BWW Interviews: Nicholas Carriere

Boston-born Nicholas Carrière gives new meaning to the term "triple threat talent." At 6'3", with curly dark brown hair and blue-green eyes, he cuts an impressive figure onstage as an actor, singer (tenor - B flat belt and low F to high C legit) and dancer (ballet, jazz and modern). He is also an award-winning figure skater, guitarist and linguist (French and does several foreign accents). That should be enough to explain his substantial credits, particularly in theatre, but he added another feather to his cap by graduating from the Yale School of Drama. BroadwayWorld wants to know more about Nicholas Carrière, who is playing Félix in Noel Coward's A Song at Twilight at Westport Country Playhouse through May 17.

BWW: Tell me about your earliest exposure to theatre. Did you and your family go to the theatre a lot?

NC: My mother was an accomplished pianist. There was always music in the house. I grew up singing in a church....My parents didn't take us to the theatre too much, but I saw the first national tour of Grand Hotel in Boston. I remember being mesmerized. Whatever was happening, that's what I wanted to do. A light had been switched on.

BWW: Did any of your eight siblings go into the arts?

NC: Everyone else is in very stable adult professions. I'm the only one [in show business]. We all played instruments and were interested in music, but I'm the only one insane enough to pursue the arts.

BWW: Did you major in drama at Muhlenberg College? If so, what did they teach you there?

I majored in English and theatre with a French minor. I knew I wanted to do this, but I was a pretty lazy theatre student and sort of just had fun. It wasn't until grad school that I knew what kind of theatre I wanted to do. I had done mostly musicals, but in my senior year of college I was cast in David Edgar's play Pentecost, which deals refugees taking three art historians hostage while seeking asylum. My eyes were opened to a world of text and language as I'd never experienced.

BWW: What would have been your fallback profession?

NC: I never thought about it, honestly. I never had any other plan. I knew I had a destiny, I suppose. I had passing thoughts about advertising or a career in law, but I realized I was only interested in the parts of those professions, which were more readily accessed through stage and screen - language, imagery and dissecting ideas. I had no interest in actually working in an office. So I moved to New York directly after graduation. I knew two people. Looking back, that move seems ludicrous.

BWW: Tell us about your experience at the Yale School of Drama. What can some expect? What is the admissions process like?

NC: I was in New York for two, two and a half years. I got an agent right away, miraculously. I auditioned for a lot of musical theatre, but I didn't fit in any chorus, and no one would take a chance on me in a play. I had heard of a student from Muhlenberg - folklore, really - who had gone to this mystical place called The Yale School of Drama. It existed in my brain as nirvana. So I applied.

I ended up getting called back [by Yale]. I didn't know what I was doing. The audition consisted of one classical and one contemporary monologue. It was like Survivor for actors. After the initial callback the day of your audition, the head of acting (at the time it was Ron Van Lieu, who recently had left NYU after decades of teaching there) compiled two groups of sixteen actors to come to Yale for a weekend to take classes, and repeat their initial audition. Ultimately, from the 32, 16 of us were chosen for the class - 10 men and six women. We can all remember exactly where we were, and what we were doing the day we received the phone call from Ron inviting us to join the school. I was on a treadmill.

BWW: How is it different from other drama schools?

NC: I think what makes Yale unique is the capacity to work with other disciplines. Actors, directors, playwrights, dramaturgs, stage managers, theater managers, and the design students all work collaboratively over the course of three years, in a way that's really exciting, and unique. You grow with other artists, and learn their languages. Directors take acting classes, playwrights are in all the rehearsals for their plays; theater managers are immersed in the process of building art. The synthesis facilitates a dialogue, which prepares you for the business in a very tangible, tactile way.

BWW: What are the most valuable things you have learned at Yale?

Aside from learning to work with other actors, and other disciplines, I learned a lot about humility, and destroying my own ego. (That process is ongoing.) Ron Van Lieu said one day that you've got to learn to "kill the baby," which while horrifying to hear at first, makes absolute sense, and then forces you to laugh. You can't be too precious with anything. Your work may be highly personal, but it's also for general consumption, and so you must release it with joy and generosity. Art can't exist in a vacuum. If it doesn't work? Kill it. Holding on to anything with the idea that your "great idea" must be kept, or savored is ultimately just selfish, and won't help anybody.

BWW: What is your favorite role so far and why?

NC: I've been very fortunate. I've had a lot of wonderful roles. I did Coriolanus in Boston about two years ago. It was very exciting - one of those roles of a lifetime. Coriolanus came at a perfect time in my life. It was a beast, and I was ready for it. It was also in Boston - my hometown, and the experience was a confluence of so many great factors. It was electric.

BWW: What roles would you like to play?

NC: I'd love to play Henry V before I'm too old; Leontes from The Winter's Tale (in ten years); Richard II (when I'm famous and someone lets me do it, because until then, no one will cast someone who looks like I do); Astrov/Trigorin from Vanya and Seagull. But then again, James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave just did Much Ado in London, so ultimately, there's time for everything.

BWW: What about Ibsen?

NC: The Master Builder. Yes, please.

BWW: Was the move of the production of A Song at Twilight from Hartford Stage to Westport Country Playhouse a smooth one? How was it different, in any way?

NC: Yes, very. The physical spaces are different only inasmuch as Westport feels more intimate for a show like this, but the time off between the two runs have been great for the cast, and the production as a whole. The time has made the play settle in a lovely way. We're more comfortable in it.

BWW: Do you have any plans to direct or write for theatre?

NC: Eventually. I write a lot, and my writing - which is mostly nonfiction/memoir - focuses on interviews of (seemingly) unimportant people with fascinating stories. My third year at Yale we did interview projects, which focused on achieving character through speech and breath, and since then I've been intrigued by personal interviews, and just how closely people are connected through their disparate lives. I'm interested in the extraordinary within the ordinary.

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