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Hes 24 (today, in fact), from Belfast. Shes 19, was born in a Texas town called Humble and grew up in an Oregon suburb called Happy Valley. This Sunday evening, both will sit in the audience at Radio City Music Hall, hearing their names read as, at least, Tony Award nominees. In their Broadway debuts, Harry Potter and the Cursed Childs Anthony Boyle and Once On This Islands Hailey Kilgore have scored levels of acclaim and recognition few of their acting peers – or anyone, for that matter – could grasp. Deadline spoke to each about, among other things, what its like to be a Broadway star on the first attempt. Here are their words.
Couple things to know: If you havent seen Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Boyle, as the “purebred” wizard offspring of Draco Malfoy, occasionally does this Bobcat Goldthwait thing with his voice, when the character gets excited, thats both hilarious and endearing.
As for Kilgore, remember shes in the same Tony category as LaChanze, the actress who originated her Once On This Island character Ti Moune and is now performing as one of three Donna Summers in Broadways disco bio Summer.
ANTHONY BOYLE, 24
Scorpius Malfoy, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Tony Award Nomination: Best Featured Actor in a Play
Getting the call I was put up for various things in London, one of which was Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. My agent called and said, “Pack your bags, youre going to London.” Thinking back on it, its crazy. Im rehearsing Harry Potter and [my friends] are back at drama school. Im like, Oh man, I hope Im good.
Vocal wizardry I thought a lot about Scorpius Malfoy being purebred, with pure blood lines. Dogs that are purebred can develop throat problems, their larynx often swells and that causes breathing problems. They wheeze. So I gave that to Scorpius. It sounds quite clever when I say it now, but Id tried some really sh*t things as well. I was just throwing everything against the wall. Rehearsal is an amazing time to fail. I think I had Scorpius stutter for a couple of days, and Im sure he had a limp for a while.
Spellbound Because theres fire [onstage], you have to be very careful. I say the next play I want to do will be a two-hander, just sitting on porch, maybe Chekhov, just chatting and drinking tea. No magic…It can be a real headf*ck at times.
He said what now? Its my first [Broadway] play, and my first time in New York. I love it. The city is just filled with possibilities, man. It just opens up. Ive never been in a place that pulses like this. You can feel an energy in New York. In Belfast you can feel an energy, but here it pulses on every corner. Last night I saw a guy who was chasing people with a pole, and someone called him “an HBO gangster.” I thought, Now what is that? So thats my new thing, saying “HBO gangster.”
Bowie & Juliet I did the worst production of Romeo & Juliet. I based Romeo on Bowie. It was the worst…it was set on a chessboard. People got up and left. Shockingly bad. Just a really bad piece of theater. I based Romeo on Bowie because at that point I was 16? 17? and I just wanted to play Romeo like a horny 14-year-old, which at the time is what I thought he was. So I played Romeo as Bowie in Bowies Thin White Duke stage.
Has he seen the Bowie exhibit in Brooklyn? I dont really have much free time. My family came over [from Ireland] and we went to Central Park and rode around on bikes. And we went to a [Tony-related] party and my little sister, who is 13, she just killed it, she just owned that party. Everyone loved her. She was dancing with everyone. To have her there, it was just a really lovely moment. It was their first time seeing America. Actually, not my dads first time. He came when he was 15 or 16 as part of the Children of the Troubles, a transfer program to see what lifes like not living in a war zone. He went to Seattle. It was the first time he had pizza. So when he came over to see me, he said, “They still got them dollars?” They do dad. And same pizzas we have in Ireland…
Game of Thrones, Season 4, Episode 6 Oh f*cking hell! You havent seen it, my tour de force? It was my first week at drama school. I flew back to Ireland to shoot for two days, and when I went in, the dialogue coach was like, We want you to do a Northern accent. And I was like, I cant do a Northern accent. All Id done was a Cockney accent, so Im the only Cockney in Westeros. Im one of the Bolton Guards. Everyones like [adopts whispery posh British accent, You know nothing Jon Snow, and Im like [in thick Cockney], ees naught in d dungeon. I looked like Dick Van Dyke in f*cking Mary Poppins. I watched it recently and cringed. Dire.
But I got a cool death. I get my throat cut by Gemma Whelan, who plays Yara Greyjoy. And she was so kind. It was my first day and I had no idea what I was doing. I had three lines and she was like, You want to run your lines, and I was like, Oh yeah cool. Thinking that was a normal thing. I look back now and she really threw me a bone. What a cool chick.
Outside Hogwarts I have the working class drama Come Home, in UK, and Ive done a three-part Agatha Christie BBC series, Ordeal By Innocence. Bill Nighy plays my dad.
And then I have the Tolkien biopic at Fox Searchlight. Nicholas Hoult plays Tolkien. I play Tolkiens best pal, the war poet Geoffrey Bache Smith, and that was a real honor, man. The first time Ive played a real human being. I played a young Ian Paisley in The Journey but it was cut from the film so f*ck em.
Bloodlines My granddad had his hand damaged when he was younger, and the ligaments were all skewed. He wears a black glove. He was the first person I ever heard recite Shakespeare. When he was younger the Catholics couldnt get an education….he worked in a library and just consumed books. One of the most intelligent men Ive ever met. He can recite poetry and recite Shakespeare. And I remember him saying, “The midwife wonderd and the women cried O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth.” And I was like, thats f*cking cool, whats that? He said Richard III [Henry VI, Part 3]. So we have this joke that when he dies Im going to take his glove and play Richard as a living reincarnation of him. When something happens, he has a fall or he gets a cold, hell message me and say, “Youre one step closer.” Ill ring him and go, “When can I put the glove on?”
From there to here When I was a kid I had a disease in my leg and couldnt really walk properly. Its called Perthes Disease, an erosion of the bone. It happens to young boys. So I couldnt play sports. I come from a sporting family, so I would watch my brother and the other boys play football, soccer, from the window, and I would do their voices. I just started doing stuff like that. And then I was expelled from school when I was 16. I had a lot of creative energy and nowhere to put it, and my mom was like, You need to get a job.
I was doing a press thing for the Tonys recently, looking in to the lens of the camera , saying, “Hi, Im Anthony Boyle and youre watching CBS,” and next to me Denzel Washington is doing the same thing. And I was like, What is my life?? This is mad. But then you have to go [drops voice to nonchalant tone], “Oh, hello fellow nominee.” You have to just, like, adopt that. But I rang my brother that night and said, Me and Denzel are best mates!
HAILEY KILGORE, 19
Ti Moune, Once On This Island
Tony Award Nomination: Best Leading Actress in a Musical
Having fun yet? When I started out, I wanted everything to be perfect, I had to have both hands white knuckling everything. Then I really learned, with this show, that sense of like letting things go, letting them kind of just happen. Right now Im in this really beautiful place where I know what Im doing. My body knows what its doing.
Enter Ti Moune I was so lucky for my first preview and my first opening night. I get two entrances in the show, one at the top with the storm, and then I get my big entrance. So I get all my nervous energy out when I first get to cross that stage.
Actually, she can I cant dance. I cant dance. I have two left feet. As a little girl I took a program…in South African dance, drum, and art that Id go to every summer. I actually did have a foundation for the basic movements, though our dance in the show is Afro-Haitian, Afro-Caribbean. So Camille sent me to some of the coolest dance instructors ever. I mean, I shouldnt say Im not a dancer because Ive had the foundations, but when you move to New York and see people doing triple pirouettes, youre like, No, Im not a dancer.
Tony Season Its so fun. We just had our big Tony nominee luncheon and I got to talk to everyone and meet everyone and hug everybody. And with all of the other award shows that are happening, we get to go and be together and be a community. A lot of people are taking me under their wing and really guiding me. Cynthia Erivo [The Color Purple] has been a big guiding light for me. And LaChanze [Tony nominated, in the same category as Kilgore, for Summer: The Donna Summer Musical] has been really, really supportive. In fact, all three Donnas over at Donna Summer have been very, very supportive. And Ashley Park from Mean Girls.
Broadways original Ti Moune LaChanze [Once on This Island, 1990] very clearly wants me to have my own experience with Once on this Island, and shes been very supportive in that way. Shes especially been supportive about the day-to-day maintenance and taking care of yourself emotionally. If you dont keep that in check, everything else can start to crumble around you. Being a young black girl in this business is an experience in itself, and LaChanze is just always encouraging me to use my voice and not be timid, and to not get overwhelmed or intimidated, because I deserve to be here just as much as everyone else. Shes beautiful, shes a light.
After this island Im getting to that weird place that every actor gets to, when its almost time to think about whats next but the show is [still] the first priority. Im starting to think about whats next. Its scary and exciting and theres lots of cool stuff on the horizon. I dont want to limit myself. I want to go wherever the wind takes me.
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