Stage Door Jonny

Lesley Manville (Act II)

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 12:33:30 GMT

In the second half of Jonny’s chat with Lesley Manville, Jonny recalls seeing her onstage for the first time in The Cherry Orchard with Judi Dench, what she learned from Judi, the story about working with her that she won’t repeat (but you should hear it, so here it is), why some great performers need to be on the verge of laughter, Tony Sher flashing in Tamburlaine the Great, her 13 projects with Mike Leigh, the man who influenced Lesley’s stage work maybe more than any other, playing a hamster at the Royal Court for a 10 year old, the pressure on young actors now, telling Caryl Churchill how she could improve Serious Money, breaking down the method behind Max Stafford-Clark’s rehearsal process, her response to men who take up too much space in the rehearsal room, where her confidence comes from and the magic- and pitfalls- of last shows.

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Lesley Manville (Act I)

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 05:00:00 GMT

This weeks guest is a gem: Oscar nominee and two time Olivier-award winner, the magnificent Lesley Manville. In her plushly upholstered dressing room at Studio 54, Lesley and Jonny discuss him hunting her like a fox, her upcoming appearance in Marianne Eliott’s Les Liasons Dangereuses, how theatre is a time machine, ending her triumphant run as Jocasta opposite Mark Strong in Robert Icke’s Oedipus on Broadway, her fabled 15 minute monologue, getting ill and wondering whether her lifelong feeling that she didn’t take her characters home with her was really true, wondering if great actors must be private people, Sam Mendes‘s advice about lying and it’s relationship to acting and the all-conquering past that Jonny and Lesley have in common.

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Tom Morris (No Interval)

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 13:26:15 GMT

(CONTAINS VERY STRONG LANGUAGE) In the this week’s episode Jonny talks to celebrated theatrical disruptor Tom Morris. They talk about Tom’s most embarrassing moment in the theatre (it’s very embarrassing). His artistic directorship of Battersea Arts Centre and putting on shows without a script; how his work in alternative theatre was incorporated by Nick Hytner at the National; making Jerry Springer: The Opera; making Hytner experience Gay Shame; the genesis of the theatrical mega-hit War Horse; the two types of directors according to Simmo (spoiler: its blockers and wankers); when the floor opens up in front of a director, the paranoia sin-bin and what to do about it; why a puppet and a mirror gave Tom two of his most thrilling experiences at the theatre; why uncertainty in the theatre can provoke the perfect audience state; the creativity of an audience, setting Romeo and Juliet in a care home; what nags at him about the shows he’s done and getting older and less prophetic.

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Sir Greg Doran (Act II)

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 16:25:56 GMT

In the second act of their chat, Sir Greg Doran remembers some of his late husband and leading man, Anthony Sher’s most unforgettable moments; Greg’s theory of “crossroads” and examples of how to meet them; Shakespeare’s radical extremity; Greg’s theory of what plunged the Bard into his late great tragedies; why Ian Mckellen defaces bibles; the comfort to be found after bereavement in Shakespeare’s brutality; the death of Tom Stoppard and Greg’s memories of him- and Tony Sher’s Yahrzeit candle.

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Sir Greg Doran (Act I)

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 09:51:50 GMT

Jonny’s guest for his 100th episode is class on a stick. Sir Gregory Doran is the former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, for 35 years and with the late Sir Anthony Sher one half of one of the most celebrated power couples in British theatre (and possibly the first pair of married Knights). In this episode Jonny and Greg reminisce about meeting on Derek Walcott’s Odyssey, Greg’s padded bra and a portrayal of Lady Anne that silenced his bullies, memories of Tony Sher’s groundbreaking Richard 3rd, being taught a painful lesson by his future husband (that Tony had learned by being kicked up the arse by Jonathan Pryce), how Flaubert helped Greg become a director, killing the laughs at a matinee by announcing the Nobel Prize winner, how new shoes crashed Titus Andronicus’s jeep, throwing crockery at his leading man, Tony Sher’s occasional torment, writing about death as though it were Tony’s next great role and how they are still collaborators after death (on a new book), as they were in life.

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Elliot Levey (Act II)

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 13:50:26 GMT

In the second half of Jonny’s chat with Elliot Levey, Elliot makes the case for why good actors submit; how directors reveal themselves through notes and acting that isn’t “mirror-kissing”; the moment Elliot regretted in the theatre and the horrible play that prompted him to nearly leave it mid performance via a fire exit; spending a decade at the National Theatre, how plays stay fresh and why Saturday night shows often smell of farts; what pisses him off about the theatre, the joy of Simon Russell Beale in a tiny part, the many delights of Polonius and a sudden Proustian recall of Jonny at the very beginning of his career.

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Elliot Levey (Act I) - Featuring Guest Stars Rachael Stirling & John Lithgow

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 08:13:12 GMT

Jonny’s guest is the two time Olivier award winner and Loveliest Man in British Equity, Elliot Levey. In his dressing room at the Harold Pinter theatre before his award-winning performance in Mark Rosenblatt’s Giant, Jonny and Elliot begin by lifting the lid on podcasting’s dirty secret and Elliot’s generous superfan. They break down Giant, a play about Roald Dahl’s antisemitism at the time of the real-world horror of the war in Gaza, how Elliot’s view of the play and his character shifts with each days headlines and the catharsis of drama in a moral maze; there’s a delightfully unexpected visit from Rachel Stirling, a memory of working with her mother, Dame Dianna Rigg, and the delivery of a bottle of in-character rosé; Elliot’s memory of being in a play that addressed the aftermath of horror on the night of terrorist attacks on London, why theatre isn’t binary, in praise of being boring, an equally delightful visit from John Lithgow (and an insight into how Jonny seduces future guests) and Elliot’s theory that all supremely talented people are also supremely nice.

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Mark Strong (Act II)

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 14:02:00 GMT

In the second half of Jonny’s chat with Mark Strong, his guest describes feeling hated during Ivo van Hove’s A View From the Bridge; the strong conviction he had about the playing of Eddie Carbone; becoming a movie actor (not star), what he learnt from the camera and taking it back to the stage; working with Ivo before he became the global theatrical influencer he is now, his mischief,and how he fought the great director over what turned out to be strokes of genius; his sheer terror before he started performing View and the joy of conquering fear; creating “the right to be looked at”; building a character through the body; what he needs from a director and what he doesn’t; his “rant” about the business; two aging actors talk about innovations in sound; his worries about Macbeth and Jonny’s theory of the murderous king’s intrinsic sweetness; what pisses him off about the theatre and what he still wants from it.

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Mark Strong (Act I)

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 19:12:35 GMT

Jonny is joined this week by the actor who is the current toast of Broadway for his portrayal of Oedipus in Robert Icke’s updating of the great tragedy, Mark Strong. They start off by talking about Simon Russell Beale, original inspiration for SDJ and the way talent is sometimes undecodable. Being told what Mark’s “thing” was at drama school, the attraction of charm, his very unusual origin story, the importance of Steven Berkoff and fronting a punk band in making him a performer; the difference between being an artist and an artisan, working with the late Helen McCrory and Ian McKellen, a debate about Al Pacino- and uncontrollable crying as Oedipus.

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Paule Constable (Act II)

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 11:23:43 GMT

In a second half lightly underscored by the Wagner seeping in from Glyndebourne’s Parsifal, Jonny hears how the doyenne of modern lighting designers spent her formative years in the creative ferment of Theatre de Complicité, the tough love from another designer that propelled her, what makes an experience on a show great for her, the two types of directors, splitting up with Katie Mitchell, what makes light walk into a room, the change in the aesthetic she championed in the modern theatre, why she’s retiring, her relationship with fear, bothering Nathan Lane, missing her kid’s birthdays, why she’s never wanted to be a cinematographer, the fundamental change in the culture and what she wants for young artists today.

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Paule Constable (Act I)

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 10:20:05 GMT

Stage Door Jonny gets well classy this week, with a double episode recorded in the gilded environs of Glyndebourne. One of the greatest influences in the modern theatre on how we see and experience a world onstage, Paule Constable is the nonpareil of modern lighting designers. The most nominated artist in Olivier Award history (17 nominations, 6 wins, 2 Tony awards) Paule has defined a visual aesthetic in modern theatre. War Horse, Curious Incident, Wolf Hall, His Dark Materials, the 25th anniversary production of Les Mis, Paule has her fingerprints all over modern theatre. But she’s retiring! Jonny goes in search of why. They talk rock’n’roll lighting, running over the South Downs to work, learning to look, torturing a performer with light, what happens sometimes when you put light to music, the loneliness of the long-distance lighting designer, how to make an actor glow and the spirit of her fighter pilot father that made her bold enough to pull off the audacious lie that started her career.

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Ewan McGregor (Act II)

Tue, 02 Dec 2025 11:35:50 GMT

The second half of Jonny’s conversation with Ewan McGregor kicks off with reminiscences of Oscar Isaac’s covid-era Oedipus. What Ewan needs from a director like Michael Grandage and their most recent partnership, Lila Raicek’s My Master Builder; scenes with Kate Fleetwood that felt like dancing and giggling together in the wings afterwards; Ewan’s battle with fear, drying onstage and being willed on by supernumeraries; drying in the middle of a song in Guys and Dolls; seeking the utopia of relaxation; being put in a chokehold on the set of Black Hawk Down and the insight it gave him into Iago; his admiration for Alan Cumming; what pisses him off about theatre and the tantalising plans he has to get back to it.

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Ewan McGregor (Act I)

Fri, 28 Nov 2025 13:27:35 GMT

Welcome back! A slightly lengthy hiatus comes to a close with this, the first episode of Jonny’s Festive Season. And what more festive guest to kick off with than Ewan McGregor? There’s a distinct frisson with the Stage Manager, the question of whether actors should just shut the fuck up, being frustrated by some theatre interviews,

Ewan’s three plays with Michael Grandage, learning his lines before rehearsals begin (and crying over Iago), how acting has changed for him over time, starting his career working backstage, sticking pornography in a senior actors folder, the huge influence of his uncle, Denis Lawson. How being beaten up in Glasgow gave him a key to unlock his acting, Little Malcolm and his Struggle Against the Eunuchs, naked and slipping (arse-first) towards an elderly matinee audience in Salisbury, his farting co-star and how he learned to steer an audience to make a play land.

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Denis O'Hare (Act II)

Sun, 10 Aug 2025 07:26:50 GMT

In the second half of Jonny’s chat with actor and writer Denis O’Hare, we hear the harrowing tale of a confrontation at a French airport, its relationship to his investigation of male violence in his play An Iliad, performing it for an audience of soldiers, not understanding what just happened after performing a show, how bad blocking once made him cry, why some plays can’t be left at the curtain call- and the experience of working on Sondheim’s last work.

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Denis O'Hare (Act I)

Fri, 08 Aug 2025 21:36:23 GMT

Tony Award-winner, 2,800 year old vampire, bona fide American Horror and one of the most thrilling actors on the modern stage or screen, Denis O’Hare is Jonny’s guest this week. In his dressing room at the National Theatre in London, far too close to the time to go onstage, Denis and Jonny discuss what learning means to an actor, brutalist architecture, why he’s a bad director, saying “why?”, the influence of his friend and virtuoso writer John Logan, the indignity of his first role (a pig), music and poetry in his work, contradicting a legendary director of comedy and celebrating not working with the people he shouldn’t.

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Matthew Warchus (Act II)

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 07:28:20 GMT

In the second half of their chat, the artistic director of the Old Vic, director of the internationally acclaimed hit musical Matilda and perhaps modern theatre’s pre-eminent master of comedy, Matthew Warchus, discusses laughter, audience noises, not having a plan, the illusion of fusion and the philosophy that it will all work out in the end; the obstacle of fear, the unknowability of an actor’s courage, loving Michael Gambon and not hassling him about his lines; how watching a good rehearsal spikes his blood sugars, being in an elevator with Harvey Weinstein, being trapped in a relentless loop of dissatisfaction, his legacy- and the nights sitting in that beautiful Old Vic auditorium that will stay with him forever.

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Matthew Warchus (Act I)

Thu, 31 Jul 2025 17:03:32 GMT

One of the titans of the English-speaking theatre joins Jonny for a deliciously insightful chat this week. Sitting in the storied auditorium of the Old Vic, outgoing boss, Olivier and Tony award-winning theatre and film director, Matthew Warchus guides Jonny through a decade of coming into that space to think; why directors should be waiters, Tragedy and whether or not he sees the point of it, under-rehearsing and why vagueness is important, what not to say in America, his foundational relationship with Mark Rylance and the awkward eavesdropping that shaped his approach to being a director; turning mathematics into emotion, using distance onstage and why not all laughs are equal.

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Indira Varma (Act II)

Fri, 25 Jul 2025 11:20:21 GMT

In the second part of their chat Indira reveals to Jonny that she didn’t know she is the Best Reviewed Actor on the British stage: they discuss sharing the boys dressing room, whether or not she thinks chemistry is bollocks, what she makes of her theatrical partnerships with Ralph Fiennes, Andrew Scott and Ramy Malek and whether as a woman she’s ever felt a lack of space onstage or in the rehearsal room. They discuss not playing the title role, learning to talk to the audience from Judi Dench, the thrill of playing non traditional spaces, her very particular butterfly effect, what she absolutely doesn’t need from a director, why she’d make a good acting teacher but a bad director, working with Harold Pinter, the great advice he gave her and the unstinting honesty he showed her in his famous shed. At the end of this gloriously comprehensive chat the discuss leaving a show before its even started, ticket prices, people of colour at the Oliviers and auteur directors.

CONTAINS VERY STRONG LANGUAGE!

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Indira Varma (Act I)

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 09:42:17 GMT

In this week's episode Jonny shares grapes, birdsong and theatrical butterflies in the garden of “Britain’s best reviewed” theatre actor (J Cake)- Olivier award-winning star of Game of Thrones, Indira Varma. Indira talks about her calmness under pressure, what she thinks rehearsal should be, what daring to fail actually means, seminal experiences working with Katie Mitchell, the Maly theatre and Martin Crimp. How children teach us to be and not to perform, her desire to an actor of the body and not just the head, trying and failing to please her dad, embarking on Tim Crouch’s experiment in radical storytelling and the challenges of Jamie Lloyd’s production of The Seagull.

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J. Smith-Cameron (Act II)

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 08:39:48 GMT

In Act 2 of their chat, J Smith Cameron talks Jonny through the rich stew of differing ideas that went into making the West End Juno and the Paycock and the difficulty of reconciling different opinions in the rehearsal room, especially when war is waging in the world outside. J ruminates on whether it’s harder for an artist to be soulful when they get successful. She talks about the part that made her feel like a race car driver, acting through grief and the parts that she and Jonny felt like they shouldn’t have attempted after the death of a parent; the weird assimilation that sometimes happens between actors and their characters, how female actors don’t get to take up the space of their male counterparts and Kenneth Lonergan’s genius advice for writers and actors- including how her husband helped her to play the scene in Succession where Roman wants Jerry to be mean to him so he can attain orgasm.

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J. Smith-Cameron (Act I)

Wed, 16 Jul 2025 15:43:28 GMT

The star of Rectify and the unforgettable Gerri Kellman in Succession sits down with Jonny to talk about her storied life on the New York-and now West End- stage. From the tyranny of acting to the influence of her sister Joanne, what she owes her and the influence of sibling order on being an actor (John Hurt had strong feelings about it), to a life changing trip with her sister to New York, being winked at by Dudley Moore and the break that brought her her first leading role on Broadway, which also happened to be her first job in New York; what “preparing properly” for an audition really means; the hellish preparation J had for playing Juno in Juno and the Paycock opposite Mark Rylance; what was hard about revisiting a part she had played 10 years before; how Kieran Culkin changing blocking can make her forget lines- and the mysterious nature of memory.

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Season 4 Highlights (Act II)

Mon, 07 Jul 2025 18:03:24 GMT

n Act 2 of the highlights of Season 4, Jonny kicks off (appropriately) by discussing the famous moment when James Corden stopped the show at the Old Vic to watch a penalty shoot out with the audience; he compares notes with Maxine Peake on audiences and their different levels of tolerance; he discusses Bobby Cannavale doing Glengarry Glen Ross with his hero, Al Pacino; he hears from Cynthia Nixon what it was like to be starring in two shows on Broadway at the same time; and he hears from the radically honest Alan Cumming about the actors best kept secret- an experience onstage where he felt something didn’t quite work.

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Season 4 Highlights (Act I)

Mon, 30 Jun 2025 08:50:14 GMT

Stage Door Jonny is back! Bursting into Summer like a less Nigel Farage-friendly Rod Stewart at Glastonbury, your favourite habitué of the alley round the back of a theatre launches his new season of conversations with world-renowned theatre artists with a highlights package from Season 4. From the romance of the stage door with Matthew Broderick, to a wee-based confession from Rhea Norwood, Bobby Cannavale on what Al Pacino would do about a ringing telephone during the show, Bertie Carvel’s pre-interview preparation, Paapa Essiedu’s hair-raising dressing room ritual, a rock star’s dedication to not showing his junk, Sam Mendes on auditioning babies and the glorious Broadway moment of Helena Wilson, Leanne Best, Ophelia Lovebond and Laura Donnelly, the ladies of Jez Butterworth’s hit play The Hills of California.

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Daniel Aukin (Act II)

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 10:47:13 GMT

In the second half of Jonny’s al fresco chat with Daniel Aukin, we hear about Sam Shepard and The Pocket, the ten year journey, the challenges and the “electrified horror” of making the triumphant, Tony record-breaking Stereophonic, David Byrne’s opinion of the band, the struggle to make a living wage in the theatre- and a plan to change that.

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Daniel Aukin (Act I)

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 11:06:20 GMT

Jonny’s guest this week is one of the most exciting directors in the English-speaking theatre, Daniel Aukin. Fresh from his Tony award for Broadway’s hit play of 2024, Stereophonic, Jonny and Daniel settle onto a grassy knoll on a beautiful Autumn day in Prospect Park, New York, and discuss celebrity lotus positions, the complications and benefits of the family business, acting epiphanies, the influence of Richard Foreman, what a director is actually for and Sam Shepard’s love of a tightrope.

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Rhea Norwood (Act II)

Thu, 28 Nov 2024 11:34:12 GMT

In the second half of his conversation with a hyper-talented young performer already making waves in the acting world, Jonny and Rhea discuss the differences between acting for tv and the theatre, never taking a phone to set, the beautiful words to “Maybe This Time” and not going under playing Sally Bowles. On struggling sometimes with contemporary writing, Rhea’s interest in female rage, why she’s drawn to Hedda Gabler, what pisses her off about the theatre- and plans for her “flip a coin” show.

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Rhea Norwood (Act I)

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 19:51:57 GMT

Two weeks after she finished her West End run as Sally Bowles in Rebecca Frecknall’s triumphant staging of Cabaret, Jonny sat down with Heartstopper star, Rhea Norwood. They discussed her illustrious predecessors in Cabaret, Alan Cumming’s dressing room being sponsored by a booze company, her Sally Bowles feeling like a car crash (in a good way), wild wee-ing, coping with repetition and the sad story of Jonny being ordered to get stoned by a director. They share memories of the same drama school, being pigeon-holed and wanting her training to be more traumatic; the complications of going off and becoming a global star- then returning to drama school; and how social distancing made her walk towards Kit Connor in an odd way.

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Sir Christopher Hampton (Act II)

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 11:29:49 GMT

In the second half of Jonny’s chat with the great Christopher Hampton, Sir Chris continues the story of the race to turn his play into the Oscar winning movie, Dangerous Liaisons- and get it out before Milos Foreman‘s rival film; doorstepping a startled John Malkovich; the Queen being sent to sleep by the inaugural play at the National Theatre; the difference between translation and adaptation; his relationship with Paul Scofield, seeing his Uncle Vanya 30 times, why he thinks Scofield was incomparable and the moment when an accident with a gun in Christopher’s play Savages prompted an unforgettable moment of improvisation from the great actor and Yasmina Reza’s horror at what Christopher had done to her play at the first night of Art.

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Sir Christopher Hampton (Act I)

Wed, 20 Nov 2024 15:12:00 GMT

This week Jonny’s guest is on British theatre and film’s Mt Rushmore of writers. Two time Oscar winning screenwriter Sir Christopher Hampton is one of the finest playwrights of the 20 and 21st centuries and in Christopher’s office in Notting Hill that spawned so much of his work they discuss the conditions he needs to write, sometimes needing to go to a posh hotel to finish a script and writing his first west end play in the pub at 18. The crown prince of youthful prodigies tells Jonny about the lesson of terrible reviews, acting with Leonardo di Caprio, why a Christopher Hampton part blighted Jonny’s daughter’s baby photos, the importance of relationships with theatres from Vienna to LA, winning an Oscar and then being unable to get a film made for six years, why writing plays is hard and writing film is a joy- and the remarkable story of Les Liaisons Dangereuses and its journey to becoming the Oscar winning Dangerous Liasons.

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Helena Wilson, Ophelia Lovibond, Leanne Best & Laura Donnelly: Ladies of The Hills Of California (Act II)

Fri, 15 Nov 2024 08:02:43 GMT

In the second half of his chat with the Ladies of the Hills of California, Jonny hears about the differences between Broadway and the West End, the realities of being a woman in the acting industry, trigger warnings, whether or not they’ve all been ruined by Jez Butterworth, singing for Sam Mendes and the incredible joy of the shared endeavor they are all undertaking onstage.

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Helena Wilson, Ophelia Lovibond, Leanne Best & Laura Donnelly: Ladies of The Hills Of California (Act I)

Thu, 14 Nov 2024 05:00:50 GMT

This week, Jonny’s guests are four actresses: Helena Wilson, Ophelia Lovibond, Leanne Best and Laura Donnelly, who together embody the Webb Sisters in Jez Butterworth’s play, The Hills of California. Currently running on Broadway, Jonny and the ladies chat interesting name rebrands that would turn heads on a Broadway marquee, life-changing cookies, harrowing early stage experiences, holding a kind of theatrical fire in their hands onstage, what happens when Jez Butterworth radically rewrites the play you’ve done 150 times, moving like seaweed together, Jez’s addiction to emergency and what its like to be directed by Sam Mendes.

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Bobby Cannavale (Act II)

Thu, 07 Nov 2024 10:05:06 GMT

In the second part of Jonny’s conversation with Bobby Cannavale, Jonny hears about the utterly life-changing experience of working with the great theatre artist Al Pacino, reading the play every day when he’s in performance, what is the joy of acting, being an audition reader and what it taught him about trying to get a job, they debate the pronunciation of Godot, we hear about the time Bobby made sure an audience member will never let their phone ring again in the theatre, F Murray Abraham hiding his Oscar onstage, why he wants to be terrified by Shakespeare and what was the Elizabethan‘s personal portable ring light.

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Bobby Cannavale (Act I)

Wed, 06 Nov 2024 21:33:33 GMT

Jonny’s guest this week is two time Emmy winner (for Will and Grace and Boardwalk Empire), two time Tony nominee and perennial engine of fun, Bobby Cannavale. Jonny could talk to Mr Cannavale every day. And very nearly did. They talk about shared experiences (a love of apples, playing Jason in Medea at BAM’s Harvey Theatre, working with talented wives), Bobby’s affection for reading plays as a kid, being a nine year old gangster in Guys and Dolls, intellectual insecurity and the qualities that attracted mentors like Sidney Lumet, Lanford Wilson, George C Wolfe and Al Pacino. Bobby explains how he understands the importance of the event, why he’s always ready for the fight and the fateful night when he sat next to Pacino at the Tony awards.

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Cynthia Nixon (Act II)

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 17:08:38 GMT

The second half of Jonny’s chat with Cynthia Nixon ranges from playing a version of Marina Abramavich, staring at her costar for 20 minutes before the show (and being helped by a lozenge) to Williams Hurt, David Rabe and their rebellion against Mike Nicholls. From why her first Tony-winning performance as a bereaved mother didn’t capsize her, to whether actors can have qualms about using personal details from their lives. From her run for governor of New York, politics and its relationship to acting, why Andrew Cuomo isn’t Shakespearean but Cynthia is Portia, why she wants to go back to acting class and how being directed feels like her mother’s love.

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Cynthia Nixon (Act I)

Wed, 30 Oct 2024 09:54:33 GMT

Jonny’s guest this week is a colleague of his on the new season of HBO’s And Just Like That, she’s Ada Brook in The Gilded Age, she’s won two Tonys, two Emmys, two SAGs and a Grammy, she ran for Governor of New York, she performed two shows on Broadway at the same time and forced Equity to outlaw anyone ever doing so again, for a generation of Sexers of the City she will always and forevermore be Miranda Hobbes, she is the one and only Cynthia Nixon. A child actress since she was 11, Broadway debut at 14 and New York theatre royalty ever since, Jonny shimmied along the hall from his dressing room to Cynthia’s to talk about her remarkable life in the theatre.

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James Corden (Act II)

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 08:15:42 GMT

In the second half of Jonny's chat with James Corden they discuss OCD and it's links to actor's superstition, James tells the story of delaying the play so he and the audience could watch England win on penalties, the brilliance and oddness of The History Boys, taking a vow of stupidity with Nicholas Hytner, letting down Richard Griffiths and finally getting a burst of Uncle Monty, breaking down the magic of the show that made him, smacking the well-fed rump of a mango-coloured real estate developer from Queens, getting a scoop on James's idea for a new play and his theory about the future of theatre.

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James Corden (Act I)

Wed, 23 Oct 2024 04:00:58 GMT

Jonny's guest this week is none other than the man who gave the world Carpool Karaoke, took Paul McCartney back to his childhood, became the star of American late night by playing a man who fights with himself onstage, the writer and star of Gavin and Stacey, the man who'll always be a History Boy - James Corden. On his return to the London stage after a 12 year absence, James and Jonny sit down in his dressing room at the Old Vic to talk coming home, making late night tv into a 1,198 night variety show, mountaineering advice from Chris Evans, being a shy extrovert, the magic of Mathew Warchus, loving a line reading, why actors should take lessons from Formula One, how his pre-show rituals nearly capsized him, the best way he knows to handle nerves- and strap in for the terrifying description of a day at the Late Late Show up until the moment he's completely alone.

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Maxine Peake

Tue, 15 Oct 2024 14:05:27 GMT

Jonny’s guest this week is the actor, theatre maker, political activist and Bolton royalty- Maxine Peake. Two weeks into devising her new theatre piece, Robin/Red/Breast, Maxine gave up a lunch hour to talk about the goddess MAAT, playing legendary singer Nico, walking audience members round the block while they processed what they’d seen, the loneliness of one-person shows, audience interruptions while performing Beckett (including the hazards of letting children kick a ball against Winnie’s mound), Ray Winstone’s mate who didn’t fancy watching the play, playing her famous Hamlet, her twenty year collaboration with director Sarah Franckom, not being “wired right” as a hyper empath, escaped cavalry horses and how everything is political.

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Alan Cumming (Act II)

Tue, 08 Oct 2024 09:55:49 GMT

The second part of Jonny’s chat with the great Alan Cumming ranges from why black joy, queer joy and trans joy feels like an act of resistance - to dealing with Joan Collins in his dressing room after playing a concentration camp inmate in Bent. It goes from going under while playing Hamlet to going under, naked, in an onstage swimming pool after singing George Michael’s 'Father Figure' - and emerging with eczema. It includes a discussion of saying the most explosive word onstage, completely committing to something you don’t think works and how people’s reaction to his penis gave him the idea for his new one man show. Facelifts, freedom and remembering Alan’s smile from the opening night of Sam Mendes Cabaret at the Donmar in 1993, the first time the world met his unforgettable MC.

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Alan Cumming (Act I)

Mon, 07 Oct 2024 15:47:41 GMT

Welcome to Season 4 of SDJ and who better to kick it off with than Olivier award winner, two time Tony award winner, BAFTA winner and the man who just won his second Emmy award for hosting The Traitors US- Scottish icon, national treasure, the Dionysus of 21st century theatre, the eternally youthful Alan Cumming. In Act 1 of their two part chat, Alan and Jonny have a frank, funny and freewheeling conversation that ranges over the power of saying yes, what The Traitors has taught him about acting (and why its like being double-jointed), his problem with the Method and the best piece of acting advice he’s ever received. They talk about bravery, the influence of Alan’s childhood, how his one man dance piece about Robert Burns in his fifties nearly ruined him, his fascination with portraying mental illness onstage - and giving people permission to dislike you.

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A Tribute To Dame Maggie Smith

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 04:00:05 GMT

As a prelude to the new season of the podcast, Jonny remembers one of our greatest ever theatre artists, Dame Maggie Smith. In 2023 Jonny interviewed her son, the actor Toby Stephens, and his stories of his brilliant mother are a fitting tribute to a performer who was unlike any other. You can listen to Jonny's conversation with Toby in full here.

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Matthew Broderick (Act II)

Thu, 04 Apr 2024 11:13:40 GMT

After the interval, Jonny hears how Matthew Broderick was pulled out of depression by a play from an unknown writer called Harvey Fierstein; doing things his own way as a young actor; the incredible story of the day his life changed forever- and the sadness underneath it; the last conversation he ever had with his father and how his dad’s example revisits him onstage; why he can drive directors mad; why Nathan Lane thinks he’s like the Warner Bros frog; the pressure to be funny; his love for Neil Simon and the failure that seems to always await the giants of American theatre; the rollercoaster of a life in American theatre and getting together with Robert de Niro to fight Donald Trump.

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Matthew Broderick (Act I)

Tue, 02 Apr 2024 15:34:44 GMT

In the last double episode of the current season, Jonny rounds off by talking to a bona fide star who’s been one almost all his acting life: two time Tony Award winner and, for a generation of movie-goers, the patron saint of being young- Matthew Broderick. Matthew is the star of movies like Ferris Bueller, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Election, You Can Count on Me and The Producers, but his career in the theatre has been immense, not least the five plays of his great mentor and collaborator Neil Simon. The last of these, Plaza Suite, with his wife Sarah Jessica Parker has brought him to London and in his dressing room at the Savoy Theatre, he tells Jonny about the magic of the magic of stage doors, reveals intimate details of his dressing room, the enduring fascination of Joan Collins, doing two shows on his birthday, Ferris Bueller and the pain of growing up, getting the silent treatment from John Hughes, acting with his dad, his triumph as Wall in Midsummer Night’s Dream and the tragic story of the big break that nearly broke him.

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Sir Sam Mendes & Alison Balsom - Live At Jermyn Street Theatre (Act II)

Tue, 26 Mar 2024 16:11:10 GMT

In the second half of their live chat, Alison Balsom and Sam Mendes discuss what it’s like for him to have been everyone’s Dad professionally since he was 24 (just don’t take his sausage roll); being a woman in a predominantly male art form, changing the paradigm of the trumpet and the spirituality of playing music in church; Sam’s transformative memory of Jackson Pollock in Venice and the joy of throwing paint; where emotion lives in their work; the trumpet piece that reflects who you are at any stage of your life; being uningratiating onstage; why Sam was in a kind of dream-state directing Hills of California and what auditioning new-born babies taught him about performers.

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Sir Sam Mendes & Alison Balsom - Live At Jermyn Street Theatre (Act I)

Mon, 25 Mar 2024 19:32:53 GMT

This week Jonny sees you “the coolest power couple in British theatre” (Jez Butterworth and Laura Donnelly, S3, E8) and raises you one “coolest power couple in British culture”, theatre and film powerhouse Sam Mendes and one of the world’s greatest classical and jazz trumpeters, Alison Balsom. In the first interview they’ve ever given as a couple, they treat SDJ Live at Jermyn Street Theatre to a voyage round their remarkable life and times: what is was for them both to be prodigies and whether they miss their younger selves; Alison’s calling to play the trumpet and not feeling like a soloist until she’d played the Last Night of the Proms; not feeling like a real film director until Sam directed his first Bond; where doubt exists differently in theatre and in classical music; the search for the perfect chord in art; Alison’s recording of her greatest mistake, never being able to duck the hardest challenge and why Simon Russell Beale as Uncle Vanya suddenly couldn’t stand up.

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James Shapiro

Tue, 19 Mar 2024 15:12:52 GMT

This week’s guest is a man of many talents. James Shapiro is the Larry Miller Professor of English at Columbia university, he is the Shakespeare Scholar in Residence at the Public Theater in New York and he is the author of the mighty 1599, Baillie Gifford Award Winner for the best non-fiction book of the last 25 years. Jim has spent his life making Shakespeare come alive- on the page, in the rehearsal room and the lecture hall and no one does it better. This is a conversation that takes in: judging the Booker Prize; Hamilton’s 50 foot wave; working on the scary and tempestuous production of a Trump-imitating Julius Caesar; being Shakespeare’s agent and the director’s waiter; what stops you feeling the great plays as you once did and the erosion of democracy and its inextricable link to theatre.

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Jez Butterworth & Laura Donnelly - Live At Jermyn Street Theatre (Act II)

Tue, 12 Mar 2024 13:15:35 GMT

The second half of Jonny’s chat with actress Laura Donnelly and playwright Jez Butterworth, recorded live at Jermyn Street Theatre, delves into the twelve endings Jonny had to learn and perform for Jez’s play Parlour Song at Atlantic Theatre in New York; writing for the person you’re in love with; an actors contract with the audience and Sam Mendes’s opinion on Laura’s; what Jez believes is the foundation of drama; the ease of acting Butterworth; having daughters and writing women when you’re not one; Laura Donnelly’s locked door and Jez’s knack for finding the numinous in his everyday life; engineering an emergency in the theatre- and Hugh Jackman splitting his trousers.

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Jez Butterworth & Laura Donnelly - Live At Jermyn Street Theatre (Act I)

Mon, 11 Mar 2024 20:23:56 GMT

Stage Door Jonny goes live with “the hottest power couple in theatre” (Vogue Magazine). This week’s episode talks to the doyenne of 21st Century playwrights, Jez Butterworth (Jerusalem, The Ferryman, Hills of California) and the leading actress in his last three plays, Laura Donnelly, partners in life as well as art. Act 1 of this live show at London’s Jermyn Street theatre covers: their first meeting in an, ahem, audition room for Jez’s play The River and Laura’s observation that made the future father of her children sit up and take notice; Jez’s myesthesia, 1,000 oranges and the dangers of exaggeration for an actor; the tragic events in Laura’s life that inspired Jez to write The Ferryman; why Laura wouldn’t get on the table and dance when Jez asked her to and why Jez was terrified of writing The Ferryman until an event in both their lives meant he had to.

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Simon Godwin (Act II)

Tue, 05 Mar 2024 11:00:28 GMT

In Act II of Jonny’s chat with Simon they discuss the difference between immersion and identification; how much mystery Simon leaves in his understanding of a play; the director’s 3am thinks; why Simon has no problem with leaving a show; how directing can be like working in HR, his love of first days; Shakespeare’s school of life; what Simon fears most in the theatre- and why A Christmas Carol at The Tabard theatre is so special to him.

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Simon Godwin (Act I)

Mon, 04 Mar 2024 15:23:46 GMT

This week’s guest is Simon Godwin, one of the finest directors on either side of the Atlantic. Simon sits down with Jonny in majestic surroundings (work with me here) and they discuss how Simon (and Hamlet) came to Jonny’s aid when he was trying to buy a house; how Simon assembled the site-specific Macbeth that is currently playing; his three play collaboration with its star, Ralph Fiennes; the difference between certainty and confidence; why he suddenly stopped his directing career to go and train his body- and what Rupert Goold said to him as he was leaving; the moment that sticks in Jonny’s memory when he was directed by Simon - and Simon’s lockdown Romeo and Juliet starring Josh O’Connor and Jessie Buckley.

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Dominic Cooke (Act I)

Tue, 27 Feb 2024 21:54:29 GMT

In this week’s chat Jonny takes a stroll down memory lane with acclaimed director Dominic Cooke. They both started at the Royal Shakespeare Company in the early 90’s and Dominic rose to become artistic director of the Royal Court, Olivier-award winner, CBE and now the director of a new blockbuster stage production based on The Biggest TV Show in History. No not Seinfeld. Jonny and Dominic chat about the very particular flavour of the RSC when they met, their problem with stage violence, the “liberating duality of the theatre”, why we don’t talk enough about being bored, the unsung hero of modern British directors, telling an actor “I don’t believe you” and the problem with anger on stage.

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Dominic Cooke (Act II)

Tue, 27 Feb 2024 12:26:41 GMT

In the second part of Jonny’s chat with director Dominic Cooke they discuss getting the end of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom wrong, some strategies actors use to avoid being vulnerable, Sophie Okonedo and giving her performance up to the gods, experiencing vulnerability as a director and having to be dragged back to see his own shows, his fears for free expression in young writers right now, his long collaboration with Caryl Churchill- and how Caryl was right in her play Seven Jewish Children.

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Dame Harriet Walter (Act II)

Tue, 20 Feb 2024 11:56:20 GMT

In the second act of Jonny’s chat with Dame Harriet Walter the conversation ranges over: age in the theatre; Harriet’s extraordinary encounter with her childhood hero, Rudolf Nureyev; being rejected by drama schools and what made her carry on; what she does and doesn’t want from a director; being robbed of time and power by other actors onstage; her search for a great comedy - and how the world expects too much from its mothers.

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Dame Harriet Walter (Act I)

Mon, 19 Feb 2024 17:27:41 GMT

This week’s guest is none other than a walking trifecta: a Dame, a national treasure and a star of Succession. Dame Harriet Walter sits down with Jonny and powers through a windy chimney and the sound of a little light bricklaying to talk about the unforgettable visual images of theatre; Rebecca Frecknall’s production of The House of Bernarda Alba; how she stays connected to the life of the play night after night; how she wishes a play could always have a live conductor; undressing Hitler; what trying to effect change through the theatre means to her now; being an ensemble player, hiding under her desk to avoid the school play, all-women Shakespeare, sympathy for the overdog and what she thinks of Jonny’s pleas to her to play Macbeth.

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Phyllida Lloyd (Act I)

Thu, 15 Feb 2024 19:37:32 GMT

In the first Act of this week’s conversation Jonny talks to the pride of Nempnett Thrubwell, the internationally renowned director of Mamma Mia on stage and screen, Phyllida Lloyd. Phyllida directed Meryl Streep to an Oscar for playing Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady but her visionary work in the theatre long preceded that. Phyllida’s remembers Jonny in a pond, talks about her most recent stage production at the National Theatre in 2023- a verbatim play based on the testimony of the survivors of the Grenfell fire-and how theatre can play a part in bringing a public outrage to account. They also discuss how Mamma Mia was a cultural disrupter, Phyllida’s problem with spreadsheets, the power of art in prison and what it takes for an actor to endure through a lifetime.

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Phyllida Lloyd (Act II)

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 16:47:32 GMT

Welcome to Act 2 of Jonny’s chat with Phyllida Lloyd (unless you left at the interval, like Phyllida sometimes does…). Phyllida discusses her dreams of a Rusisian theatre commune, her relationship with Harriet Walter, and whether it’s always easy to direct a friend, chasing the artistic utopia of her schooldays with her famous trilogy of all-female Shakespeares, the one woman show that changed her and why there’s no excuse for making dull theatre. Not to mention how she wouldn’t direct the Tina Turner musical now and why it’s over for blokes like Jonny.

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Michael Billington

Mon, 05 Feb 2024 22:41:05 GMT

The most cracked out of all theatre junkies is Jonny’s guest this week. At least 10,000 nights in the theatre and counting after over 50 years as the doyen of British theatre critics, Michael Billington was THE arbiter of critical taste for the entirety of Jonny’s life. In this chat Michael opens up about his trouble with mime, air-kissing C list celebrities, how even critics are joining in the rise in audience participation, spaghetti in the stalls, hearing Laurence Olivier in his head, the “inexhaustible surprise” of the theatre, missing Harold Pinter, never finding Marilyn Monroe, how Chekov understood his 20 year old feelings and the way criticism completes the cycle of creation.

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Emily Mortimer & Alessandro Nivola (Act II) - Live at Jermyn Street Theatre

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 12:34:48 GMT

The second part of Jonny’s chat with Emily Mortimer and Alessandro Nivola recorded live at Jermyn Street Theatre introduces the potent memory and presiding spirit of Emily’s extraordinary father, Sir John Mortimer. From his heckling of Sarah Kane’s legendary “Blasted” to his meeting with Tom Cruise, from Alessandro’s Broadway debut opposite Helen Mirren and a catalytic biting incident, from an elderly actor calling in sick to the stage door of the RSC, to sharing a dressing room with a pep-talking Bradley Cooper, to what transgression and freedom means onstage today, the spirit of Sir John was alive and well and appearing for one night only at Jermyn St theatre.

Buy tickets for Jonny's next live show with Jez Butterworth & Laura Donnelly here

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Emily Mortimer & Alessandro Nivola (Act I) - Live at Jermyn Street Theatre

Mon, 29 Jan 2024 17:33:55 GMT

Welcome to this season’s first live recording! This episode is brought to you in association with the wonderful people at Jermyn Street Theatre in London and if there’s a more richly enjoyable podcast released this week, we want to hear it. Jonny talks to the blissfully honest, vulnerably human and wildly entertaining power couple that is Emily Mortimer (Mary Poppins, Paddington 3, Lovely and Amazing) and Alessandro Nivola (American Hustle, Many Saints of Newark, Jurassic Park) and the conversation ranges from furries to fairies, from shyness, fear and how Robert de Niro overcomes them, from first kisses to problematic acting teachers, from vomiting in Moscow, via breaking into Laurence Olivier’s trailer to the truly harrowing story of Emily’s Scottish Portia in The Merchant of Venice.

Buy tickets for Jonny's next live show with Jez Butterworth & Laura Donnelly here

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Bertie Carvel

Mon, 22 Jan 2024 21:05:44 GMT

Join Jonny in the Old Vic dressing room of one our finest - and most fragrant - actors, Bertie Carvel. Bertie is a double Olivier and Tony Award winning star and as deep a thinker about his life in the theatre as he is a transformational chameleon onstage. He and Jonny share a forensic discussion about larping, the inner body, Bertie’s magic trick, why he now reads his reviews (and why he thinks acting companies should hold post-review therapy sessions), wanting the play to end just after you’ve opened, what it felt like to play Donald Trump and doing 652 performances of Missy Trunchbull in “Matilda”. This really is a conversation that captures what it sounds like to hear a great actor in the awkward and exhilarating throes of creativity. He’s also the first guest to use the word “shriven”.

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Paapa Essiedu

Mon, 15 Jan 2024 17:00:33 GMT

Welcome to the big kick off of SDJ Season 3! Who better to launch us than one of the most electric young actors there is, Paapa Essiedu. Paapa welcomed Jonny into his bijou dressing room in London’s National Theatre and the conversation ranged over: drinking during a show, Paapa’s risky superstition, how Jamie Lloyd doesn’t want you to know where to stand, what a famous director in the audience can do to you, two actors nightmares that launched Paapa on the stage, separation anxiety and what it does to his brain and what onstage chemistry is and how to preserve it. Happy New Year everyone, its Streetcar Time.

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News Of A Live Show & Season 3 Of Stage Door Jonny!

Tue, 05 Dec 2023 12:01:39 GMT

We bring you important intel about a forthcoming live show with Emily Mortimer and Alessandro Nivola at the Jermyn Street Theatre, as well as the next season of Stage Door Jonny, which is coming in January 2024. Tickets for for Jonny, Emily and Alessandro's conversation are available by clicking here. Until Sunday, or indeed January! It's good to be (almost) back ...

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Stage Door Jonny Live: With Sir Simon Russell Beale & Sir Nicholas Hytner

Wed, 16 Aug 2023 12:57:00 GMT

Jonny rounds off the summer season in style: the first SDJ live show at Jermyn Street Theatre in the heart of London’s West End - and two masters to talk to. Sir Nick Hytner and Sir Simon Russell Beale tell Jonny about the two decades and nine plays of their collaboration. It’s a fascinating insight into the dynamics of one of the great director-actor partnerships of our times. Who is the lover and whom the beloved in this relationship? How does Simon know when Nick thinks it isn’t working? Nick’s thoughts on change in the theatre and in life, how he directs actors, Paul Scofield, Daniel Day-Lewis and much more.

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John Slattery (Act II)

Fri, 11 Aug 2023 08:48:46 GMT

From personal tragedy to Nathan Lane. In the second part of their chat John and Jonny discuss the formers three collaborations with the doyen of the American stage, crashing waves of laughter, having the confidence to play a comedy god with other real comedy gods, Pinter with Juliette Binoche and Liev Schreiber, getting ghosted backstage by Philip Seymour Hoffman and the “undeniability of theatre”.

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John Slattery (Act I)

Mon, 07 Aug 2023 16:20:43 GMT

John Slattery, everyone's favourite louche silver-fox for a four martini lunch is Jonny’s guest this week. They discuss white rappers, directing onstage, a plan to save the theatre, getting naked on stage whilst crying having auto-fluffed with a hairdryer beforehand, the brutal facts of using personal grief as onstage motivation, audition-fear and how to calm it, fighting to get in the room and John’s journey from Catholic school to the one teacher who knew he had what it takes.

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Marc Shaiman & Scott Wittman

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 11:22:24 GMT

Legends alert. This week Jonny’s guests are the creme de la creme of Broadway musical composing, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. Their music for the current Broadway smash Some Like It Hot is still on heavy rotation in the Stage Door household and they’re the musical force behind Hairspray, Catch Me If You Can, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sister Act, Oscar-nominated songs by the bucketload, Tonys, Grammys - the whole nine. But what lives too! Take them from being madly gifted theatre-obsessed kids from unlikely backgrounds yearning to get to New York to their first meeting in Marie’s Crisis, mad 200-strong productions of The Trojan Women, a close-up look at how they write songs together, the ravages of the AIDS crisis, a MOMA retrospective of their downtown days, all the way to conquering Broadway- and a magnificently moany insight into how hard it is to stay at the top of the American musical.

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Mark Gatiss

Mon, 24 Jul 2023 16:21:05 GMT

Want to know which public information advert from his childhood rolls off Mark's tongue like the alphabet? How uncanny his Gielgud impression is? Whether any man wants cock in Tod - and what that even means? The madrigals he sang the very first time he was on stage? What wonderful tradition began with Ralph Richardson firing rockets off the roof of the National Theatre? And why Mark will forever remember our Jonny as the Donmar Enforcer? Of course you do! What a joy it is to welcome the polymath and global treasure that is Mark Gatiss to the podcast about theatre, life, and life in the theatre.

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Kenny Lonergan (Act II)

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 05:20:13 GMT

In Act 2 of Jonny’s chat with Oscar-winner Kenneth Lonergan, they discuss the high-school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream where Kenny met his best friend and frequent collaborator, Matthew Broderick; Kenny’s misgivings about his acting range; the play of his he had the most fun with; the difficulty of getting started as an unconventional writer and why, despite a time of increasingly strident political certainty, he thinks plays that are interested in human nuance will survive.

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Kenny Lonergan (Act I)

Mon, 17 Jul 2023 12:32:02 GMT

An American master this week everyone. And a little bit of a hero of Jonny’s. Kenneth Lonergan is the writer and directors of three movies, all of them masterpieces, and the playwright of groundbreaking plays like Lobby Hero and This Is Our Youth. Hear about birthing his plays, writing as the muscle memory of the brain, why he is fascinated by the state of adolescence, which of his plays started as a dream, how he jumped from prose to playwrighting and why movies don’t quite touch the experience of a play.

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Dominic West (Act II)

Tue, 11 Jul 2023 10:21:27 GMT

The second part of Jonny’s chat with Dominic West in which Dom talks about following the most successful play of the 21st century, career advice from Anthony Hopkins, snogging Alan Cumming, getting mixed reviews on Broadway, his favourite theatre, being bad at playing posh people, being allergic to crying and why theatre isn’t for psychopaths.

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Dominic West (Act I)

Mon, 10 Jul 2023 15:49:48 GMT

Dominic West, ladies and gentlemen! This week, our superbly entertaining West guest talks wearing a turban doing Tamburlaine with Jonny at the RSC, his family background in amateur dramatics, making his father cry, why his mother didn’t want him to do The Wire, falling off the stage in his first professional gig, wishing he could do Hamlet again, running away to join the circus, getting goosed by hen parties and how you need to leave a gap between you and the character to let the audience in.

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John Douglas Thompson (Act II)

Tue, 04 Jul 2023 13:17:30 GMT

The second half of Jonny’s chat with the revered John Douglas Thompson covers their mutual love for the director Arin Arbus, giving up the use of his eyes to do Beckett with an actor John describes as like being onstage with “ a dog, a baby and a genius”, what Eugene O’Neil’s characters say to each other when John engages them in conversation, what pisses him off about the theatre, what is was like to do “the worst Hamlet in America” and some ideas for a John and Jonny collaboration.

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John Douglas Thomspon (Act I)

Mon, 03 Jul 2023 19:08:32 GMT

Jonny talks to perhaps the most celebrated classical actor in America today, John Douglas Thompson. No perhaps about it (if you read his reviews), John makes Jonny extremely jealous when he considers the critical raptures that JDT routinely receives. John has played Othello SEVEN times and isn’t done with it yet. But only if a woman directs it. He has trenchant thoughts on critics, won’t do a play that involves the occult, acts like a master pickpocket, honours his parents through performance, never knows if Othello will kill Desdemona tonight or not. All this despite living another successful professional life until he was nearly thirty. Find out which play made him want to be an actor. And the incident that cracked open what it would take to be good at it.

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Laura Linney (Act II)

Tue, 27 Jun 2023 09:27:56 GMT

In Act II of Jonny’s chat with Laura Linney, we discover who her ideal man is; what seminal experience of festive female empowerment pushed her along the path of being an actor; what happened when she got stage fright; what was said to her at the Moscow Art theatre that unlocked a door; her relationship to fear; and what advice she would give a fourth year Juilliard drama student if that student happened to be Jonny.

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Laura Linney (Act I)

Mon, 26 Jun 2023 14:58:22 GMT

Who better to kick off the Summer Season of Stage Door Jonny than the wonderful Laura Linney? Want to know what work she does to make all her performances on stage and screen so full and lived in? Want to know what she thinks the secret weapon of the theatre is? Ever heard of a delightmare? Want to know why Joanne Woodward wanted to meet Laura in her car? Who her favourite director is? All is revealed during the first part of Jonny’s conversation with Laura in her Broadway dressing room.

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Stage Door Jonny Returns!

Fri, 23 Jun 2023 10:55:59 GMT

He's back, loitering by the stage door, angling for chats with some of the finest theatre artists of this (or any) generation. Find out who's coming up in our Summer Season, coming very, very soon. Please subscribe so as not to miss an episode, and leave us a rating and review.

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Sir Simon Russell Beale (Act II)

Mon, 06 Mar 2023 12:20:28 GMT

There are no second acts in American lives but there are in Stage Door Jonny. In the last act of conversation for this series of the podcast, Sir Simon Russell Beale tells Jonny about playing Hamlet for his mum and the challenge of grieving onstage, who he fixates on in his audience about once every couple of months, the actor he thinks is the top dog of his generation, improvising Ibsen and the bastard who invented the matinee. He also manages to beautifully articulate what might actually be the manifesto for this podcast: an actor onstage at a particular high water mark of feeling and an audience who understands in the same moment that they are that character too. Simon definitely says it better.

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Sir Simon Russell Beale (Act I)

Mon, 06 Mar 2023 10:00:06 GMT

Enter the Ur-Guest, the man who’s performance in Lehman Trilogy made Jonny fall back in love with theatre, the OG inspiration for Stage Door Jonny and one of the undisputed greats of the modern stage- Sir Simon Russell Beale. It feels entirely fitting to end this inaugural series of SDJ with a chat with SRB, an actor who has performed more great roles than even Wikipedia can count. If you want to know how palatial his dressing room at The Bridge theatre was while he was playing the title role in John Gabriel Borkman, whether he has sacrificed love for his career, who made his very first costume, the role of sniffing in his famous collaborations with Sam Mendes, how many pints can get him to bed before most of the audience and how certain parts get him to a magical place beyond caring, this is the episode for you.

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Martha Plimpton (Act II)

Wed, 01 Mar 2023 12:19:18 GMT

Take your seats for Act II of Jonny’s chat with Martha and hear how she feels about the first day of rehearsal, what noise the first stagger through of a play elicits in her and the effect it has on her bowels. We hear how The Coast of Utopia changed her life, what was special about the curtain call on the days when they did all three plays in that trilogy consecutively, why she still has beef with Ethan Hawke and what happened when a beloved cast mate had a heart attack in front of them onstage. We hear what to do if you behave badly at the technical rehearsal, plus the unedifying story of Jonny being told to cover his nudity at Lincoln Centre, the search for a great play about reproductive rights and how playing Jaques in London may be the first step in a line of traditionally male roles for Martha.

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Martha Plimpton (Act I)

Tue, 28 Feb 2023 09:27:46 GMT

Ladies and gentlemen, Martha Plimpton. Martha was all but born in the theatre - literally. She was onstage in the original Broadway production of Hair in her mum’s tum, then held by her as a tiny baby and a host of impromptu babysitters night after night as they sang “Let the Sunshine In”. The theatre was her formative play-space and so it remains. In the first part of their chat she and Jonny discuss trying to learn lines for another gig when you’re doing a play, the perils of falling in love with a cast mate, how our brains sometimes don’t get the memo that this is a fiction and her extraordinary childhood,

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Toby Stephens (Act II)

Tue, 21 Feb 2023 16:29:04 GMT

In Act II of Jonny's chat with Toby, we hear his nightmare of not being able to squeeze into Coriolanus's breast-plate, his unsexy take on Hamlet but some of that audience's sexy take on him, the role of chemistry onstage and which legendary actress didn't want the audience to laugh at her character, the efficacious role of pissing about in rehearsal, how thrilling it is to enter a flow state on stage, his problem with issue plays and his search for the real thing.

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Toby Stephens (Act I)

Tue, 21 Feb 2023 09:20:44 GMT

For Jonathan's pal Toby Stephens, acting is very much the family business. His mother is Dame Maggie Smith, and his father was bravura actor and legendary hellraiser Sir Robert Stephens. Here he speaks with great frankness, insight and humour about his parents and the influence they had on his own path towards a brilliantly successful career on stage and screen. He shares memories of failing to recognise the actress playing Peter Pan the first time he saw a play (it was his mum), discovering a passion for drama through Wilfred Owen’s great anti-war poem, and seeing his dad reduce an entire audience to tears with his rendition of King Lear. We also hear further tales of the dark arts of Laurence Olivier, something of a recurring theme on this podcast ...

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Willem Dafoe (Act II)

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 16:13:36 GMT

Ever wondered what Willem is thinking about when he throws his yoga mat out every morning? Well, wonder no more, as we bring you the second part of Jonny's conversation with him on his farm outside Rome. We also find out how his time with The Wooster Group has informed his work as a screen actor, what he still craves from the theatre, and why actors should maybe sometimes just let the work do the talking.

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Willem Dafoe (Act I)

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 15:56:38 GMT

We all know about Willem's sensational work on screen, but what you might not have realised is that he dedicated nearly 30 years of his life to the The Wooster Group - a legendary experimental theatre company in New York. Willem was kind enough to invite Jonny to his farm outside Rome, where he had only just morphed from movie star to animal midwife. They discuss how a white middle class boy from Milwaukee discovered the creative avant-garde, what it was like to experience loft performances in the golden age of punk, and how he once blanked his lines during an audition for Edward Albee, before being asked to show the great playwright more than just his audition piece.

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Sir Richard Eyre (Act II)

Tue, 07 Feb 2023 11:32:48 GMT

In Act II of Jonathan's chat with Sir Richard, the director talks of receiving right proper rollickings from theatre royalty, how he used light to change the shape of the stage for his legendary Guys and Dolls, his dreams of casting one of the great Olympic champions as Ariel, writing his first original play and the reception it received, whether the theatre has ever failed him and the insecurities that continue to plague him despite his extraordinary professional success.

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Sir Richard Eyre (Act I)

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 11:20:08 GMT

Sir Richard Eyre is a cornerstone of contemporary British theatre, who has given us Jonathan Pryce and Daniel Day Lewis as Hamlets, Ian Holm as King Lear, Mary Poppins in the West End and 5 Olivier awards along the way. In the first part of his chat with Jonathan, he charts his rise from a country boy with no knowledge of the form whatsoever to becoming director of the National Theatre. Along the way, we discover which legend he saw playing Hamlet on his first ever trip to see a proper play, why he got drunk on stage performing with Stephen Frears at university, how his complex relationship with his father may have informed much of his greatest work and plenty more besides ...

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Zadie Smith (Act II)

Tue, 31 Jan 2023 11:42:06 GMT

In part two of our conversation with Zadie, Jonathan does his very best to encourage her to persevere with her second play and she explains how a thought that seems relatively tame to her in prose form has the potential to be thrillingly animated on stage. We learn which Shakespearean revivals infuriate her, how she and her husband Nick Laird can tell from the opening line of a play whether they'll be leaving at the interval or not and get a sneak preview of her new literary creation, Mrs Touché. All this and a guinea pig-related theatrical scoop. Stage Door Jonny breaks the big stories…

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Zadie Smith (Act I)

Tue, 31 Jan 2023 10:43:14 GMT

Zadie Smith is unquestionably one of the finest novelists of her generation, but you may not know that she's also now a playwright - albeit by accident. In part one of her conversation with Jonny, we find out the treachery she was subjected to after turning her back on a talent show's judges to sing a Whitney Houston track to a wall, her retirement plan involving a fusion of jazz standards, comfortable clothing and literary gossip, and how she reimagined one of literature's raunchiest feminist icons from the middle ages into a 21st century Willesden pub.

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Zachary Quinto (Act II)

Tue, 24 Jan 2023 12:16:51 GMT

In the second part of our chat with Zachary, we learn why he owes a debt to the Pittsburgh Mini Stars, his Munchkin breakthrough, drinking his way through to the ghost of Tennessee Williams and the extreme and showstopping lengths he will go to to defend Calista Flockhart and Edward Albee from the stage. We also find out which Hamlet Jonny had a crush on and what it was like to act with the Stage Manager.

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Zachary Quinto (Act I)

Tue, 24 Jan 2023 10:45:02 GMT

Yes, of course you know Zachary Quinto from Heroes, American Horror Story or as Spock in the Star Trek reboots. You may also know him as one of America's most exciting stage performers (Angels in America, Boys in the Band, Glass Menagerie,Best of Enemies in the West End right now). But what you might not know about Zach is how he hums his way down freeways to warm his voice up, hisses in his dressing room, uses silver Sharpie on his eyebrows, is an expert in the architectural history of LA, and craves showers and coffee before he hits the stage. We can't thank him enough for taking the time to talk so openly to Jonathan in his home.

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Jez Butterworth (Act II)

Mon, 16 Jan 2023 11:37:00 GMT

In part two of Jonathan's fascinating conversation with Jez Butterworth they discuss Jez’s innate fondness for anecdotal embellishment and relationship with truths and lies, joining a conga line of druids, the seminal role Harold Pinter has played in his life and how theatre is really all about jeopardy and dignity. Jonny also poses him a series of teasing questions posed by some of their esteemed mutual friends.

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Jez Butterworth (Act I)

Mon, 16 Jan 2023 11:07:10 GMT

One of the greatest playwrights of his generation, Jez Butterworth, joins his old friend Jonathan to discuss his creative process and extraordinary body of work. In part one of their conversation, we hear why Jez was magnetically drawn to Pewsey on the day of the Queen's funeral, how there's sometimes an ideas butler by the bedside when he wakes up in the morning, which utterly inappropriate production he went to see as an 8 year old Cub, and his unlikely similarity to Shaggy (the musician, not Scooby Doo's mate). He also tells a hugely revealing anecdote about forgetting his shield when playing a centurion during his first stage performance.

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William H Macy & Felicity Huffman

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 16:03:51 GMT

You will certainly know all about William H Macy and Felicity Huffman for their unforgettable roles onscreen (him Fargo, Boogie Nights, Shameless etc / her Desperate Housewives, American Horror Story, Transamerica etc) but what's perhaps less well-documented is their rich history in theatre. And what an entertaining history it is. Here, Jonny discovers how Felicity caught Bill'e eye skinny-dipping when he was her acting teacher, the mind-bending reason Bill crashed every scene of a bootleg production of Jesus Christ Superstar in the 70s, the significance of their longtime professional relationship with David Mamet, and what constitutes creative contentment for them both on stage. We are also introduced to the wonderful notion of the theatrical Muse and whether or not she picks up when you call her.

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David Harewood (Act II)

Tue, 20 Dec 2022 11:09:59 GMT

In the second part of Jonathan's candid, moving and illuminating chat with David in his dressing room at the Noel Coward theatre, we hear about his relationship with Martin Luther King both on and off the stage, psychotic breakdown, hanging with the naughty kids at King Lear, the time he spent with Vanessa Redgrave and the strange curse of 1606, blackface, friendship and the theatre family - not to mention his famously magnificent body! That's a lot of ground ...

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David Harewood (Act I)

Tue, 20 Dec 2022 10:15:12 GMT

Having barely seen each other since they appeared in a play together in 1992, Jonathan and David roll back the years ... in Noel Coward's dressing room ... shortly before he commenced his warm up for the evening performance of James Graham's Best Of Enemies ... on his birthday. David Harewood, we salute and thank you! In the first of this two parter, Jonny and David have a no holds barred conversation about honesty, imagination, psychosis, hobgoblinization (you heard us) and running naked through the village.

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Ethan Hawke (Act II)

Mon, 12 Dec 2022 15:34:09 GMT

Ever skipped school to appear in a George Bernard Shaw play in New York? No? Well, that's exactly how Ethan Hawke's theatre career began as a 13-year-old - which spawned an adoration of the stage that has endured ever since. In the second act of his interview with Jonathan, he also talks about joshing Bobby Cannavale, Freudian motivations, the high watermark of his professional career, and his desire to not only revive his erstwhile production company with his wife in his later years - do it, Ethan - but create something special in the theatre space with his kids too.

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Ethan Hawke (Act I)

Mon, 12 Dec 2022 14:43:00 GMT

Polymath alert! Actor, director, documentary maker, producer and novelist Ethan Hawke joins Jonathan to revel in his passion for theatre - and lifetime in it. When not failing to make Alessandro Nivola and Emily Mortimer's coffee machine work, Ethan recalls riling Tom Stoppard, an uplifting chance encounter with Mark Rylance on a snow-swept New York street, the sequel he wrote to Annie on first seeing it, Philip Seymour Hoffman popping backstage to make him proud, and many other things. Not to be missed, if only for his Stoppard and Rylance impressions! He is FANTASTIC company.

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With Phylicia Rashad

Mon, 05 Dec 2022 09:09:25 GMT

Jonathan's latest guest is the great Phylicia Rashad. In 2004, Phylicia became the first black woman to win the Tony award for Best Actress, and picked up another for Best Featured Actress this year. In addition to her fine work on stage and screen, she is the dean of Howard University's Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts. Jonathan met her at the Atlantic Theatre in New York, where they discussed her first transformative experience in the spotlight as an 11-year-old, appearing alongside James Earl Jones, her fearlessness when it comes to seemingly terrifying roles, and the fact that, in her own words, she 'is not the doer'

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Damian Lewis (Act II)

Mon, 28 Nov 2022 06:00:38 GMT

The second part of our chat with Damian Lewis is studded with reminiscences about his late wife, Helen McCrory. Damian speaks openly and beautifully about the play on which they fell in love, their contrasting experiences at drama school, and the time he watched her walk mesmerisingly onstage in Uncle Vanya, pour a cup of tea, leave without saying a word and have the audience in the palm of her hand. Damian also recalls a humiliating acting experience as a youngster, how he shouted his way into playing The Dane on a windswept outdoor stage as a 24-year-old, and the very unique and particular challenges of mastering the dialogue of the great David Mamet.

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Damian Lewis (Act I)

Mon, 28 Nov 2022 05:50:46 GMT

Aside from containing a massive spoiler about Edward Albee's play The Goat: Or Who Is Sylvia - you have been warned - Jonathan's chat with Damian Lewis is an entirely safe and wonderful space to explore the highs and lows of life on stage. As well as asking, despairingly, 'why do we bother?!', Damian discusses the perils of duelling with Ralph Fiennes, the tantalising news that a return to theatre may not be far away - and his coup de foudre with the aforementioned goat, Sylvia. He and Jonathan also pay tribute to the late Pam Harris, legendary landlady of The Dirty Duck, the actors' pub in Stratford-Upon-Avon.

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With Sir Sam Mendes (Act II)

Mon, 21 Nov 2022 13:22:17 GMT

In part two of Jonathan's conversation with Sam Mendes about his life in theatre, we hear the story of his stewardship of the Donmar Warehouse, the loneliness of the director, what his secret weapon is (according to the late Natasha Richardson), Mike Nicholls and the little man on his shoulder - and the end of that anecdote about Jonathan competing for Sam's favour with Tom Hollander for the part of Cyrano de Bergerac.

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With Sir Sam Mendes (Act I)

Mon, 21 Nov 2022 13:21:58 GMT

The titan of theatre that is Sir Sam Mendes joins Jonathan for a waltz through his stellar career and their 35 year friendship. In part one of this enlightening chat, Sam reveals who promised his 9-year-old self to 'see you later, big boy', the unfortunate reason the apples that feature in The Ferryman were forever glistening, why he needs to channel his inner David Essex, and which production of a classic play transformed his creative outlook in the most profound of ways. Jonathan also manages to cock-up the technical side of things at a crucial moment in an anecdote about hoping Sam would give him the leading role in a student production - and how the Legend of Mendes was born in the way he handled it, This - ahem - now appears in part two!

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With Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick & John Benjamin Hickey

Mon, 14 Nov 2022 15:04:29 GMT

In the very first episode of his podcast about life and life in theatre, actor Jonathan Cake heads to New York City to speak to his friends Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick and John Benjamin Hickey about their lifelong relationship with the form. We discover the roles that continue to haunt them for better or worse, where and when they experienced their worst on stage disasters, and why Sarah Jessica has fallen in love with husband Matthew all over again - during the actual interview!

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Stage Door Jonny Is Coming ...

Mon, 07 Nov 2022 19:53:02 GMT

Actor Jonathan Cake is here to tell you about a brand new podcast about theatre, life, and life in the theatre - featuring some of this finest exponents of the form of this (or any) generation ...

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