Everlasting “Love Actually Live” with Rex Smith

As the Steve Van Zandt song from Home Alone 2 says, “Nobody wants to be alone on Christmas.” Usually in romantic comedies it’s the single guy who is the lonely one. With one major exception: the character of Billy Mack in the 2003 film, Love Actually. Mack is an aging rock star attempting to climb the charts again with, by his own definition, a piece of crap song. It’s a role that allowed Nighy to have great fun. It’s also a role that allows Broadway and pop star Rex Smith have a blast in Love Actually Live which is currently running at The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts through the end of December.

Smith is either known for his teen idol years in the late 70s to early 80s when he had the song “You Take My Breath Away” in the Top 10.

Or you might know him from such Broadway shows as The Pirates of Penzance (which was turned into a movie with original stars Linda Ronstadt and Kevin Kline), The Scarlet Pimpernel and Sunset Boulevard.

With Love Actually Live you’ll get to see a new side of Rex Smith (and I mean that in more than one way.) I spoke with him about the show, similarities he might share with the character and feeling like a rock star again at 63.

The role you have seems to allow you to have much more fun than all the people wrapped up in their relationship dramas. Are you having fun?

Billy Mack is the Frank ‘n’ Furter (The Rocky Horror Show) of the show, right? There is an element of Halley’s Comet of being in the right place, right time. You’re in the batter’s box and you swing for the fences. I came out of rock ‘n’ roll. I signed with Columbia Records a six-record deal when I was 20 years old. In the movie it is an actor playing an aging rock star. I’m an aging rock star playing an actor. I get to rock.

Having had major success as a singer, could you relate to Billy?

When you are so young and it happens so fast, I called it being strapped to a rocket to Romania. You wake up one day and you are trying to make payments on your motorcycle. The next day you are making payments on a penthouse and a Porsche. There’s a lot of living and dying between Madison Square Garden and The Wallis. I jump into those boots and that cape and I’m 23 again.

Are there areas where Billy Mack and you overlap or share similarities?

I feel him creeping into me more and more. It’s like ivy growing on a building. I tell you it is like being Danny Zucko (in Grease). That was my first Broadway part. I was the last to play him in the original production. It’s an honorable part to be in succession: the number two Billy Mack. There’s Danny Zucko. There’s James Bond. There’s Billy Mack.

Does this part, in this show, feel like a bookend to the heartthrob part of your career?

When I turned 60, gratitude filled me. I’m supremely grateful for the gift of this role. Billy Mack was the heartthrob of his day. Everyone is happy to see Billy. It’s a unique moment between the stage and the audience. Within 15 minutes of being on that stage it’s quite a wonderful reaction. It’s a unique moment in my life when I’m back at Madison Square Garden. But to see the audience tear it up, that’s the tell-tale sign that the powers that be have created a great show. 

At the end of the show you, shall we say, reveal more about Billy than we had previously seen. How did you feel about that?

When I come out at the end of the show, it is all part of the show. I believe in artistic freedom. If I’m asked to do Hair, I answer the call. But I have artistic license to treat that audience like I’m a rock star. To stop the show and reboot it is a wonderful responsibility and joyous.

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said that there were “no second acts in American life.” it seems that you have proven him wrong.

There are no second acts, but there are third acts. This is my third act. It is. Not like The Lion in Winter. There is hope in every performer that they’ve found a flashpoint that could renew themselves and maybe bring attention to their career. There’s the “what if” factor. What if someone enjoys that performance and sees value in the performer at this time in their life. That’s a blessing. I work to live, I don’t live to work. If Billly Mack could take Rex Smith on a bit of an arc of interesting work that’s encouraging – that’s icing on a wonderful cupcake.

Photo by Lawrence K. Ho