Interview: 'No Other Show Has Fans Like Ours.': Jak Malone of OPERATION MINCEMEAT on Playing Hester Leggett and Fandoms

With 64 five star reviews and counting, Operation Mincemeat continues to take the West End by storm. Based on the outlandish true story of how British Intelligence used a corpse to win the Second World War, the show has just been extended until February 2024.

BroadwayWorld recently spoke with the show's Jak Malone who plays several characters including Hester Leggett, Bernard Spilsbury, Captain Jewell, and Willie Watkins. We discussed what it has been like being a part of the show with actors he has been a fan of, how he has developed his characters, and even what it has been like to see the #FindHester fan project on X/Twitter!

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So how did you first get involved with Operation Mincemeat?

So I was a huge fan of the writers [SpitLip] and their previous work. They've made these incredible horror-comedy plays that spoke to me on a cellular level. I was obsessed! So I relentlessly stalked them on social media. They knew me as a big, big fan. They knew me from Twitter. They were like, “Oh, that guy! He's a big fan.” And I sent them fan art. I just loved them. And then when they said, Well, we're making a musical. And we're going to need to hire some actors for it,” I was just like, “It has to be me. I can't explain to you why, but it really must, and you need to  understand.” So eventually, they did a big open call, they let me audition. They're on record as saying, “Oh, it'll be nice for him! He’s a fan, he can meet us!” 

And then I performed and Tash is on record as saying, “Well, he's clearly better than any of us.” So then they hired me from there! [Laughs]

So what is it like being a part of the show with these people you've been fans of? 

It's incredible. I've been with them since 2019 and it's still a real “pinch myself” moment. I have them all the time. I'll be standing in the wings, watching them perform, and I'll be laughing. And then I'll suddenly think, “Oh, I get to go on as well!” And I'll walk on with a spring in my step because I'm like, “I'm in it! I'm in it with these people that I so admire.” And they're just they're they're great people. They're great people to work with. It's amazing to watch them work because they are this collective hive-mind monster - They're often on the same wavelength. It's amazing. They've been very good to me. They've given me an incredible role, they've allowed me to have my input, they've written the character of Hester for and around me and with me, and it's been a joy.

Speaking of Hester, what is it like playing characters based on real-life people?

The pressure of playing someone based on a real-life person is that you don't want to let down anyone who may feel a connection to that character, anyone who is actually related to that real person. I think that is a big pressure. You want to give the best portrayal that you can, and you want to give an honest portrayal while still paying respect to the real-life actions of that person. My pressure felt like a different pressure because she had no family. She had nobody laying claim to her. Nobody was a fan of Hester before any of this. So my pressure was, I'm carrying the legacy of this incredible woman, and I'm carrying the banner for her. She would never have thought that would be the case. And there's nobody out there rooting for me to do that. So it's all on me.

I want to make sure that I'm happy with what I did and that I put something out there that homages this woman who was so strong and determined and, by the sounds of things, ahead of her time, in terms of how she was just in charge of every room that she was in. Even amongst the men, she was quite feared! I felt, for the longest time, a lot of pressure to pay her that due respect. And I've sort of been doing it alone, obviously with the help of SpitLip and incredible writing. I've been looking after her, in a way! I felt like she's my little friend who I check in on and make sure she's alright. And obviously, that is no longer the case and it's exploded from there. But for the longest time, I felt like it was just me and her. 

What has it been like seeing the #FindHester campaign emerge?

For the longest time, it was too huge to even talk about! It was all over social media - Everybody's chiming in, everybody's talking about it. But it took me like a week before I even said anything because I was like, “I don't know what to do with this!” The idea that something that I've created and been involved with has generated so much enthusiasm and energy, and it's galvanised people to find everything out about it. There's so many tiny details that they've discovered! And the time and the effort . . . People have physically got on the train and gone to archives and to libraries to check out newspapers, somebody went to visit a small village to look something up! The fact that something I've been a part of has generated that has been too huge to speak about. Now I am speaking and I'm a rambling mess! [Laughs] Because I can't comprehend that something I've done has generated that. That's amazing. No other fan base is like this. No other show has fans like our show, and I've said it from the start because they're all wonderful little weirdos. 

[Laughs]

Just like us, and we love them. Just when I thought that they were all this incredible, creative, intelligent bunch, they said, “Hold my beer.” There's been so many podcasts about Operation Mincemeat, there's been a good few books, there's been a major motion picture, and nobody has done this work. Until our fan base said, “No, we're not having that there’s no photos of her! We're gonna find some!” And they have! It’s amazing.

What is it like being in a show with a fan base like this one?

It's joyous. Because obviously, to start up myself as a fan of the work, I know where they're all coming from. I know why they've all decided to set aside a little pocket of their life and dedicate it to this thing because I know what it means to do that.

I know what it means to really enjoy something, then grab onto it with both hands. And now I'm on the other side of that and I get to have that happen to me. And it's a privilege because they're all wonderful, incredible, creative, mad geniuses, just like you see in the show. It's art imitating life. I'm now the one being sent fan art, and it's all so incredible! It's all better than mine ever was! I love it. I do not take it for granted at all. I spend hours at stage door chatting to them all. Sometimes my phone will be buzzing in my pocket because it's my girlfriend saying, “You should have been home 15 minutes ago,” and it’s because I've been out at stage door for 45 minutes. I love it, and I'm honoured and privileged to interact with these wonderful people.

And you have Hester’s Drawing Club. How did that come about? 

That was because we recently were talking about fan art. I think we did an interview as a cast where it was mentioned in the article. So then on Twitter, everyone was saying, “Oh, we didn't know this, that Jak did fan art and now he's in the show! That's crazy! That's really weird!” We were already getting some fan art, and I knew there was a lot of talented artists amongst the fan base. So I thought because I do have this deep connection to fan art and because it helped me get where I am, I want to do something to celebrate that, to channel it and hone it and inspire it. So I set up Hester's Drawing Club where I give a weekly prompt, which so far has been a line from the show, and then all of these incredible submissions pour in throughout the week.

I choose one company member from the show and they judge it each week - They choose their favourite one. And the winner gets a certificate that I made that's covered in complicated stamps and some Hester stickers that I drew as well. I thought “Oh, this will be nice, it'll be a bit of fun!” It soon became this celebration of creativity and wit and ingenuity. The very first week we did it, I had the best week. I was over the moon all week as every couple of hours, I'd get a little ping on my phone and I'd see this incredible piece of art that is funny and silly and perfectly encapsulates the character and the show. And again, it's a testament to these wonderful people, how connected they feel to the show. Because they know it! They really do know it. So much so that they can emulate it through other mediums very successfully. And so everything they've drawn is canon, even though it's conflicting. It's all canon to the characters because it feels right. It's very funny.

Do you feel like you've been influenced by any of the fan interactions, or fan art, with your character?

I don't think so. Purely because I first started working on it in 2019, and since then, it's been four years of honing and polishing and creating. So I've created this rich Hester backstory - tiny, minute details. And these are just things that come to me throughout the show that I tend to jot down. I have a Hester Bible! I have pages and pages of notes, all bullet points, and it's in a sporadic order. It can be any little thought that comes to me at any time. If I remember it, I'll make a note of it in the Hester Bible. And once you've done all that work, once you've committed to that, I didn't feel there was much scope to let any of that influence what I've already made. People are already so connected to what I've made that I didn't want to change it in any way. Even though we have details about Hester's life that are coming out, these real-life details and many of them are conflicting with the little thoughts that are in my head, I've just not allowed any of that to creep in. We found the real lady and things about her, and there are many weird synchronicities between the show and what actually did happen in real life, but I haven't really shifted what's in my head. Because I'm also very attached to that version of Hester. I don't want to go messing about and muddy all that up, because I’m still looking after her.

Along with Hester, you also play some other characters, including the iconic Bernard Spilsbury. What is it like giving these characters distinct personalities of their own? 

I tend to work very quickly. And we all do it! The nature of making the show has been quick decisions. Sometimes the first time I play a character will be during the read-through, and I might not know I'm going to play that character until we get to the scene and then Bob [Zoë Roberts] points to me and goes, “Oh, by the way, that you’re that character” So I work very quick and I go, “Oh, I’m this character, right! What's the voice? This is the voice, okay.” I need one thing to cling onto that will root that character and let everybody know that this is the character and this is what they're about.

So for Spilsbury, he's a posh guy, but he's also very showman-y, so he's quite loud, and his pitch is a little bit higher because he sits up here with his excitement. And then I thought, “Okay, well what's his one thing that everybody needs to know?” And then I came up with, “Oh, he loves his job. He really loves it and possibly loves it too much.” So then you're left with this slimy, showy coroner who can't leave his body alone because he's enjoying his work so much!

So that tends to be how I work, how I make these shifts and come up with these characters. It's play at its purest form. It's literal play. People say, “How do you do it? How do you make that change between this and that?” People often remark on the change between Hester after “Dear Bill” and going into Captain Jewell. And my response is always, “Because it's very fun!” It's real play. It's when you're on the playground, and you go, “Okay, you'll be the mum, I'll be the dad. Actually, I don't want to be the dad, I want to be the dog.” And you switch straight to the dog because you can, because it's play. That's what doing the show feels like. And that's what making the show feels like. It's easy because you've got to whittle it down to its simplest thing, which is just play. It's very, very fun.

Have you had any favourite moments since the show began? 

Definitely stepping out onto the West End stage. Tash starts the show on her own and then we all flood in. That moment of “flood in,” I hadn't seen the auditorium full yet. I can still feel it, very tangibly, what it felt to do that. A shiver ran down my spine but in a good way. And that was amazing. Another one being the first bows that we did for our first show back after lockdown. My girlfriend was there. She said I was vibrating! She said I was hopping up and down. Because we were back. And we were standing there thinking, “We're back.” And everyone is looking at us as though to say, “You guys are back!” Everybody there was in the same mind, "Oh my goodness, look how fortunate we all are to be witnessing theatre, to be performing theatre, because it was taken away from us.” So that's also a moment that I don't think I would forget.

Crazy things keep happening to me. Like Reece Shearsmith is my hero, since I was a teenager, and he DM’d me on Twitter! He messaged me the most wonderful things about the show and about Hester and stuff. And I was like, “Oh, that's too weird. I can't handle that. That's too huge!” The odd thing like that’ll happen to me. Someone that I'm a huge fan of and have a lot of respect for will reach out to me and tell me they appreciated what I did. And I'm just like, “Sure, okay, I don’t know . . .” [Laughs] It just gets too silly now! I don't know what to do! 

What do you hope audiences take away from Operation Mincemeat?

I hope that audiences take away that everybody is working hard in life. It’s a very big concept. Everybody's working hard. Whether they're working hard to get up in the morning, or they're working hard to get that job finished, or they're working hard to catch their train, everybody's working hard. And everybody deserves a pat on the back for something. There's so many times that a great thing will happen, a great thing will be achieved, and there'll be a few people at the forefront of it. And those people will be getting a clap and a big pat on the back. It also took 50 other people to get that made and those people are very important. They each did a job and they each played a little part. So everybody's working hard and everybody deserves a mention, to be thought of, and to be remembered. And if it's down, it's down together and if it's up, it's up as one.

And finally, how would you describe Operation Mincemeat in one word?

Magical. There's a weird magic to the show. And every time we finish performing it, we all look at each other like “God, how did we do that?” We’re all shocked every time! We just celebrated 150 West End shows and every time we finish we go, “God, well done us! Do you know how we did it? I don't know.” It's magical in its most literal form. We've actually just performed a great feat of illusion that we're all competent to perform what we've made! [Laughs].

EDIT: A previous edition of this article incorrectly identified "Bob" as Robert Hastie, when "Bob" actually refers to Zoë Roberts. This has been corrected.

Operation Mincemeat is at The Fortune Theatre, booking until 24 February 2024.

Main Photo Credit: Matt Crockett

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