If you look at Tony Award-nominee Adam Pascal’s Broadway credits you’ll find a mix of creating roles and stepping into other shows as a replacement. Amongst those latter credits are Something’s Rotten!, Cabaret, Chicago and Memphis. The roles he’s originated include Radames in Aida and Roger in Jonathan Larson’s Rent – the show for which Pascal received his Tony nomination.
Then there’s Pretty Woman The Musical, based on the Richard Gere/Juia Roberts hit movie from 1990 about a rich man looking for pleasure and the hooker who agrees to spend time with him. Of course they fall in love. Pascal did appear in the show as Edward (the Gere character) on Broadway, but only in two one-week stints. He wasn’t fond of so short of time in a role.
“I got to be honest with you, I didn’t enjoy it at all,” he said recently during a Zoom interview while the musical was appearing in Seattle.
“I kind of hated it because it takes a while, at least for me, to really settle into something and sort of be able to get it under my skin. With a situation like that you don’t have that.”
Pascal doesn’t have that problem now that he is touring with the show. Pretty Woman The Musical is now playing at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood through July 3rd. It goes to the Segerstrom Center in Costa Mesa from July 5th – July 17th and continues with stops in Tucson, San Diego and Denver.
Pretty Woman The Musical ran for a year on Broadway. It wasn’t a success – neither critically or commercially. But Pascal feels there have been improvements that make the musical (written by Garry Marshall and J.F. Lawton with music and lyrics by Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance) better.
“The biggest difference between what it was on Broadway and what it is now is they made a lot of really good cuts and a lot of really good edits and a lot of good little tweaks and fixes. It’s a much more streamlined version of the show and much more enjoyable version of the show.”
Pascal goes on to say that a change in tone has also impacted the musical.
“I think we have found the right tone for the show out here on the road, which is a much more fun, comical tone. It was a little dark on Broadway.”
When asked if perhaps one reason the show wasn’t as successful on Broadway because Cinderella stories, particularly where the lead female is a hooker, don’t land as well as they might have in the 1990s, Pascal says they are doing the movie with some minor modifications.
“I think the key certainly nowadays in telling a Cinderella story is to acknowledge that Cinderella doesn’t need Prince Charming and can do it anyway. But isn’t it nice and charming and wonderful and fun when they do it together? They really took care in strengthening her character as a woman, as an individual, as a person and how she’s the one who changes. It’s not him who comes along really and saves her. She really does save herself.”
He adds that he has a challenge with the character of Edward.
“I think he’s still that same guy. He’s like a douche bag, right? He’s got that all over him. So what I’m trying to do is de-doucheify him so that he comes off as somebody that you hopefully like and root for and understand why she would be with him.”
The opening song in Pretty Woman is called Welcome to Hollywood. Within thirty seconds we learn that Vivian can’t pay her rent and the landlord is demanding immediate payment. The irony of that is not lost on Pascal.
“It’s funny and a lot of people don’t get it because it happens so quickly. It was totally unintentional, obviously. But when my character pulls up in the car you don’t see him. He’s offstage. The two girls go running together and they’re talking about paying the rent. But of course, there’s this sort of the double meaning of me being that guy.”
He’s also going to be forever known as that guy from Rent. It’s a legacy Pascal owns, but hasn’t always embraced it as fully as he does now.
“It was was the greatest and worst thing that ever happened to me. So it tainted everything. It and its tentacles extended into everything in my career and my life and it still does. But now those tentacles are warm and fuzzy and and they feel good. But for many years they didn’t always. Nothing can ever live up to that level of success. So everything is always going to be a little bit of a letdown, even if you can step back and acknowledge it from a better place. I understand nothing can be that way. The emotional part of you will still feel it.”
If time heals everything, it also provides perspective as it does for Pascal.
“It was a hard place to go from up here and then to get to like the this middle place where 27 years later I’m still having a career. You have to find that sort of bumpy middle place, you know, because you can’t live up here. Obviously, you can’t live down here either. That bumpy middle place is difficult. It’s an emotionally hard business. It’s terribly difficult to stay grounded and to not give up. Failure looks different at different times for different people. It’s a lot. But I’m so grateful for all of it. I’m so grateful that I’m here now and I get to have this amazing job that I love. It’s a fun life.”
To see the full interview with Adam Pascal, please go to our YouTube channel.
For the full tour dates for Pretty Woman The Musical, which runs through May 7, 2023, please go here.
Main Photo: Adam Pascal in Pretty Woman The Musical (Photo by Matthew Murphy for MurphyMade/Courtesy Broadway in Hollywood)