BWW INTERVIEWS: Duncan James Of Legally Blonde At The OLIVIERS 2010

Miriam Zendle talks to the West End heart-throb...

Have you had a fun evening?

I've had a lovely evening, it's been my first Oliviers so it's been very different from the award shows I've been used to in my career, like the Brits. It was lovely, actually. It was a really nice evening, we came off stage tonight at about half 5, so it was lovely to come offstage and have a bit of hot food for a change, rather than heading home and grabbing takeout, which you get used to in the musical theatre business. It's like, the hours are quite antisocial, so you're grabbing food where you can. It was nice to come and sit down, have a glass of wine and a bit of hot food.

Did it feel strange coming straight offstage and then here?

Yeah, it did feel a bit strange! You know, rush rush rush, but it was lovely to be here.

And you presented an award as well.

Yes, for Best Musical Revival.

How was standing on stage in a room surrounded by all of your theatre peers?

It was lovely to be here and I'm very thankful. It's lovely.

How have you adapted to eight shows a week?

It's great. It's really good discipline, theatre. I never had much discipline when I was in Blue, because our schedule was here there and everywhere, you never knew whether you were coming or going. So there was no schedule in that respect. You didn't know how many nights of sleep you were going to get from one to the other, you didn't know what country you were going to wake up in. It was that crazy. But here, it's lovely. I know what time I'm going to be in work, I know what time I'm going to leave work, so I can actually have a life around that. You plan when to go to the gym, go for a meeting. You know your times when you work, so it's nice to have an actual schedule.

You must be quite used to working in the evenings, having done so many concerts with Blue.

I'm a night person anyway, I'm not great in the mornings. So this job is perfect for me, because I work late in the evenings and I can sleep in late too.

When are you staying in Legally till?

June. They've asked to extend me till October, and it's something I thought long and hard about, but I've got lots of other things I'm working on, and I feel that I've had a great six months with Legally Blonde, but it'll be time to move on to other things.

Would you consider coming back in the future?

Who knows...

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