At what point does the transformation process start, as an actor prepares to get into character backstage? For Jared Harris – who recently starred in Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming – it begins en route to the Young Vic, with a meditative stroll across Golden Jubilee Bridge. While performing as Gareth Southgate in Dear England, Joseph Fiennes began his preparations with a quiet cup of tea. Ken Nwosu, playing Othello at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, delays getting into role until the very last moment: “I wanna be me for as long as I can before the show begins.”
And what about Sarah Jessica Parker, starring alongside husband Matthew Broderick in Neil Simon’s comedy of marital strife, Plaza Suite? Parker would like to wish away the entire preparation process altogether. “The best thing about all of this, for me, is being on stage. Just open the gates. Let me at it. Put me on!”
Having observed the backstage rituals that take place across a range of London shows – from family musicals to Shakespearean tragedies and big, broad comedies – it has become clear to me that each actor’s process is as distinctive and unpredictable as the next. Interestingly, the atmosphere backstage often tends to be totally out of kilter with the tone of each production: the more intense the show, the more relaxed the ensemble.
Perhaps the silliest environment I encounter is backstage at The Homecoming, where Jared Harris confides, “It’s not a very serious atmosphere in here. Pinter’s play is so intense that it just can’t be too heavy.” As I step into the dressing room, I hear a plaintive cry of, “Why have I got your pants?!” There’s lots of chuckling and chatter and an awful lot of shaving, preening and hair combing. (It turns out that hair, in general, holds a huge significance for lots of the actors I talk to.)
The only nod to that Pinteresque intensity backstage – so bruisingly apparent throughout the production – is the fleeting glimpses I get of the actor Joe Cole, who darts around the narrow backstage corridors like a bullet released from a gun. As the half is called (30 minutes until curtain up) dry ice trickles through from the main stage, creating an eerie haze backstage. Jangly music jitters. The atmosphere is beginning to turn, yet, amid all of this, Harris remains utterly himself. He darts about, pointing out things on the monitor, telling me about friends and family gathered in tonight’s audience. Finally, he tears himself away, creeps up to the wings, rocks back and forth on his heels and, when the green cue light flares up, angrily stalks on to the stage.
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The exact moment each actor chooses to dive into character, and lose themselves in their performance, is fascinating to observe. Ken Nwosu insists he tries to stay as loose as possible for as long as possible, yet his physical preparations for playing Othello are strikingly intense. Long after the fight call (a pre-show safety check) and vocal warm-up is over, Nwosu is left prowling about – alone – on the Sam Wanamaker stage. Unlike the rest of the cast, Nwosu doesn’t utter a single word of Shakespeare. Instead, he trills his lips and sings a few arpeggios, massages his face and gazes piercingly around the stalls. It’s as if he’s emptying his mind. Possibly summoning up the audience. It’s a quietly simmering, captivating and near spiritual experience.
Farther down the river, the vibe could not be more different backstage at the National’s sumptuous musical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Witches. It’s the last week of the run and Katherine Kingsley is getting ready to play the Grand High Witch in a stage-stealing and deliciously terrifying performance. At first, there’s not a glimpse of menace to Kingsley’s warm demeanour. We talk about our children, the joy that is The Traitors, podcasts, music, Louis Theroux.
But when I return half an hour later, after makeup and costume, she opens the door and – adopting a dark, vicious Nordic accent – announces, “Velcome.” She is starting to disappear, the Grand High Witch emerging in her place. What is she thinking about as she waits in the wings? Her eyes narrow and her face almost throbs with disgust. “I’m thinking about how angry I am at the witches. How cardigan they’ve become. How M&S. How comfy. Enough!”
In solo dressing rooms, it feels as if a bit of each role can be felt throughout the space: a certain presence that isn’t entirely the actor’s own. Joseph Fiennes’s dressing room, where he’s preparing to play the famously unassuming England men’s football manager Gareth Southgate, is distinctly unshowy. While other dressing rooms are filled with fancy champagne, gifts and just a dash of glamour, Fiennes’s is pared back. Tidy. Practically begging everyone not to make a fuss.
It’s the final week of the run but Fiennes is still trying to get to the bottom of what makes Southgate tick. He’s clearly more than a little obsessed. “He’s a gentleman. A gentle man,” Fiennes says. “He was probably brought up in a much less gentle environment, with people shouting and managers throwing bottles across the room and putting the fear of God into their players. But what I love about Gareth is he clearly recognised that does not work. It’s quite brave and quietly revolutionary.” (Southgate himself hasn’t seen the play.)
For Fiennes, one of the key ways into Southgate’s character is through his beard; he spends a considerable amount of time carefully applying black mascara to his own to make sure the shape and colour are just so. Then there’s the hair (“I’ve trained mine to comb over in the opposite direction”) and the nose, which takes painstaking prosthetics work, and finally the voice. As Fiennes goes about his meticulous preparations, Southgate’s audiobook Anything Is Possible plays in the background. Fiennes repeats words to himself, homing in on the manager’s distinctive Crawley accent. The drawn-out diction. The faltering pace. The advice Southgate offers is touchingly unassuming. Make sure you say hello! Don’t forget to smile! Ask after people! “And how are you?” mutters Fiennes under his breath, radiating modesty, compassion and a sense of calm.
There’s a different kind of calm emanating from Sarah Jessica Parker’s carefully ordered dressing room at the Savoy theatre. An orange-scented diffuser creates a spa-like atmosphere. Treasured trinkets fill an ashtray, plucked from the real-life Plaza hotel in New York. Parker plays three different unhappily married women over the course of the production and each set of makeup has its own special position across a long line of dressing tables. There’s a gold-embossed collection of Yeats’s poetry propped against the mirror (“I try to read a poem every night”) and a picture of Parker’s stepfather, who passed away in 2022, in the corner.
Personal items belonging to Sarah Jessica Parker in her dressing room at the Savoy theatre (above). A sign to the stage at the theatre (below). All photographs: David Levene
It’s a space that feels highly personal and deeply considered. As we chat ahead of the show, it becomes clear that, for Parker, creating some sense of control of her space is key to her preparation. Having performed on Broadway from a very young age, she has a deeply ingrained respect for the theatre. Each building, she says, has its own unique rhythms and rituals, and all that needs to be figured out during the course of a run: “You create a path through the theatre. Literally a path. So you walk a certain way, get to stage right or stage left at a particular time. You have a certain exchange with the same actor every night before the curtain goes up. You might touch a piece of scenery in a specific way. It behoves you to understand those superstitions and not think of them as silly but, instead, an important part of the respect you show when you work in the building.”
Lately, Parker has been thinking of throwing out all her pre-show rituals. But she can’t quite let them go: “I’ve been pondering: what if I just toss out all those superstitions and routines, and see what happens? But then I think: that’s not very nice to the audience on that night. What if all goes terribly wrong and they’re the victims of my control study?” She lets out a giggle. “That’s how crazy I can be!”
‘As I wait, I channel the noise of the stadium’
Joseph Fiennes, Dear England, Prince Edward
Joseph Fiennes prepares to play Gareth Southgate in Dear England
Final makeup touches are made, then, backstage transformation complete, Fiennes psyches himself up to walk on stage
I make myself a cup of tea, settle in and gently go about my business. I do a vocal and physical warm-up. We’re performing on a slope, with three revolves often rotating in different directions, and that can play havoc with your knees and back. So I try to warm up with the guys. Then I come back to my dressing room.
The positioning of Gareth Southgate’s teeth is key to unlocking his accent. It helps me to access the man from Crawley, with his very specific diction and tonality, and allows me to get into character more quickly. There’s also a particular expression he has that I lean into. But these are just little tweaks. The last pieces of a massive puzzle that’s already in place after months of preparation.
For me, Southgate’s character lies in laying to rest the ghost of that penalty miss [at Euro 96]. He feels a certain happiness was stolen from the nation then and maybe that haunts him. Maybe he’s determined to banish the ghosts for good. I love playing with those themes. They’ve got me through a long West End run.
I have a little ritual as I wait in the wings. There’s this amazing convergence, achieved through Es Devlin’s wonderful set, which links up football, the stadium and the theatre. They all join together. So I channel the noise of the stadium, of Wembley, the reverberation and excitement. It’s wonderfully gladiatorial when you step out into those big football matches. That noise and that moment just washes over me and I’m placed right there. In the heart of it.
‘I spent a lot of time watching him’
Kel Matsena, Dear England, Prince Edward
Kel Matsena getting ready to channel Raheem Sterling, with banter, stretching and listening to music
The conversations from when you enter the building are so important. Having a laugh, that banter and energy is what keeps the show alive – so that, as players, we don’t feel like furniture in scenes, but fresh.
After warm-up, we come to our dressing room, have a bite to eat, play some music. When there’s a good song on, we all bounce around, so that however we feel when we come in, by 7pm our spirit has lifted.
If everyone is feeling mellow we might talk about some of the ideas raised in the play. Space. How humans came to be on this planet. Who we are. Football chat is there, too, especially on Fridays and Saturdays.
We all spent hours looking at football locker rooms in documentaries like All or Nothing. You see players zone in. A lot of headphones. All the phones. Texting their families. But there’s also always someone who has a loudspeaker. I spent a lot of time watching Raheem Sterling. Sometimes he’d join in on the periphery, poke a little fun. There’s a lot of crossover between locker room and backstage – that feeling of brotherhood.
My way in to Sterling is simple. He says “like” a lot. So I’ll just go “like, like, like” over to myself and I’ll feel my body change. Also there’s a thing he does where you see the pink of his bottom lip, so I’ll out-turn mine.
I think about stepping out as someone who is, for a lot of people, their hero. And then – boom – the music starts.
‘I get the outfit on and there she is’
Katherine Kingsley, The Witches, National
Katherine Kingsley spends the last 10 minutes before each performance pacing around backstage, getting into character
Kingsley putting on makeup (above left) and waiting behind the stage to make her first appearance as the Grand High Witch (above right).
Witchy goings-on in Kingsley’s dressing room
I always have the live feed playing in my dressing room, so that I can listen to the energy of the show as it goes up. We’ve got three different sets of children performing in the production, and each set brings a different energy. I try to tune into what the vibe is out there, then I decide how I’ll play it. Maybe sometimes I’m going to be really icy. Maybe sometimes I’m going to be cool and vicious. Just subtle nuances that help me get into the zone.
I actually dress myself, which is quite unusual. I do my wigs, my mask. It was my choice to stay in my little room and quietly get on at my own pace. I like to not feel hassled. I don’t go on until half an hour into the production. Initially, I didn’t like having such a long wait because I felt disconnected from the rest of the show. But I’ve learned to love it. It’s quite luxurious, just being able to listen to the play’s feed and use my makeup to transform into someone really different. I wear these piercing blue contact lenses. When people look into my eyes, it’s unnerving. We’ve created a really different image of evil – and I’m quite proud of that. As soon as I get the outfit on and the wig, it’s like: there she is. The Grand High Witch has arrived.
‘She’s nervous as well, which is handy’
Sinéad Matthews, Till the Stars Come Down, National
As Sylvia, Sinéad Matthews has a bridal quick-change in a corridor. Before the show each night, the cast pat each other’s backs while chanting, ‘Got your back!’
Matthews checks the script (above) and (below) final moments before going on stage
On a two-show day, when it comes to the second performance, you’ve gone through an emotional journey once, so it is already quite alive in your body. There’s a bit of adrenaline that’s still there, and so I guess it’s trying to hold on to that and not completely let it go so that you crash. Then it’s also like, “Oh God, what if I give everything I’ve got in the matinee and I’ve got nothing left for the evening?” But that never happens: it’s fine and very often you’ve got even more. It’s just all there, it lives in you. And when it has to come out, it comes out.
I tend to go into a real focused place. At the beginning of the run I can be locked in my script quite a lot. There’s something to do with how your body deals with nerves, and what’s the most productive way to use them in that time you’ve got, knowing that you’re going on stage in front of all these people. I find music helps me to focus and in fact Marc Wootton, who plays my husband, sends me a song each night. I like that because he’s chosen the songs thinking about my character, so you get an insight into him as well. And I think because it’s her wedding day and she’s so nervous, I can use my own nerves, which is handy. You’re not having to hide. You use it.
‘I try to get in my character’s headspace’
Ella Karuna Williams, Stranger Things: The First Shadow, Phoenix
Ella Karuna Williams gets a helping hand with hair prep to become Patty Newby in Stranger Things
This is my first professional stage appearance. I’ve learned how to prep my own hair. I try to get in my character’s headspace all the time. I don’t do too much vocal warm-up in here because I don’t want to disturb my dressing-room mate, but I sometimes do one that involves filling a cup with water and doing scales.
I always have a book with me for the interval. Doing this play has been insane. It’s so cool to know there are so many fans watching and that the story means so much to them. I love seeing the Hellfire T-shirts out in the audience.
‘I stay loose until it’s time to go’
Ken Nwosu, Othello, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
Nwosu with fellow Othello cast members in their dressing room (centre) and at a warm-up and fight call safety check (top). Nwosu’s only makeup is powder, to stop shine (above). Below: doing physical and vocal warm-ups before the evening’s performance
I feel comfortable doing theatre. It’s been a big part of my career so far and I really love it. If I won the lottery, I’d be on stage my whole life. I love having the audience there and feeling that immediate reaction. This’ll sound weird but it’s harder to tell a lie on stage. We can see it. There’s no one there to say, “Cut. Let’s do that again.”
I pretty much stay loose until it’s literally time to go. The stage manager shouts, “Go!” and we’re on. Some nights, I’m reminding myself where this guy is before the play begins. But that’s pretty much it. I want to achieve that feeling of liveness each time and I think you can only really get there by trusting all the work you’ve done. You know your words, you know the story, you know the foundation of everything. You can just forget about it now. It’s in your body. Just react to what’s in front of you. So when the play begins, it’s like the story doesn’t exist. We’re telling the story right there and then for the very first time.
I wasn’t always like this. When I was younger, I’d read my scenes before each entrance. If I had a break, I’d be backstage reading my script. The approach I have now is something I’ve had to learn over time. To trust the work. For me, when you’re looking at the words, you’re not allowing yourself to be affected properly by what other people are bringing to the piece. You’re thinking too much about yourself and your own performance. You’ll have a much more free and honest time if you let it all go. Just let the performance be what it’s going to be. Because that’s what we do every day of our lives. That’s reality. We don’t have a script.
‘I pop in for a chat before the show. It’s what we’ve always done’
Sarah Jessica Parker, Plaza Suite, Savoy
Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker share a quick hello after getting ready in separate dressing rooms
Prep done, Parker looks to her husband and co-star as she waits to go on (above). Above right: a coat tag from the Colonial theatre in Boston, a memento from when Parker performed there in 1976 that she has kept in her dressing room for every theatre run since. Above left: making final shoe adjustments while waiting in the wings
I think because there are a lot of people in my life, I don’t have much time when nobody is asking anything of me. So it’s really nice to be alone in a room, where people aren’t inquiring, needing, wanting. You don’t have to make small talk. You get to just think about your work. Prepare yourself. It’s really peaceful and rare. My husband [Matthew Broderick] feels the same way. Also the kids aren’t here with us in London. That’s different, too. If you’re at home you have laundry, grocery shopping – things that could be done and tended to.
I walk down to the stage and I’ll pop into Matthew’s dressing room and have a chat just before the show begins. It’s what we’ve always done. I don’t know how these things happen. Theatre has its own mysterious ways of creating routine. With every new production, you’re waiting to get into the theatre to start figuring it all out: what will the theatre tell me to do? Don’t walk that way to the stage! Go that way! It’s cuckoo, but all those things matter. They make a difference.
I’m mostly just on the stage with Matthew for the whole time. It’s a lot to hold in your head. I’m not cavalier about it. I wish I were, because I’d have a lot more free time in my brain during the day, if I wasn’t thinking about it so much. But it’s hard not to. We’re never off stage. I’ve done a million plays; there’s always a moment when you get to go off stage, grab something to eat, catch a paragraph or two from the New Yorker. But this one is different. Including its Broadway run, I’ve lived with this play for a number of years now, but it doesn’t feel any less important. Less terrifying. I just really care. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to have every detail decided. I wish I could be more casual. Have a better relationship with the performance. But that’s just the way I work. Maybe the details that matter to me will be the details that mean something to the audience – you convince yourself that a little bit of that craziness is what the audience deserves.
‘I have some rituals, but I’m not superstitious’
Matthew Broderick, Plaza Suite, Savoy
Broderick in the wings
Broderick checks himself in the mirror in his dressing room, while Davina Elliiot, principal dresser, looks on
I guess I’m already in the groove, because it’s a matinee day; I don’t have to shave again, that’s nice! It kinda feels like one show on a matinee day. You stop to eat and everything, but you’re still in the zone.
I don’t do a huge amount of preparation but I like quiet. I wouldn’t want to be answering a bunch of emails, then running on to the stage. I don’t look at my phone after the half-hour call, except to play solitaire, of course, which is very important! We’ve been doing the play a while now, so I don’t have to sit there and think about it – hopefully it’s in there.
The first time in front of an audience is the most anxiety-provoking – I may be relaxed now but I’m petrified then, hands shaking. I get very bad stage fright. But then I go to boredom in about half an act!
When it comes to transforming into my character, I have some rituals, like sitting and listening to the first part of the play. But I’m not superstitious, like some people have to make sure the right foot crosses on to the stage. Sarah has more of that than I do.
We stay pretty separate before the show. Somebody said, “How come you guys don’t share the dressing room?” But I think it’s good to keep some mystery about it. We don’t go home and talk about it much. I wouldn’t want to rehearse all day, go home and talk all evening, do the play together, put on all our stuff together – that would be crazy.
‘I’m pacing as I’m waiting in the wings’
Jared Harris, The Homecoming, Young Vic
Jared Harris as Max, with co-stars Nicolas Tennant and David Angland (above) and waiting backstage
Above left: personal items, including Harris’ wedding ring, are bagged up backstage. Above right: on the stairs behind the stage. Below: Harris in the corridor that leads to his entrance
The preparation process starts with me walking to the theatre. It’s a 20-minute walk, which I really like. It’s a discipline of concentration. Then everyone gathers on the benches outside and gossips. Then there’s the warm-up. A fight call. An intimacy call. Then we just hang around on the sofas on set. It’s a very fun and silly atmosphere. Finally, we start getting into costume. If the room at the end of the corridor is free, I go in there and start warming up my voice. Then I’m just pacing. You’ve still got nerves. They never really go. Even on a matinee, when you’re thinking, “Who the fuck goes to a matinee? I can’t believe I’ve got to do this twice today!” But the second you go on stage, it’s bam: “Can we get them?”
In the early days, I had a lot of anxiety about losing my place. Going blank. But eventually you realise you know the story well enough to keep things going. We all forget at some point. You can see saucers popping up in another actor’s eyes. Oh shit, they’ve forgotten!
Sometimes I’m pacing as I’m waiting in the wings. Or goofing about. Looking at the monitor. Trying to get a feel for the energy of the house. At this point, you know the play so well, you can mess yourself up by thinking about it too much. So I try not to think. The first line. Once you’ve got that in your head – that’s the train leaving the station and that’s it.
‘I think about what her life is like’
Indira Varma, Macbeth, Dock X
Varma transforming into Lady Macbeth
Above: reading Macbeth’s letter to his wife while lying on a spiky mat. Below: all set to sleepwalk
The biggest transformation comes when Lady Macbeth is in her nightie. I wanted her to be as everywoman as possible, rather than a villainess. I didn’t want her to look super-glam or evil to start with.
Before the show I lie on this spiked mat. It’s a bed of nails! I get really gnarly for the mad scene and stretching opens your chest. It’s about finding relaxation, doing this stuff. Letting yourself be open and grounded.
Sometimes I read Macbeth’s letter to her while I’m lying on my mat. I think about her life. She’s on her own a lot; what does she do with herself in that castle, when he’s off at war? She doesn’t have any mates, no one to share this letter with, which is why she needs to tell the audience. That’s what propels me.
A lot of people talk about Lady Macbeth’s journey. It’s hard because she starts with lots to do, lots of agency, then suddenly she disappears, and then she goes mad. I think she’s lonely. If she had a friend, when she’d read that letter to them, they would have said, “Witches?! What you talking about?! What d’you mean he’s gonna be king? Don’t be ridiculous!”
But because there’s no one to bounce it off, apart from her husband, she thinks it’s a good idea. I think about all those secrets she’s having to hold on to, and that’s why it comes out in sleepwalking. All the stuff she’s bottling up. He’s seeing it all happening in front of him, whereas she can’t say anything to anyone.
‘Made up, I feel the sassiest version of me’
Allie Daniel, Bella Brown and Madeline Charlemagne, Hadestown, Lyric
Above: Bella Brown, Allie Daniel, Madeline Charlemagne (left to right) turning into the Fates
Above left: makeup tips. Above right: waiting in the wings
Allie We all get our fans, and we’re all standing stage right, and what I notice is ... the string players and trombonists. You’re so aware of each other’s proximity, plus with in-ear monitors we can hear each other all the time. The voices of the others are very much part of the soundscape before I go on. They’re in my head.
Bella The makeup is one of the most important parts of getting ready: as soon as you start watching this process of different layers being added, it’s like adding on who my character is, what she looks like, why she chooses to look that way. Of all the characters in the show, the Fates are the only ones so put together. That’s because together they are this finished trio who see everything and know everything. When I’m out there, my makeup adds to that feeling of strength.
Madeline It affects the way other people look at you. When I leave and I’ve still got my eyes on, I’ll be on the train, just me again, but other people look at me like, “What’s she been doing?” I feel like a very bold version of myself: the sassiest, most confident Madeline. The mythological creature I’m playing is the woman I can’t be in the real world because of safety or societal pressure. At the auditions, our choreographer was like, “They’re vultures, snakes, big cats!” And that really resonated with me. It’s a bit of animal studies going on out there!
