Interview: A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE Tony Nominee Mark Strong Can't Wait To Get Back To Broadway

It wasn't long after British film, television and stage star Mark Strong completed his Broadway run in the transfer of director Ivo van Hove's Young Vic production of Arthur Miller's A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE, that he was back in his home country beginning work on "Kingsman: The Golden Circle," once again playing Merlin in a spy thriller follow-up to 2014's "Kingsman: The Secret Service."

Now he has a good reason to return to New York, a 2016 Tony Award nomination as Best Leading Actor in a Play. While many Broadway artists wake up early on nomination morning to find out if they've been honored, Strong was informed less directly.

"I knew what day the nominations were coming out," he says, "and I got a text from somebody saying 'Congratulations, you were nominated.'"

Strong has already won an Olivier Award for his portrayal of Eddie Carbone, a married Italian-American dock worker from Brooklyn helping to raise his wife's orphaned niece while harboring illegal immigrants from the home country who are looking for a better life. This time however, he'll be missing all the hoopla that always leads to the big night.

"Unfortunately I won't be able to take advantage of those events. I know they're important because you get to meet all the other nominees and the voters. Our play came off at the end of February and it would have been a great opportunity to remind everybody of us. The film company has given me time off for the ceremony but they can't afford to have me fly to New York for a longer stay."

With a long list of film and television credits, Arthur Miller's classic 1955 drama served as a return to his theatrical roots.

"When I left drama school I did theatre for ten years before I went into movies. I went to Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and we did nine plays in nine months. Then I went to the Theatre of Manchester for three months then the Royal Shakespeare Company for a year."

His debut with Britain's National Theatre was as a company member that alternated between supporting Ian McKellen in RICHARD III and Brian Cox in KING LEAR.

"We did that for about a year and a half and then I stayed with the National for a few years."

Then came a bit of a career change.

"I pretty much felt that after ten years that I had done as much as I could in theatre. I was repeating myself and so I got more interested in the movies. It was about twelve years before I got back on stage to do A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE. And now there's no question that I want more stage work. I miss that experience of a live audience, how you work with other actors in rehearsal and on stage. With the fractured nature of the film business, it's much more satisfying for me to be doing a play."

Appearing as Eddie wasn't his first experience playing Arthur Miller, who he says is extremely popular in Britain.

"I played Biff in DEATH OF A SALESMAN at the National. It was directed by David Thacker, who was almost single-handedly responsible for reviving Miller in the U.K. He was the guy who was doing a lot of Arthur Miller's plays at a time when they weren't particularly fashionable in America. I think they were confined to history for a while, but David got excited by his plays and started doing them. Then Arthur Miller came over to the U.K. because he knew he had a fan. He's very popular here. We sold out A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE at The Young Vic and we took the play to the Wyndham stage on the West End and sold out there."

One of the great thrills of that production of DEATH OF A SALESMAN was a chance to work with the playwright himself.

"Thacker knew Miller was over in Salzburg for a conference and he said if we wanted to we could go over and work with him. He was very supportive and very keen to let us know that he didn't expect it to be performed in any particular way. He was happy for us to take it and do with it what we felt should be done. I don't think he was very precious about his work, which makes me think that our production of A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE is something he would have loved."

It was the strength of Miller's text that brought Strong back to the stage.

"I got a call saying that there was a production that was going to be done at the Young Vic and, to be honest, I had a pile of movie scripts I was going through and in there was A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE. It was head and shoulders above everything that I was reading and I really responded to the character of Eddie. I knew I wanted to be in that play."

It wasn't his first time working with Belgian director Ivo van Hove, particularly known in New York for his abstract and extremely non-traditional mountings of classics like HEDDA GABLER and THE MISANTHROPE.

"I did something he did at the Barbican called ROMAN TRAGEDIES but it didn't give me any indication of how he would do A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE except for the fact that he's quite a conceptual director. I was interested to see how he would approach a traditional play like this one. His genius lies in the fact that it's about clarity. People felt that he made the play clearer than it had been before."

Genius, however, is sometimes not immediately recognized when trying things out in rehearsals.

"It was about a week in when he decided we should go barefoot and we were puzzled but we didn't fight him on it, and he was right. When the two immigrants arrived, at first he had them play it with Italian accents and then he decided to drop them. We fought him a little bit on that because they were supposed to come from somewhere else, but he didn't want the accents to override what they were saying. I love that attitude."

At the intimate Young Vic, audience members were seated very close to the action on four sides, an arrangement that was accomplished on the West End and on Broadway with onstage seating.

"The concentration required to do the play allows you to phase people out. I never caught anybody's eye in the audience. I'm aware that they're there but my attention and focus is on whoever's on stage. Even at moments when you're looking out, you don't see anybody there. It's not as difficult as it might seem to play with an audience that close and not be intimidated by them or affected by them in any way."

"In the U.K., obviously, all of the American references like Nostrand Avenue and Times Square were just words. They were somewhere else. But in New York they were right down the road. It made me realize that the Broadway audience was receiving the play in a completely different way. Also, American audiences are more vocal. For example, the moment when I kissed Phoebe [Phoebe Fox, who played Eddie's niece, Catherine] and then kissed Russell [Russell Tovey, who played the young immigrant dating Catherine] people would shriek or scream sometimes. Audiences in the U.K. aren't as vocal in expressing their feelings. Also in the U.K. there was more tolerance for Eddie. In the states I felt that if I pushed him too far it would turn the audience away and they wouldn't like him. The thing about Eddie is that whether you like him or not you at least have to understand him. You have to see this man who's struggling to do the right thing while he's doing the completely wrong thing."

A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE was Strong's Broadway debut and he's eager for another extended visit.

"I had such a wonderful time in New York. I'd love to come back. The Broadway audiences are so literate and so warm. I can't wait to get back there."