I do?” He had no idea. There was a side door to the St. James, which was where the audience was lined up. We pushed him out and through the door, I said, “Turn counterclockwise three times.” He did. I said, “Curse. Spit over your shoulder and ask to come back in.” And the audience is going, “What the hell’s going on? Oh my God, that’s Arthur Lawrence. What’s happening?” So he went through the ritual and came back in and Lenora was able to calm down.

I’m trying to think of what the other superstitions are. It’s all about pretty much getting injured or stuff like that. The other thing that I just play right into is, is the house haunted? Yeah, I hope so. Am I going to see orbs? And pretty much every Broadway house is haunted. There’s no question.

You know what I have to ask. I’ve asked other people this question and gotten surprising results. Have you ever seen a ghost?

Yeah.

Okay. What was the last ghost you saw or the most convincing to you?

I think it was probably in the Belasco with Women on the Verge. There were orbs in the mezzanine.

Orbs. Tell me about, what do you mean orb? Like orb of light?

Blue lights. And one of the girls in Gypsy, I can’t remember her name. Her brother works on… It was a show. Was it Ghost Hunters? She could not go near the mezzanine. She said, “No, no, no, no, no. There’s something going on up there.”

I have have many artists on the program and of course, you’re one of them now. As a performer, you’re singing something that’s not written by you, someone else’s directing you, it’s someone else’s costumes, someone else’s choreography. Is there a performance in particular, I’m sure there are many, in your career that you believe is a good example of you putting something into it that was utterly Patti LuPone, that only you could have… Is there one in particular you feel like I improved on something here that I’m particularly proud of.

I learned more after the show was closed, which is a drag. But when you leave something, all of a sudden you go, “Oh wow. Oh yeah, that’s what that meant. Oh, I wish I’d known that when I was doing it.” I’m now also not the best… I think I could work harder. I think there’s an element of laziness in me. Oh, yeah. And I’m slow to learn. It takes me a long time to understand and that’s another reason why I love the theater. I discovered that if I’m in a long run, which I will never be in again, I’m just too old to commit to a year’s contract. But if I’m in a year’s contract, I find that the first three months, I’m acting on adrenaline. And then right at the end of the three month, I’m going, “Ugh. I’m bored out of my mind.” And the acting stops. And that’s when the acting begins.

I’m not imposing, as David says, “Imposing on the line.” I’m just going, “I’m bored. I’m going to do nothing.” And then doing nothing, all of a sudden the bubble’s burst. And then my job is to edit a performance down to the absolute stillest I can stand so that the information is simply the text. We’re not automatons, we’re human beings.

And now you’re back on Broadway in The Roommate. As the time of we’re recording, this opens previews, I think in about a week, the end of August here. Tell us about this play, the Roommate. What is it about?

It’s about two women that transition from obsolete to… I think certain women at a certain time in their lives are considered obsolete or redundant. And these two women find each other and discover each other and themselves through each other. And they are polar opposites. And I-

And it’s the two of you on stage, correct?

Just the two of us. And I adore working with Mia. Mia’s a friend from Connecticut, social friend from Connecticut, and this is the first time we’ve ever worked together. And it could not be easier. Could not be easier.

And I believe the two of you, both of you had a friendship with Sondheim.

Yes. Steve introduced us. Steve introduced us.

And what is sort of like a Sunday afternoon coffee session with Mia Farrow? Like what is she like behind—

Oh, my God. I could just sit and listen to her talk. I mean, she’s had the most phenomenal life’s just… And things will just… Little droplets will come out and you’re just mesmerized. It’s just incredible. Every time she talks, I want to say I’m just from Long Island. I mean, the life she’s had is phenomenal.

When you first were pitched this idea for the room and how did that come about? Was Mia attached to it when you came on, or was it happening independently at the same time?

No, Mia was attached to it and I was not the first choice, actually.

Oh, okay. And so what made you, when you read that, the play, what made you-

It was Jack O’Brien, someone who directed me one of my most successful performances with the acting company, the Time of Your Life, Kitty DeVille. And Mia and Chris Harper, the producer. And I thought, okay, this is something I want to do and I want come back to Broadway in a play.

And with a play where it’s just the two of you on stage, is that for the whole thing, is that more appealing to you or is it more daunting?

No, it’s more appealing. Much more appealing. If you’re in a musical, you’re controlled by those two tiny muscles, your vocal cords. You are at their mercy. You could feel 100%, but the voice goes, “Not today, sister.” And then I don’t ever like to miss, ever like to miss, so I don’t have that problem. I can go on with no voice and I’m actually kind of worried about the smoking. But in an odd way, plays are easier.

And a friend of mine is a huge fan of yours. And wanted me to ask you, how do you feel about people saying you pioneered and sort of elevated the idea of belting? That this is something that is attached to your bio. When people talk about you and talk about how great you are, especially with your voice, is that something that… How do you feel about that? Or how would you describe it?

Well, to-

Someone who’s not a vocal expert.

I didn’t know that I pioneered it. I think Ethel did, did she not?

Pioneered may be the wrong word, but you’re known for your acuity with it and kick ass examples of it.

Yeah, that’s my voice. Do you know what I mean? That is my voice. That’s always been my voice. It is a big voice in this little frame. If it’s true that my great granddad was Adelina Patti, then this is all in the DNA of my life. And I remember one of the first days of Julliard, we were sent to Lenoxville Hospital to Dr. Wilbur James School to measure our breath. I don’t know how they do that. For actors so that if you have a long passage, are you going to be able to sustain it with proper breathing technique? I have the breath control of an opera singer.

This is all the way I was born, more indication that I was born to the boards. I was born to do what I do. My voice is a result of a lack of knowledge, quite frankly. When I was growing up, I’d sing along to Dionne Warwick in those keys, not my keys. I didn’t even know what my keys were. And I sang along to rock and rollers. I sang along to when I was growing up. That was my music because that was the beginning of it.

So I don’t even know what I do. Thank God. I mean, had a vocal cord operation because I kept breaking a blood vessel in my vocal cord, which would fill up with blood, which would swell the cord, which would prevent me from singing. And I went to Joan later for rehabilitation. I did learn how to talk again, and then I had to get a proper technique. Even though I went to Julliard, all I did was imitate Marianne Mandarin in those preparatory classes. I didn’t know what breath was, what a soft palate, a hard palate was. I still don’t understand the diaphragm, how it works. What do you mean it’s empty when it goes like that? I don’t understand any of it. The inside of my body is a mystery, and so I just do what I do. I don’t know what I do and I just do it. That’s the truth.

In all your career, I’m curious, is there one… Speaking of belting and things like that, is there one sort of piece of music you’ve had to sing along to where you think back and go, wow, that was tough. I didn’t think I was going to pull it off.

Well, Rose’s Turn was probably the hardest thing. I mean, you’ve sung all night long and then you’ve got to do Rose’s Turn that night, and then for eight more shows.

Well, the day that this podcast will be available for download is the day that Agatha All Along debuts on Disney+.

Oh, wow.

And so how did this role come about?

Oh, well, it’s a funny story. Well, I make it a funny story. I gave up my equity card and I was sitting at my kitchen table going, “I wonder what direction my career is going to go in? Ring, ring. Hello, Marvel calling.” Literally.

Wow, okay.

Literally. And I went, excuse me? And it was Jack Schafer and Mary Livanos. Jack Schafer is the creator and showrunner, brilliant writer for Agatha and Mary Livanos is the Marvel producer. And they offered me Lillia. I can’t tell you much more because I got in trouble the last time, but I was thrilled to death every minute I was on this set with this cast and under Jack’s leadership and direction. It was a great experience. I hope that the audiences like it. I hope that I work with these actresses and actor again. I hope I work with Jack Schafer again. I hope Kevin Feige puts me in the Marvel world as I don’t know what, but it was a great experience.

What’s Aubrey Plaza like?

She’s a hoot. She’s a hoot. She’s the one that let everybody know we were roommates. When we were shooting, said, oh, I’ve been offered a play in New York. And I went, oh, how great, uh-oh, because she’s never been on stage. And then I thought, you know what? You need to stay with me because if you’ve never been on stage before, you need somebody there to talk you off the ledge. And she did.

How did it go for her?

Oh, are you kidding? She was the last man standing. She was fabulous in it, as was Christopher Abbott. They were wonderful, but things happen on stage. Christopher, I think he tore his Achilles and then she had to go on with the understudy, then she had to go in with a director. Then she had to go in with Christopher on crutches. She came to me. She was very sick. So okay, here’s the IV doctor. Here’s my throat doctor. Here’s my internist, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Here’s how I can help you get through this. It’s shocking. If you’ve never been on stage, what you were expected to do and what is sort of the norm? Like 12… What do you call it? 10 out of 12. It’s shocking if you’ve never been on stage.

What’s the hardest part about being on stage?

Probably the technicals, because right now I’m exhausted. That’s one of the reasons I’m lying down. It’s exhausting because you’re just standing there while all of the elements come together. Where the lighting designer is lighting, the set designer is making sure that the set is… All the elements come together, the costumes work, the sound work. It’s arduous. You kind of lose track of the play or the momentum of the play because you’re not running it. And so I would think, for me, the hardest part is technicals.

And then the second hardest part is previews and rehearsal. You’re just exhausted by the time you open because you have gone through technicals and now you’ve started previews, but they’re allowed to rehearse you five hours. And I have in my contract now that I have to have a day off after every six days, after every eight performances where they can make you work 16 days without a day off.

How do you memorize your lines? I remember seeing, I know you’ve had a friendship with Manny Patinkin, and one of my favorite New York memories is him walking down my block in Chelsea in New York with a script and seeing this guy mumbling to himself. And then I realized it was Manny Patinkin walking down the street with a script, trying to memorize lines. How do you memorize lines?

Well, I was on stage with Jonathan Price in Accidental, Death of an Anarchist. I think it was 84. And he said, “Get to the point, Patti.” I said, “What?” “Get to the end of the line.” I said, “What are you talking about?” He said, “Make your point.” What does that mean? Basically what he was saying was, I was speaking word by word by word, and it wasn’t making the point. So he taught me to look at a sentence, find out what the point of the sentence is, make that point, and the rest of the words will be easier to memorize. But he was basically saying that move the play along. I was holding him up.

And speaking of TV and Agatha, what kind of fan is more intense, a Broadway fan or a Marvel fan? You may not know about-

I think a Marvel fan. I think Marvel fan. I think I was shocked when I did the D23. Oh my God. I entered another universe. I thought I was at a Taylor Swift concert or the World Cup finale. I was shocked, shocked.

That kind of immense love, and not just clapping, but a cheering at the top of your lungs that… D23 is, for those who don’t know, is the big celebration Disney puts on and they tease all of their new stuff. And you guys did a performance, I think, in front of a huge audience.

It was insane. I mean, I was blown away. I was overwhelmed. They went, oh, do I like this? I think I do.

And you’ve done TV and film forever and going back and doing the Agatha show. Have you thought to yourself, yeah, I want to do more of this, just TV in general?

Yeah. I’d like to end my career on TV or in film.

Really?

Yeah.

Why is that?

It’s easy.

Perfect answer.

Exactly.

Are you someone who… Are you a binge watcher? I mean, nowadays on TV, there’s obviously there’s 5,000 shows.

I know, there’s too much.

There’s so much. I mean, is there something that… Are you watching any of it?

Abbott Elementary, the Bear, Slow Horses, Bridgerton. I’m trying to think what else I watch, Buccaneers. I’m sorry, Gentlemen Jack is off the air, but I’m not watching anything right now because I have too many lines to remember. And I think if I don’t think about the show that I’m doing something wrong. I’m reading. I’m doing a lot of reading.

If you had to describe who Patti LuPone is in three separate words, what would those three words be?

Funny, curious, a tourist.

Thank you to my guest, Patti LuPone, as well as to Ben Barna and Philip Rinaldi for making this episode happen. The editor of The Grand Tourist is Stan Hall. To keep this going, don’t forget to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter, The Grand Tourist Curator at thegrandtourist.net, and follow me on Instagram @danrubinstein. And don’t forget to follow The Grand Tourist on Apple, Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen, and leave us a rating or comment. Every little bit helps. Til next time!

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