I find it less problematic, I have to be honest. JOE MANTELLO: I think like a lot of people my first reaction when I heard “ Boys in the Band” was that it was problematic for a number of reasons, and having now worked on it for the last few years my admiration and respect for Mart’s crafting of the play has just grown exponentially. What have you learned or discovered about the play since doing the movie? Jim Parsons, Joe Mantello, Tuc Watkins on set Scott Everett White/NETFLIXĭEADLINE: We last spoke when Boys In The Band was opening on Broadway. This interview was edited and condensed for clarity and length. “If he asks for me, I will be there,” Mantello laughed.
I asked Mantello if he’s become a pledged member of Murphy’s ensemble of cross-series players.
The director, who earned his first Tony Award nomination as an actor in 1993 for his breakthrough role in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, became TV-famous this year with his sympathetic performance as a closeted film executive in Murphy’s Netflix limited drama series Hollywood. What the shutdown hasn’t done, though, is sidelined Mantello.
I think it’s the best thing Laurie has ever done.” I don’t want to say that you’ll never see it, but I just have no idea. Actors’ schedules get very, very complicated. The much anticipated production was in previews when the pandemic shutdown hit last March, and Mantello says its future is uncertain: “I know we probably won’t come back right away, but other than that I just don’t know. In the more distant offing was a planned Rudin revival on Broadway of Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, a project that would reunite Mantello with his frequent collaborator, the actress Laurie Metcalf. The Mantello-directed Wicked, of course, was still going strong after 17 years as a Broadway staple, and the fascinating Hillary and Clinton was a year away. Mantello had just been Tony-nominated for his direction of the Scott Rudin-produced revival of Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women. I last interviewed Mantello when Boys was just about to open on Broadway. (The film is dedicated to Crowley, who died March 7 following heart surgery.) More than two years later, Mantello, his producer and their Broadway cast are about to make their case again for Boys‘ relevance, significance and dramatic irresistibility: The Boys in the Band launches on Netflix this Wednesday, Sept. Sold-out audiences, critical acclaim, a Tony Award for Best Revival and a big Netflix deal for a film adaptation went far in resurrecting both the profile and the reputation of Crowley’s classic. Scott Cooper's Netflix Pic 'The Pale Blue Eye' Adds Gillian Anderson, Lucy Boynton, Timothy Spall, Fred Hechinger, Robert Duvall & More