Eddie Redmayne had never seen “Cabaret” when, as a 15-year-old student at Eton, he was first cast as the Emcee, the indecorous impresario of the bawdy Berlin nightclub where the musical is set. So Redmayne did what anyone wondering about the character would do: He watched the 1972 film, and studied Joel Grey’s performance.
Redmayne, 42, has played the Emcee three more times — at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe following high school; in London’s West End, winning an Olivier Award in 2022; and now on Broadway, where he has just picked up a Tony nomination.
“Cabaret,” set in 1929 and 1930, is about an American writer who has a relationship with a British singer working at the Kit Kat Club; the queerness of some of that nightclub’s habitués and the Jewishness of some of its neighbors become risk factors as the Nazis gain power.
Redmayne had never met Grey, who originated the role on Broadway in 1966 and who went on to win both Tony and Academy Awards as the Emcee. So I asked them to lunch, to talk about a character both have played several times, and about a musical that has continued to move audiences.
We met at Le Bernardin — Grey’s choice — and for two hours they shared stories, Redmayne reverential and thoughtful, Grey puckish and supportive. At times, when words seemed insufficient, Grey reached out to clasp Redmayne’s hand.
Although the lunch was the first time Redmayne and Grey had had a real conversation, they had greeted each other a few days earlier, on Grey’s 92nd birthday, when the actor, accompanied by his actress-daughter, Jennifer, attended a “Cabaret” performance; as the two arrived, the starry crowd (including the musical’s 97-year-old composer, John Kander) rose to its feet.
At curtain, Redmayne, who also has an Oscar and a Tony (for “The Theory of Everything” and “Red”), paid an emotional tribute to Grey’s performance as an inspiration for his career, led the crowd in singing “Happy Birthday” and presented Grey with a pineapple-shaped cake (pineapple, as a treasured fruit, is the subject of a “Cabaret” song).
There was no pineapple at our lunch, but there were other delights (Grey turns out to be partial to sea urchin).
These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
EDDIE REDMAYNE: My family have just left. I don’t know how you found it, Joel, but I have two young children, and we always thought we would travel together and do everything together, but they’ve just started new schools in London.
MICHAEL PAULSON: They’re too young to see “Cabaret,” right?
REDMAYNE: They are, in theory. How old were yours when they saw it?
JOEL GREY: Jennifer was glued to the proscenium arch. She would go with me to every matinee.
REDMAYNE: This is wonderful, because my kids have been singing the music for years. It’s so inappropriate!
PAULSON: Do you explain anything?
REDMAYNE: They’ve seen little snippets of numbers. My wife thinks it would go over their head and they would just like to see it. But my fear is more for the patrons. “There’s a 7-year-old and a 6-year-old here?”
PAULSON: So you guys had not met before last Thursday?
REDMAYNE: This is pretty much our first time of meeting proper. It’s very surreal to be doing it in recorded company. My first interaction with Joel was on our opening in London, and I opened a card from him, and I’ll never forget that moment. That coupled with the other evening, when I knew Joel was in, but I didn’t know where he was sitting, and we caught each other’s eye, and Joel went like this to me [puts his hands over his heart, and then reaches out] and I’ll never, ever forget that moment.
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