Maria Friedman on playing a 16-year-old at 66: ‘I’m loving every second of it’

Maria Friedman: 'In this country, musical theatre is the poor cousin of the "great play"' - (Getty)

The thing is,” says Maria Friedman, “you carry it all with you. I am five years old, I’m 15, I’m 20, I’m 30. I am all those ages.” In a very real sense, the actor, director, and theatre stalwart is in fact 66 – though can currently be seen on stage playing a 16-year-old girl in the award-winning musical Kimberly Akimbo. “I think actors, particularly… that’s our equipment. It’s what we use,” Friedman tells me. “I don’t come with a laptop. I don’t come with a violin. I come with my life.”

We’re speaking over Zoom, with Friedman a few days into her run playing age-bent teen Kimberly Levaco at London’s Hampstead Theatre. In the play – a wry and lively modern musical – her character lives with a rare genetic condition that accelerates many signs of aging. To all intents and purposes, she’s a child trapped in the body of an older woman, staring down the barrel of a tragically short life expectancy. Friedman is, she says, “loving every second of it”.