Interview: Debut of the Month - SKYLIGHT's Matthew Beard Talks Incredible Run of 'First-Evers'

Matthew Beard makes his Broadway debut in the role of Edward Sergeant in SKYLIGHT. The actor, who is up for a Tony Award as Best Featured Actor in a Play, reprises the role from the recent critically-acclaimed West End production. Starring Carey Mulligan and Bill Nighy, David Hare's play is directed by two-time Tony Award winner Stephen Daldry.

SKYLIGHT is set on a bitterly cold London evening, where schoolteacher Kyra Hollis (Mulligan) receives two unexpected visits, first from her former lover's teenaged son (Beard), then from the boy's father himself (Nighy), a successful and charismatic restaurateur whose wife has recently died. As the evening progresses, the two attempt to rekindle their once passionate relationship, only to find themselves locked in a dangerous battle of opposing ideologies and mutual desires.

Today, Beard speaks exclusively with BWW about his recent incredible run of firsts - first-ever play, first-ever West End play, first-ever Broadway play and first-ever Tony nomination!

Well first things first, congratulations on your Tony nomination. That is phenomenal.

Thank you very much. It's a very surreal thing to wake up to on a Tuesday morning. It was great, it was a very good day.

And so hard to believe that the West End production of SKYLIGHT was also your stage debut.

Yeah, it's true, this play has been my first everything in that sense. It was my first play, my first-ever West End play, my first-ever Broadway play and now its my first Tony nomination. So I owe SKYLIGHT quite a lot for the experience.

How did your casting come about?

Well I actually met Stephen Daldry, our director, years ago for a film he was doing called "The Reader," and then that didn't work out, but he said at the time, 'one day we'll work together' kind of thing and you know when you hear that you think, yeah, sure - whatever. But then sure enough, a few years later I met him again and he was doing this play and he asked if it would be something I'd be interested in doing, and I said 'Yes!' because I'd been wanting to do a play for so long. I had just gotten out of University and I was just getting back into acting and casting and I couldn't even get an audition for a play because I hadn't done one and I hadn't been trained or anything, so no one would see me for anything. And I explained to Stephen that I'd been trying to audition for a play for ages and no one would see me and he said, 'Well I'll see you!'

So I met him a couple of times and eventually ended up getting it, which was so brilliant and terrifying at the same time because I now had to be true to my word and carry it out and do it, which was a really scary thing to do. But it was a wonderful opportunity.

And it's funny that Stephen is also directing "The Audience" right down the street from your theater here on Broadway.

Yeah, and he was doing that back in London as well. He's everywhere. I think he only really functions at that optimum speed. I've never seen him not have his plate more than full, it's just how he thrives. He's one of those insane people who can only really be happy when they have a thousand projects going at once. But what's amazing is that he does them all so well, he directs all those plays so successfully. He's quite an inspirational man to meet.

I wanted to ask you about your co-stars. This is your third time working with Carey Mulligan. Was that just a coincidence?

Yes, well after I spoken to Stephen about doing the play, he said, 'Well you're going to be working with Carey Mulligan.' and I said, 'Oh my God, I know her!' And he said, 'huh?!" So that was a really nice coincidence and it was so nice especially because, as I say, I was terrified of this whole thing, so it was so nice to know that going into the rehearsal room, I already had one ally, as it were, and a friend and someone to talk to. So that was a really nice thing to have, and I hope it was that way for her too. So yeah, I love working with her and if the only projects I ever do are Carey Mulligan projects, then that's more than enough for me. She only does great stuff so it's great to be a part of it.

Both Carey and your other co-star, Bill Nighy are theater veterans. What have you learned from working with them?

Wow, well as my only experience, everything I know I learned from them. The great thing is that they have a completely different energy from each other and they both go about getting the end result, i.e., delivering a truthful, fascinating character, in completely different ways. Bill already had all his lines learned well before rehearsals began, because for him, he likes to play with the choreography of it. Watching him is more like watching a ballet dancer hop around the stage, it's incredible what he does.

And with Carey, you know if an idea came up to try something different with a line or with a moment or something, and if it's not right for her, you can see her kind of flinch and become sort of awkward and uncomfortable, she's sort of digital in that aspect. She can either do it or she can't do it at all. And then she's so still and powerful with her manner, while Bill has this sort of Tazmanian devil storm which he whips up from across the stage. So learning from those two is great because I can sort of take the best of both worlds.

And Bill has definitely taught me a lot, just from watching him in the rehearsal room. Stephen very cleverly invited me to be in rehearsals all the time, because my scenes are only in a short part of the play, but I was always in rehearsals and I was always watching Bill and picking up his methods and the way he does things and that was important because I play his son in the play. And Stephen was very interested in the idea of the irony of the more an adolescent boy tries to stop being like his parents, the more he actually becomes his parents. And that's something we played with and I really enjoyed playing with those elements and studying Bill and seeing what it would be like to have him as a father.

Do you find that the New York audiences react to the play any differently than the West End audiences did?

Well I'd been warned, if that's the right word, about New York audiences before I came out - that they'll be vocal and that they'd clap when people come out on stage for the first time, which is a very bizarre thing to anyone who has not seen it before. But actually I think our play is not the kind of play where people would start cheering along or booing along, or whatever they do. We move so quickly and there's so much dialogue, that mostly I can feel the audience leaning forward and wanting to make sure they catch every word, and you can feel that when you're on stage. And that's a great thing to have an audience that is so keen and eager to take in the story you're trying to tell them or communicate to them.

And speaking of differences, are you enjoying living in New York City?

I love New York so much! I'm having a really great time here and I think we can all agree that we're having a much better time here than we did in London. It's been so great and I think the production is better for it too. I feel like it's home now, I've only been here a couple of months and I already feel very comfortable here.

Now that you've had a taste of live theater, do you have a preference for stage over film work?

I don't have a preference. It definitely flexed the muscles that I would love to work out again and I guess like most actors, I love the variety, because they are so completely different in terms of your routine and what your life is like when you're filming, you're life is totally different than when you're doing a play. And so far in my career I've been so lucky to have been involved in some of the very best films and now one of the very best plays, so I feel very fortunate in that sense. But it has set up a very difficult precedent, which is now I wonder what will be next!

You recently starred in "The Imitation Game", which was such a powerful film about the famous mathematician Alan Turing. And I read somewhere that in real life, you are actually a great mathematician as well.

[laughing] Well ... no! I was always quite academic and I did very well in school in my exams and I always leaned more towards math and sciences, which is quite unusual in this industry. But I certainly did not reach the level of being a mathematician. I think someone heard this rumor on set as well and I ended up becoming the sort of resident mathematician while we were filming, trying to explain how the Enigma machine worked, which even some of the very best mathematicians find hard to explain because it's such an incredibly complicated machine. But one of the huge perks of my job is that I get to research the most bizarre fields for my roles and that was a great job to research. I really enjoyed that.

Can you tell us what your Broadway debut experience was like?

I can. I think I remember feeling like I'd come a long way. I remember on the day, thinking back to my London debut, which was also my stage debut, and thinking how I felt then and how I felt completely different stepping on stage here, in a great way, and on a personal level. And that was really special. And it's so nice when a job can reward you in that way!

About Matthew Beard:

Matthew Beard made his stage debut in the West End production of Skylight, for which he was nominated for the Evening Standard's Emerging Talent Award. He can currently be seen in a featured role in the film The Imitation Game. His performance in When Did You Last See Your Father? garnered him nominations for both a British Independent Film Award and an Evening Standard British Film Award as Most Promising Newcomer. His other film appearances include The Riot Club, The Look of Love, One Day, Singularity, Chatroom, and An Education. His television credits include "Rogue" and "Labyrinth."

Photos by John Haynes

Photos by Erin Baiano

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photo

Imitation Game photo courtesy of film's official site