BWW INTERVIEWS: Broadway Legend JOEL GREY

Hello, Joel - we're so excited to have you here in the UK! How long are you staying for?

I'm glad to be here! Nine nights, eight days.

And are you working the entire time?

No, no, there's always time, whatever I'm doing, whenever I'm here to do other things too. I've been coming here forever!

Forever? When was your first visit?

1951, maybe? Is that possible?! [laughs] I came here to play the London Palladium when it was doing vaudeville. 

Will you get to see any shows while you're over here?

Yes! I saw War Horse, and All's Well, and tonight I'm seeing La Cage. Tomorrow I was planning on seeing Enron, but maybe I'll see it when it comes to New York. I like to see musicals that are successful here, here. Like La Cage - it started in the Chocolate Factory, and now it's in a regular theatre, is that right? I'm excited about it. I'm always excited about being at a musical.

And you're over to promote your new photography book. I had no idea that you've got this second career.

This is my third book. I think it's probably the most original of them. It happened by chance. I went on a weekend away and forgot my camera. I'd always had so much disdain and haughty attitude about people who took pictures with their cellphones. And I have a very, very simple 1.3 megapixel camera, from five years ago. I'm not computer-oriented, it just doesn't work for me. But I saw something I was interested in, so I pulled the phone out, and I realised you don't look through anything. You have to find the spot you want to look at, and it turns out I always know what that is. So none of these pictures have ever been cropped or touched.

No Photoshop?

No! They look different, and it gives its own version, and I liked the magic of that. It's like having a magic partner. Each one I took, I became more curious about it. I came home and I called my book designer, and I said, "I forgot my camera and I took some pictures. Are we having dinner tonight? I'll bring them." I showed him them, and he said, "That's your next book."

Have you changed your mind about camera phones since then?

I've taken a couple of rolls on my regular camera, and found that I'm even more focused than before. I'll go back to it naturally, but when I see something, that's it - pull it out, and shoot it. I was at the BBC World Service and they asked me to shoot three or four things to put on their website, and then told their listeners that I'm shooting brick, an eye, and my hand, and then they do their own version of it. The producer says a lot of people are participating.

At this point, Joel's famous phone rings - it's a friend in New York.

Ah, New York - I'm going to see Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman in their play [A Steady Rain] next week. He's a good pal, Hugh. I was at the National the other night, and I remember seeing him there in Oklahoma! That moment he came out, the whole audience breathed in and realised that was a star. It was amazing.

How did your interest in photography start?

I've always taken pictures. I started in earnest when my children were born. Oddly enough, I was looking at some pictures I took when Jennifer was born, and I wanted to send them to her, so we could guess what her baby was going to look like. Everything was in shoeboxes, and some artist friends were rumbling around in other boxes, and asking, "Oh, what's this?" and I was telling them; I'd just see something interesting and I'd shoot it. "Oh, do you have any more?" Oh, yeah, sure! I took a lot of pictures. It was my way of getting to know places, and my place within that place. So they told me to take the negatives to a lab.

So I did what I was told, and we started to look at the negatives. A book designer friend of mine looked at this pile of photos, and said he liked them. I gave him what I'd got, and six weeks later he called me and asked me to go to his office, and I did, and he handed me a complete mock-up of my work. I saw it through new eyes - I could never have made those choices, he made a different assessment. Within a couple of weeks we had a publisher, and then we went into print.

The book came out, people liked it, and I had a show, and it sold very well. In the making of the first book I had to do some fairly immediate work, as I wanted some fresh pictures, so I made some new ones, and I realised that they showed how my tastes and sensibilities had become more specific. And so I learned from that what I wanted to shoot. That turned into the next book, and I love that one. That was all up-to-date. Again, I had a show, and people started taking me somewhat seriously, and the next thing I know, here we are.

The new book is going to be at the centre of a certain controversy, because certain critics say that cellphones just can't be art. Who said so? There's a conversation between some very smart people who are limited in their vision. In the Fifties, people thought that photographs would never be considered art, and people would never buy or pay for them.

So in fifty years' time, people will think cellphone pictures are art?

It won't take that long. In the meantime, the Whitney Museum took two of my photographs, one from each of the first two books, and they're interested in this cellphone book too.

It must have been a big learning curve for you.

Yes. I've loved it in a way that I have not enjoyed my acting career, I've enjoyed it in a different way because it's the only thing my mother didn't have anything to do with! Isn't that sad? But she was a Mama Rose.

It must be nIce To have a new challenge, because you've done pretty much all there is to do in acting, haven't you?

Well, no, there's always something to surprise you. I wake up with that feeling every day, and how lucky I am.

Your last Broadway appearance was in Wicked.

Yes, for a year. 

Have you seen it over here?

I find it's not a good thing to go back and see things.

Because you're bored, or you don't want to see people in your part?

Usually I think second companies...it's not your company. Even if it's good.

Does that mean you haven't seen any later productions of Cabaret?

Right! I did in the original cast, after I left after a year, I did go and see my replacement.

What was that like? Strange?

[pause] Yeah. It was so, it came out of such personal digging and darkness, the Emcee, that it was too personal. [long pause] Wait a minute. I saw Wayne Sleep's production over here. You love musicals, right?

Yes!

I do too!

What's your favourite musical?

There are lots from years ago that I've adored. West Side Story, Gypsy - I saw those original productions. Follies - it's amazing. All of Hal Prince's shows - he and I are very close friends, and his shows are so ahead of everything else.

Is there a part you wish you'd played that you haven't?

I always thought I'd do The Merchant Of Venice. I would have loved to have done that. But the timing was never quite right. But that's about it. I don't have a lot of regrets. I would have loved to have played How To Succeed [In Business Without Really Trying]. I remember when that came out, and I was jealous. I wasn't being seen for anything on Broadway. They wouldn't audition me because they thought I was a nightclub performer. Then I did a number of non-musical plays that were enormously satisfying - A Normal Heart, Give Me Your Answer Do, Marco Polo Sings A Solo, where the cast was Sigourney Weaver, Ann Jackson, me...

So what will you do when you go home? Any more projects in the pipeline?

Anything! I'll concentrate on this book until Christmas and do further stuff on it. Some very astute and serious photographers here are loving this work, so maybe I'll have a show here.

Do you have any ambitions left?

Yeah! I don't even know. There's an idea I've had for a memoir that I've begun. So that's a big job. We'll see. I'd have no problem saying I can't do it alone, but to find the right sensibility to get you - that's the challenge. Other things interest me. I've done this since I was nine years old; I've been working as an actor since I was nine. I don't have to be on stage to be happy - I don't think.