BWW Special Interview: Allison Williams Talks PETER PAN LIVE! on NBC - Tonight!

BroadwayWorld.com's Richie Ridge was on hand at PETER PAN's press day where he participated in special roundtables talking to the stars and creative team about how they are putting together this live TV event.

Here, Richie talks to Allison Williams, who stars as the title role in NBC's "Peter Pan Live!"

Q: When did you start rehearsing this? This is big!

A: I started doing my solo preparation in late August. I'd just finished shooting "Girls" and it was like an 180-degree turn. I went from a very modern girl who has a lot of sex to an asexual, prepubescent, British boy from the turn of the 20th century. It was actually was really, really fun! One of the first things we did was that photo shoot where we were in full costume. It was really helpful because it let me feel what it's like to stomp around with those boots on, wear the harness under my costume and to have the belt and the knife - all of it. Instantly I felt playful and like a boy. And, from there it's just been a continued education. I've been flying a couple times a week, I've been doing physical training to make sure I have all the strength that I need to be able to fly properly and I've been learning how to sword fight, which is not a skill that comes up often on the streets of New York.

I've also been working on my voice because the role requires specific kind of singing. It's not necessarily very melodic but it's matter-of-fact and very stoic in its delivery. And I've been working on my dialect, I'm now an Englishman! So, it's kind of been like going to conservatory for a month and a half. Then once rehearsals began in early October all the pieces started coming together. I got to meet the whole cast and we started doing scenes and working on all the dynamics. That's been a true pleasure, getting to know Chris [Walken] better and Taylor [Louderman], who's playing Wendy, and Kelly [O'Hara] and Christian [Borle], who are such delights, plus John [Alllyn] and Jake [Lucas] who play Michael and John Darling.

It's just been the most fun. I wish I could come up with a better adjective but it's truly a dream job. I mean, when you're an actor this is exactly what you look for. You hope that someone has the creative mind to look at you the way you are and think "I feel like you could be Peter Pan" which is such a stretch! Think about Marnie - that's such a stretch, and that's why I give them so much credit - Bob Greenblatt and also Neil Meron, Craig Zadan and Rob Ashford - for being able to imagine me in this role. They didn't know I've wanted to play this part since I was two, they didn't know how ready I was to say yes

Q: What did your friends say when you said hey, I'm going from Marnie to Peter Pan?

A: It's so funny, their reactions were very specific. I called Lena [Dunham] the night before it was announced and she said "Oh my gosh, it's the coolest thing, it's the best possible thing you could've told me just now. It's so subversive, you're going to be in drag!" It was just such a classic Lena reaction. A lot of my friends cried, which is really sweet but it's also troubling because it means I have never shut up about wanting to play Peter Pan, and if they've known me long enough, they've known how much I've wanted to do it. All my family members cried but they have personalities and souls so that was natural. My grandparents-they weren't surprised, I guess when your granddaughter is an actress there really isn't a phone call I could make that would shock them at this point.

Q: Will you tell us a little bit about the audition process? What was it like when you first went in, was it really rigorous?

A: There wasn't an audition, it was offered to me.

Q: Fantastic!

A: It was the best kind of audition: non-existent and very low-pressure! And that was really helpful because it made me feel that they had full faith in my ability to pull it off. It's not an easy task, I was learning a lot for this part. I knew I could do that, that's my little secret. I know I'm Type A enough to learn all these skills and then forget to be Type A in the performance! Hopefully, it'll just look like it's happening and I'm not thinking about it. But they didn't know that. They don't know what a hard worker I am, they don't know how much I've been waiting for something that would require this much of me to come along. So the fact that it just kind of happened like that was an absolute miracle.

Q: Were you scared at all? Because Carrie Underwood was wonderful but got a lot of polarizing reactions to her performance. This is probably one of the biggest TV events of the year, which can set you up for a lot of criticism.

A: It sets me up for a lot of everything. I wasn't scared. My instant reaction was, of course, I'm doing this. Am I kidding myself? This is a dream. So yes. No fear yet. And there isn't any-even now, when I get these feelings of nerves it's "oh, I want to remember to deliver that line that way" or "I need to pull my dagger on this line, we switched it." It's always little adjustments but it's not the macro-fear which I think is probably protecting me from a panic attack!

But what I will say about the live aspect and about the [reaction] last year is that today's audiences like to watch things cynically. I'm on a show that is mostly cynical in tone so I'm no stranger to that. "Hate-watching" is a thing. It's like a whole way of watching something. That's not an audience that is natural to a non-cynical performance. You cannot watch PETER PAN cynically. If you do, you're going to hate it, there's no question. It falls apart instantly-there's a shadow, a three-dimensional shadow, like where do you even begin, what are the rules of this place? But the same audience watches "Game of Thrones" watches "The Hunger Games". All of these movies that have different rules, all of these lands that take place mystically and in the future and in the past or in unknown times. So I have full faith that this will happen, that people will hear the opening strains of music that they know, deep deep deep in their heart. And it'll just make them nostalgic and they'll become a kid again and they'll crumble. They might get one hate-tweet out quickly, and then we won't hear from them for awhile because they will have reluctantly been sucked into the sense memory that hopefully will be PETER PAN.

I think that almost everybody has been introduced to it in some form. I watched the Mary Martin one obsessively when I was little but I think that everyone has some relationship to it, whether it's the cartoon, "Hook" or they've seen Cathy Rigby-I just met her this morning with Sandy Duncan, so cool! They're protective of PETER PAN. And I prefer that, that's a great energy in which to watch it, as a lover of PETER PAN. If you love PETER PAN, you're going to be able to be in his face, up close with all of us for the first time ever. You get to see what we're thinking, the little moments. It's a real privilege, this medium of theater and television.

Q: When was the last time you watched the Mary Martin version?

A: I watched it right after I got cast and then I haven't watched it since. It's so in my blood already that I didn't want to just copy her performance because she's so good. I've watched them fly, Sandy, Cathy and Mary, videos of all of them, thinking, oh I really like that or I think I could try that. Because flying is like your DNA, it's like your little stamp on it, you know what I mean? That's how you make your mark, like with a cool new move. So that's been really fun. But that was the last time I watched it.

Q: So last year, yes, there was a lot of "hate-watching" but even more so at the end of the day, it was the biggest ratings, awesome night for NBC. On HBO, you're not too concerned about ratings. Tell me a little bit about going into this project with that in mind, and even more so, any tips from your dad?

A: In terms of the ratings I trust these people to do what they do. They do this really well-they got people to watch last year and no one really even understood what it was. Even this year people keep asking me "Where can I get tickets?" [laughter] I'm like "No, honey, I'll walk you through this really slowly, I'll be very clear. I'm doing this once, it's two and a half hours of my life and then it is over. Three. And that's it, you have to watch it then." I think it's exactly when this should be happening. My experience with watching television, and I watch a lot of it - probably not as much as you guys but a lot for a civilian - and my experience is that, it's on my own time, it's such a pleasure. I just started "Sons of Anarchy" the other day and I get to watch do it on my own time. And so that is what we're used to.

The only thing that brings us together are live events. The World Series last night, the Super Bowl (also on NBC), things like this-it's live, no one can get an early release. No studio head can get a watermarked DVD of PETER PAN LIVE! No one has an upper hand, everyone is seeing it for the first time. Even if you've seen a dress rehearsal, you're not going to get the same performance you're going to get on the night. No one has a sneak peek, no one has a sneak preview-we can give you behind the scenes footage and promo footage but it's not the same thing.

I think that's so cool and it means that people have to be watching because last year there were so many things that were trending about "The Sound of Music". I was completely blown away by it. I was like-when I saw the nunnery, my jaw dropped to the floor, I was like, "This is gorgeous. And how are they walking through these spaces?" And then I saw Carrie on the hillside and I started to cry. It was very moving to me. And it was something that I also watched obsessively as a little kid, I was obsessed with "The Sound of Music". Always turned it off when it got political and complicated, I was like I don't need this, I don't understand it, it's over my head, I liked it better when they were being goatherds. But I loved "The Sound of Music" and I was so excited. But the minute it was over, I knew it was doing well because I saw it was trending everywhere. So I started emailing with my family asking what do we think is next here, what are they going to do, I have to be part of it, I'd do anything to be part of it.

I think people feel a real connection to PETER PAN so I think people will want to tune in, and it holds such a nostalgic place in people's hearts. I cannot emphasize that enough. People come up to me on the street and they're like "Oh my God, PETER PAN, it was my favorite thing." People are just protective. I recently met Patti Smith who's like the coolest person alive, and she's like "PETER PAN, huh?" and I'm like yeah and she's like "Good luck. I love PETER PAN." And eventually she got really excited for me to play it, she believed that I could pull it off. She started to see that I was ready.

Q: Did Sandy Duncan or Cathy Rigby give you some insight?

A: Are you kidding? I asked them a hundred thousand questions the minute we got together, the three of us, I was like "I Gotta Crow" is exhausting, they were like, "I know, you just have to keep breathing, it's an exhausting song." It's right off the bat. We were talking about flying tricks and little tips and I was like, what are the parts you enjoyed the most and they said, "I wish you could have kids in the audience because kids are always so vocal in the audience." I told them we don't have anyone in the audience! And they suggested to have some kids at the dress rehearsal and to channel their voices and I'm like, okay, that might work. But it was instant, we talktalktalktalktalked, even during those little breaks where you're supposed to wave to the camera. We waved for the first couple but by the last one, we just kept talking!

But it's such a weird little connection to have with these people! We'll be bound together in this forever. They much more so because they did so many performances...I feel like Cathy Rigby did north of 3,000 of them? That's a lot of fairy dust, she has done this a lot. And Sandy Duncan did it again many, many hundreds of times. What a unique perspective, how to keep it fresh for that long, how to keep it feeling exciting. They kept emphasizing that the rapport with the Lost Boys. That you have to keep catching them off guard, do things on the night that they don't know are coming, keep everything feeling lively. They gave me so much advice, it's too much to share but it was an incredible opportunity, such an honor, I'm such a fan of both of theirs. For all of their work I'm in awe of them, but especially of PETER PAN. The one thing they did say to me that was a little bit of-something I knew already but it's kind of a bummer to hear confirmed, is that this was the highlight of their career. [laughter] So I was like, cool! Okay, 26? That feels like a good time to be on top! Let's call it a day! But I was like yeah, I don't see how it could get happier than this so I kind of already knew that but it was just confirmed this morning.

Q: How have you had your hair and makeup done to look more masculine and would you ever get a pixie now that you're wearing a wig?

A: A couple of things about the pixie. I definitely mentioned the option of cutting my hair. I was like, listen. Peter's got a pixie, finish that sentence. And they immediately said we will put you in a wig because we need to hide the microphone under it, because you're flying. If I weren't flying, I probably would have cut my hair and if I'd done a run as long as Cathy and Sandy, I definitely would've cut my hair. Who wants to put a wig on every day for that long? So, I decided to leave it on and I'm also not done playing Marnie, and I know the other girls have vastly changed their hair in the last two months. But, I sort of feel like she's a brunette, she's a long brunette, so even this last season I lightened my hair a little bit and cut it short and I was just doing ADR for it and I felt like it didn't look like Marnie any more. So I'm going to keep it long and brown.

Q: I think she'll appreciate that.

A: I think she will too.

Q: How are they doing your makeup to make you look more masculine?

A: So here's the craziest thing. The makeup artist on "Girls" is the makeup artist on this. He did it for "The Sound of Music", it has nothing to do with me. It's so crazy! So, this one guy who's making me look like Marnie for four years is now about to make me look like a boy. He did the makeup in the promo shoot, it's very subtle, you just sort of make the brows a little bit more unruly, which is not hard as mine are always climbing all over my face. You do,-it's not even contouring, you just sort of chisel everything out, you just make it a little bit more masculine. And besides my chin dimple, apparently, I don't even know.

Q: They're enhancing that?

A: They're enhancing my chin dimple.

Q: How are you taking care of your skin during all of this?

A: Great question. I am just washing it obsessively and just trying to keep it as clean as possible but we're sweating for ten hours a day doing rehearsals and stuff like that.

Q: All of us have probably grown up being influenced by PETER PAN, do you feel a responsibility at this point?

A: Yeah, I really do. But also when I heard they were doing PETER PAN, I had that instinct. I was all, "Whoever does this better know what she's got. It's a really good role, I hope they take good care of it." And then I was like, oh, that's now me, okay, I promise to take really good care of it! So now when people say, I hear you're playing Peter Pan, the first words out of my mouth are often "I will take good care of him." I just want them to know that I know what a gift this is. I know how grateful to be, to have the opportunity to play this role. It does not come along often, this kind of stage and this kind of platform. It's never been done like this. So I'm very aware of the responsibility and the privilege and I do not take it lightly, I take it very seriously.

Q: And when did you first know that you wanted to be part of being a storyteller?

A: Before I knew how to put it that way, like from birth. I think if any of you have kids and if any of them feel like they are performers, you know very early on. Apparently every picture of me when I was little, my mouth is wide open and I'm singing or talking or just doing something, always doing something, always wearing costumes. Before I could read, I used to read storybooks which I would fully improvise to the camera and my parents and to my stuffed animals, or whoever was listening. Literally storytelling from very early on.

I think it was "The Sound of Music" was my first realization-"Sound of Music" and "Peter Pan" were the first things I saw where people played two parts I believe. So I knew that was one person's job. The person who played Mr. Darling is Captain Hook. But I was like, oh my God, that's a job? You can be both of those things? That's the most fun thing, it's like dress-up for a living! Which it basically is, as it turns out. That was very early. And I inserted a picture of myself at two-and-a-half wearing the Peter Pan costume. So this has been a lifelong-a real lifelong-dream.

Q: Has Andrew Rannells given you any advice about going live?

A: This is so funny...he was just sort of really amping up his "Hedwig" rehearsals as I was starting my PETER PAN training and I was like, we're switching genders! [laughter] I was like, if you need any girl tips, let me know. And he was like cool, "Let me know if you need any guy tips." There were a lot of jokes about that and the wigs and everything. I was like, I'll just wear one of yours, give me the Farrah, I'll rock the Farrah! Fabulous blonde locks. But no, he was so fabulous as "Hedwig" and I learned a lot from watching him, as I always have from the minute I started watching him do things and then working with him. He's been incredibly supportive throughout this whole process plus he knows everybody. He has Broadway, like, wired. Every single person I work with is like "Tell Andrew I said hi" and I'm like all right, enough! He's a God among us all.

Q: Before you go, will you tell us about getting in the rigging and flying for the first time? It's hard to stay forward, right?

A: It is hard to stay forward. It's one of those things where the way you leave the ground determines the rest of your flight, which is a little intimidating! It's a lot of pressure. If you're slightly dragging one of your feet, you're just gonna go and turn around. If you happen to jump a little bit, the cable will bounce and it will look weird. The temptation-mine was at least, in the beginning-is to jump into a flight because that's how it feels like it should look. But what you really need to learn is to squat, sort of like you are getting ready to jump, and then let the cables be the rest of your jump. That is what requires the most practice. The most fun thing in the world is first time you go up because you don't know the rules nd you're just like "Ahhhh!" Everyone has the same look on their face. I watched Taylor Louderman go up for the first time and I watched the boys do it, and they all just look like "Oh my God!" Every single person. I wish that everybody could have that experience.

Q: Is there a number you're most looking forward to?

A: Literally all of them. I'll put it this way, there is not a single number I'm dreading. Every number, I'm like, "I can't wait for people to see this." And if I were to try to pick a number for you guys to all be allowed to watch, I wouldn't be able to choose because they're all special in their own way. There are three right off the bat for me in the very beginning. I sing "I Gotta Crow," "Neverland" and "I'm Flying," in pretty quick succession with just one commercial break. It reminds me of the Olympics when the when the figure skating announcers are like "She has her triple Lutz right off the bat" [laughter] I feel like it's my triple Lutz and I just hope that Scott [Hamilton] is kind to me in his announcing.

Q: Any tips for next year's star of the NBC event?

A: Oh my God, I have no idea. I have no idea. Ask me again afterward, I'll be like, "Honey..."

Williams is best known as Marnie in HBO's critically acclaimed Judd Apatow/Lena Dunham series "Girls." The poignant comedy is about four friends living in Brooklyn a few years out of college. It debuted on HBO in 2012 and was nominated for a Best Comedy Emmy and Best Comedy Golden Globe. Season 5 premieres in January 2015.

In 2011, Williams starred as Kate Middleton in a four-part, self-written original miniseries for Funny or Die called " Will & Kate: Before Happily Ever After." She made a guest appearance on Fox's "The Mindy Project" in 2013.

Williams graduated from Yale University in 2010 and afterwards began working on a video released on YouTube, "Mad Men Theme Song... With a Twist." She moved to Los Angeles just before releasing the video, which quickly became a viral sensation and garnered much attention in the blog and entertainment world. Among the video's fans were Judd Apatow and the executives at HBO, who, upon seeing the video, reached out to Williams for an audition for "Girls." Ironically, within a month of moving to Los Angeles, she was back in New York filming the pilot episode.

While she may have found success quickly, Williams has been honing her craft for years. She has been involved in theater since an early age, and while at Yale refined her improv skills as a member of the improvisational comedy group Just Add Water. She graduated with a BA in English and is trained in acting and singing as well.

Born and raised in Connecticut, Williams declared to her parents at the age of 4 that she wanted to be an actress. Brian and Jane Williams - who required their daughter to graduate from college before pursuing an acting career - are both involved in the media. Jane has a weekly radio show on Bloomberg radio called "Bloomberg Edu," which addresses education issues in the United States. Brian is the anchor and managing editor of "NBC Nightly News."
Williams enjoys singing, improvisational comedy and writing fiction. She currently splits her time between Los Angeles and New York City.

Live on Thursday night, December 4th at 8/7c will be PETER PAN LIVE!. Preparing to sprinkle fairy dust across America, NBC presents a bold new LIVE television production of the classic Broadway musical that will gather friends, families and anyone who refuses to ever grow up. Following in the footsteps of the phenomenally successful The Sound of Music LIVE! - which drew over 44 million viewers - comes this musical masterpiece that tells the beloved story of Peter Pan, the mischievous little boy who ran away to Neverland. Get ready for show-stopping stars, stunning costumes, extravagant sets and delightful music that will have everyone in your home singing along.