<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/" > <channel> <title>Amy Brenneman Archives - Cultural Attaché</title> <atom:link href="https://culturalattache.co/tag/amy-brenneman/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /> <link>https://culturalattache.co/tag/amy-brenneman/</link> <description>The Guide to Arts and Culture events in and around Los Angeles</description> <lastBuildDate>Thu, 14 Sep 2023 21:10:19 +0000</lastBuildDate> <language>en-US</language> <sy:updatePeriod> hourly </sy:updatePeriod> <sy:updateFrequency> 1 </sy:updateFrequency> <generator>https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2</generator> <item> <title>Amy Brenneman Listens to The Sound Inside…</title> <link>https://culturalattache.co/2023/09/14/amy-brenneman-listens-to-the-sound-inside/</link> <comments>https://culturalattache.co/2023/09/14/amy-brenneman-listens-to-the-sound-inside/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Craig Byrd]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 14 Sep 2023 21:10:17 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Performers: Close-Up]]></category> <category><![CDATA[What's Hot]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Adam Rapp]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Amy Brenneman]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Anders Keith]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Cameron Watson]]></category> <category><![CDATA[David Foster Wallace]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Mary Louise Parker]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Pasadena Playhouse]]></category> <category><![CDATA[The Sound Inside]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://culturalattache.co/?p=19104</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>"Fiction only lives in our imagination and in our minds. But the body is living in a much more elemental, grounded way."</p> <p>The post <a href="https://culturalattache.co/2023/09/14/amy-brenneman-listens-to-the-sound-inside/">Amy Brenneman Listens to The Sound Inside…</a> appeared first on <a href="https://culturalattache.co">Cultural Attaché</a>.</p> ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[ <p>Actress Amy Brenneman is probably best-known for two long-running television series: <em>Judging Amy</em> and <em>Private Practice</em>. But she’s spent quite a bit of time on stage. One of her earliest stage roles was as Elizabeth in Shakespeare’s <em>Measure for Measure</em> in 1983. She’s appeared in <em>Rapture, Blister, Burn</em> and <em>The Power of Sail</em> at the Geffen Playhouse more recently.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="alignleft size-medium"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" width="300" height="169" src="https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Amy-Brenneman-and-Anders-Keith-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_-300x169.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-19109" srcset="https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Amy-Brenneman-and-Anders-Keith-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_-300x169.jpg 300w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Amy-Brenneman-and-Anders-Keith-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Amy-Brenneman-and-Anders-Keith-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_-768x432.jpg 768w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Amy-Brenneman-and-Anders-Keith-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Amy-Brenneman-and-Anders-Keith-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_-696x392.jpg 696w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Amy-Brenneman-and-Anders-Keith-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_-1068x601.jpg 1068w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Amy-Brenneman-and-Anders-Keith-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_-747x420.jpg 747w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Amy-Brenneman-and-Anders-Keith-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Amy Brenneman and Anders Keith in “The Sound Inside” (Photo by Mike Palma/Courtesy Pasadena Playhouse)</figcaption></figure></div> <p>Brenneman is currently appearing in Adam Rapp’s <a href="https://www.pasadenaplayhouse.org/event/the-sound-inside/?tribe-bar-date=2023-10"><em>The Sound Inside</em> </a>at the Pasadena Playhouse. She plays Bella, a 50-something university professor battling cancer who strikes up an unconventional relationship with one of her writing students (Anders Keith). This isn’t an exploration of sexual dynamics the way David Mamet did in <em>Oleanna</em>. Rather it is the gradual revealing of layers about who these two people are and what they need/want from life at this exact given moment in time.</p> <p><a href="https://culturalattache.co/2017/12/15/director-cameron-watson-wants-believe-kris-kringle-santa-claus/">Cameron Watson</a> directs the play which continues at the Pasadena Playhouse through October 1st.</p> <p>In one of the last weeks of rehearsals, I spoke with Brenneman about the play, her approach to Bella and the role of fiction in all of our lives. What follows are excerpts from that conversation that have been edited for length and clarity.</p> <p>Q: The title of the play comes from a line that Bela writes over and over again, “Listen to the sound inside.” What does that title mean to you?<em> </em></p> <p><strong>The circumstances of my life are very different from Bella’s and I don’t have the decisions that she has to make. But I feel a lot of kinship with her. I feel like at a certain point in life, or maybe always, the most difficult thing for me to do is to hear my own voice and hear my own instinct. We are bombarded by other people’s opinions when we’re growing up, our parents’ voices in our heads, what other friends are doing and now with social media. It’s quite difficult. But I think that is the way forward with authenticity for individuals – certainly for myself. So when I get to that part in the play, I cheat. Well, she takes me on a ride the whole time. I just go on this magic carpet ride. But literally at that moment, I try to listen to my next impulse.</strong></p> <p>Something we should probably all do on a more regular basis than we do.<em> </em></p> <p><strong>Exactly. There’s always moments, and certainly this is the circumstance of this play, when we are out of bounds of anything we’ve known before. Or there’s no rules, there’s no clear path. What am I supposed to do? Well, you can do this, you can do that. But you have to listen to your own truth and it does take practice.</strong></p> <p>Adam Rapp gave an interview where he talked about how another actress had been going down this path with him before <em>The Sound Inside</em> was ever produced, but when she saw the “sea of words” that were in front of her, she stopped instantaneously because of the sheer volume of it. What are the challenges for you and how do you tackle this sea of words that Adam Rapp has given you?</p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="alignleft size-medium"><img decoding="async" width="300" height="169" src="https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Amy-Brenneman-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_-1-300x169.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-19111" srcset="https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Amy-Brenneman-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_-1-300x169.jpg 300w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Amy-Brenneman-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_-1-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Amy-Brenneman-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_-1-768x432.jpg 768w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Amy-Brenneman-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_-1-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Amy-Brenneman-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_-1-696x392.jpg 696w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Amy-Brenneman-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_-1-1068x601.jpg 1068w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Amy-Brenneman-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_-1-747x420.jpg 747w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Amy-Brenneman-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_-1.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Amy Brenneman in “The Sound Inside” (Photo by Mike Palma/Courtesy Pasadena Playhouse)</figcaption></figure></div> <p><strong>First of all, they’re great words.<em> </em>It’s a well-written play. When I have an underwritten or poorly written role, I have to put on my writer’s hat even if I don’t change the words. How to make it work. How to make it palatable. It’s the opposite. There’s an abundance. I literally said to my husband this morning, it just keeps unfolding. It’s like this Christmas tree where there’s more and more gifts. Rather than thinking it’s my role, how do I make it mine?</strong></p> <p><strong>In terms of the actual memorization, it’s a bear, but it’s all I need to move my body. That’s the other thing. I record the whole thing myself, just reading it, and then I just listen to it over and over. There are chunks to her story that are pretty distinctive, but it’s a supremely articulate play because she’s a very articulate person and I get very inspired by those kinds of words.</strong></p> <p>And you speak, at times, directly to the audience.</p> <p><strong>I love breaking the fourth wall. I feel really confident and excited about creating a relationship with each audience. I love it. As a person that’s lucky enough to go back and forth in different acting mediums, I’m always thinking what can this medium do that that medium can’t do, right? The main juicy thing that we get to do is establish a living connection with the audience and just say, I’m on stage. You’re in the audience. Hello? And Bella literally does that </strong>[in]<strong> the first line of the play. So I find just the meta of that absolutely delicious.</strong></p> <p>Bella describes herself as the equivalent of “a collector’s plate mounted on a wall.” You learn that she has far more than that over the course of the play. But if that’s one of the first hints as to who this woman is, what does that give you as a launchpad for the arc that you can build with this character? </p> <p><strong>She described herself as mediocre. She described herself as unremarkable. She is a world of all sorts of things. But then she has the cover, right? She has this job. She has students. It’s hashtag MeToo. She has to keep herself fairly restrained for lots of different reasons. So I think one way to look at the story is she just becomes less restrained. She lets her outsides begin to match her insides and she just kind of glows from within over the course of the story. </strong></p> <p>There are multiple references to different books and different authors that are built into <em>The Sound Inside</em> including David Foster Wallace. I found a quote from him that I thought was apropos of this play. He said, “Fiction is one of the few experiences where the loneliness can be both confronted and relieved.” It almost sounds like he’s talking about this play.</p> <p><strong>That is an element of Bela that I don’t practice in my day-to-day life. I have a pretty populated life. Although, weirdly enough, literally this month I’m now an empty nester in my house for the first time ever. I’m not a big novel reader. I know what it is to love. If you find anybody in the world, a novelist, a movie moviemaker, who you feel understands you, it’s like, Oh, I’m not alone in the world. And it is alleviating.</strong></p> <p><strong>But that person is not in the room with you. Bella, and probably Christopher, feel like I know I’m able to connect emotionally, right? I’m able to feel like I’m not alone because of these works of art. Then the next thing is to be with a flesh and blood human next to you and trusted.</strong></p> <div class="wp-block-image"> <figure class="alignleft size-medium"><img decoding="async" width="300" height="169" src="https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Anders-Keith-and-Amy-Brenneman-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_-300x169.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-19110" srcset="https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Anders-Keith-and-Amy-Brenneman-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_-300x169.jpg 300w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Anders-Keith-and-Amy-Brenneman-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Anders-Keith-and-Amy-Brenneman-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_-768x432.jpg 768w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Anders-Keith-and-Amy-Brenneman-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Anders-Keith-and-Amy-Brenneman-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_-696x392.jpg 696w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Anders-Keith-and-Amy-Brenneman-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_-1068x601.jpg 1068w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Anders-Keith-and-Amy-Brenneman-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_-747x420.jpg 747w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Anders-Keith-and-Amy-Brenneman-in-22The-Sound-Inside22-Photo-by-Mike-Palma-Courtesy-Pasadena-Playhouse_.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Anders Keith and Amy Brenneman in “The Sound Inside” (Photo by Mike Palma/Courtesy Pasadena Playhouse)</figcaption></figure></div> <p>Mary-Louise Parker, who originated the role of Bella, was doing some press for this play when it was on Broadway. She said “Apparently it’s a thriller” as if that was that wasn’t part of her thinking about what the play was. Then she said everybody has a different theory as to what happened. Is that how you view this play? Is <em>The Sound Inside</em> a thriller?</p> <p><strong>I love that she said it. I completely agree. I didn’t see her performance. I tread lightly on reading too much about past productions. But certainly it’s like a thriller. It’s a taut thriller. I did have a moment </strong>[when]<strong> I said to Cameron, our director, “Should I be playing this a little bit more noir? And he’s like, “Oh, get that out of your head.” I think it’s a thriller in as much as these very heightened things are discussed; things get pushed quite to the edge. You don’t actually know what’s going to happen, do you think? I know when I read it, I thought it was going to go in a certain way. Never did. So I think in that way it’s a thriller, but I think it’s more of a a beautiful unfolding.<em> </em></strong></p> <p>I’m going to paraphrase something that Jesse Green of the <span style="text-decoration: underline;">New York Times</span> said in his beautiful review of this play when it was on Broadway. What is the role of fiction “both the kind we read and the kind we live in our world today?”</p> <p><strong>I think, in this moment of alternate truth and alternate reality, people are spinning lots of stories all the time. We’re in a time of constant storytelling and remaking and rebranding. To the point where it’s like what is the truth? We’re in this moment. </strong></p> <p><strong>Bella starts the whole story with her memory of helping her mother die. I’ve suffered three illnesses. I have not had cancer, nor did I really look at mortality in the eye, but I was sick. And I think that the body is the truth, right? I think Bella is in her body, which is failing her, and she can tell all sorts of stories to herself. But she knows what’s going to happen. She lived it. So what I love to ponder is that fiction only lives in our imagination and in our minds. But the body is living in a much more elemental, grounded way. </strong></p> <p>Main Photo: Amy Brenneman in <em>The Sound Inside</em> (Photo by Mike Palma/Courtesy Pasadena Playhouse)</p> <p>The post <a href="https://culturalattache.co/2023/09/14/amy-brenneman-listens-to-the-sound-inside/">Amy Brenneman Listens to The Sound Inside…</a> appeared first on <a href="https://culturalattache.co">Cultural Attaché</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://culturalattache.co/2023/09/14/amy-brenneman-listens-to-the-sound-inside/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>Actor Seth Numrich: “We’re All Complicated”</title> <link>https://culturalattache.co/2022/03/08/actor-seth-numrich-were-all-complicated/</link> <comments>https://culturalattache.co/2022/03/08/actor-seth-numrich-were-all-complicated/#respond</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Craig Byrd]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 08 Mar 2022 21:32:30 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Performers: Close-Up]]></category> <category><![CDATA[What's Hot]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Amy Brenneman]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Bryan Cranston]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Clifford Odets]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Daniel Talbott]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Daryl Roth]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Geffen Playhouse]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Golden Boy]]></category> <category><![CDATA[interview]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Paul Grellong]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Power of Sail]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Rattlestick Playwrights Theater]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Seth Numrich]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Sweet Bird of Youth]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Tennessee Williams]]></category> <category><![CDATA[The Merchant of Venice]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Tom Stoppard]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Travesties]]></category> <category><![CDATA[War Horse]]></category> <category><![CDATA[William Shakespeare]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://culturalattache.co/?p=15936</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>"We don't share everything about ourselves. And of course, we move through the world trying to project an image of ourselves that has some relationship to the totality of who we are and our experience. But it's curated, right?"</p> <p>The post <a href="https://culturalattache.co/2022/03/08/actor-seth-numrich-were-all-complicated/">Actor Seth Numrich: “We’re All Complicated”</a> appeared first on <a href="https://culturalattache.co">Cultural Attaché</a>.</p> ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[ <div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="alignleft size-medium"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="169" height="300" src="https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Seth-Numrich-Photo-by-Janette-Pellegrini-Courtesy-Geffen-Playhouse-169x300.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-15941" srcset="https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Seth-Numrich-Photo-by-Janette-Pellegrini-Courtesy-Geffen-Playhouse-169x300.jpg 169w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Seth-Numrich-Photo-by-Janette-Pellegrini-Courtesy-Geffen-Playhouse-576x1024.jpg 576w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Seth-Numrich-Photo-by-Janette-Pellegrini-Courtesy-Geffen-Playhouse-768x1365.jpg 768w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Seth-Numrich-Photo-by-Janette-Pellegrini-Courtesy-Geffen-Playhouse-864x1536.jpg 864w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Seth-Numrich-Photo-by-Janette-Pellegrini-Courtesy-Geffen-Playhouse-696x1237.jpg 696w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Seth-Numrich-Photo-by-Janette-Pellegrini-Courtesy-Geffen-Playhouse-1068x1899.jpg 1068w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Seth-Numrich-Photo-by-Janette-Pellegrini-Courtesy-Geffen-Playhouse-236x420.jpg 236w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Seth-Numrich-Photo-by-Janette-Pellegrini-Courtesy-Geffen-Playhouse.jpg 1080w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 169px) 100vw, 169px" /><figcaption>Seth Numrich (Photo by Janette Pellegrini/Courtesy Geffen Playhouse)</figcaption></figure></div> <p>“We don’t share everything about ourselves. And of course, we move through the world trying to project an image of ourselves that has some relationship to the totality of who we are and our experience,” actor Seth Numrich recently told me. “But it’s curated, right? We’re always trying to put our best foot forward or show people what we think they want to see from us.” </p> <p>It’s an intriguing concept going into an interview with an actor like Numrich who is currently appearing in <em><a href="https://www.geffenplayhouse.org/shows/power-of-sail/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Power of Sail</a></em> with Bryan Cranston and Amy Brenneman at the Geffen Playhouse.</p> <p>Written by Paul Grellong, <em>Power of Sail</em> is about a Harvard (Cranston) professor whose invitation to a White Nationalist to speak there stirs up a hornet’s nest of controversy amongst the staff and the students. Numrich plays Lucas Poole who is a grad student who is hoping to get a prestigious fellowship that has launched several other Harvard students into high-profile and well-paying jobs.</p> <p>“We come to understand and make and form opinions and judgments about these characters early in the play,” says Numrich. “And then because of the nature of the journey that the play goes on, each one of the characters something new is revealed about them. Then the audience gets to learn something and then reassess the assumptions that they made earlier in the evening. And I just think that that’s so cool and exciting because we’re all complicated.”</p> <p>Numrich is accustomed to playing complicated and complex characters. He’s appeared on Broadway in Tom Stoppard’s <em>Travesties</em>, <em>Golden Boy</em> by Clifford Odets and <em>The Merchant of Venice</em> by William Shakespeare. The 35-year-old actor also appeared opposite Kim Cattrall in a 2013 production of <em>Sweet Bird of Youth</em> by Tennessee Williams.</p> <p>“What I get really excited about is when the storytelling is truly happening through the characters. With the best writers you never feel like you’re being explained anything or you’re being taught anything. I appreciate plays that can find an entry into big, interesting, important – whatever that word means – questions about the human experience.”</p> <p>Sometimes those roles require that Numrich do soul-searching to discover what he may or may not have in common with his character. When he appeared in <em>Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, America and Kuwait</em> by Daniel Talbott at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in 2015 he told <a href="https://stagebuddy.com/theater/theater-feature/seth-numrich-interview" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">StageBuddy.com</a> that “I truly believe as an actor, as well as a person, that we all have the same capacities inside of us. We don’t like to look at the dark side of our nature, and we often say, ‘Oh, I could never do that. That would never be me.’ But in the right circumstances, you really don’t know.” It’s a perspective he brings to every role.</p> <p>“I still believe that and it’s very important to me, in terms of the work that I do as an actor, that judging our characters makes it impossible to play any character. It’s never my job to sympathize with a character and their actions and beliefs. But it is my job to empathize with them as a human being. I feel like it’s kind of our superpower as actors is that we are professionally empathetic because we always have to be looking for and trying to understand, why is this person doing what they’re doing? Why are they behaving the way that they are? Why do they choose to move through the world in the way that they do?”</p> <p>With <em>Power of Sail</em> Numrich says that exploration starts with the play itself.</p> <div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="alignleft size-medium"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="300" height="169" src="https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Tedra-Millan-and-Seth-Numrich-in-22Power-of-Sail22-Photo-by-Jeff-Lorch-Courtesy-Geffen-Playhouse-300x169.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-15942" srcset="https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Tedra-Millan-and-Seth-Numrich-in-22Power-of-Sail22-Photo-by-Jeff-Lorch-Courtesy-Geffen-Playhouse-300x169.jpg 300w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Tedra-Millan-and-Seth-Numrich-in-22Power-of-Sail22-Photo-by-Jeff-Lorch-Courtesy-Geffen-Playhouse-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Tedra-Millan-and-Seth-Numrich-in-22Power-of-Sail22-Photo-by-Jeff-Lorch-Courtesy-Geffen-Playhouse-768x432.jpg 768w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Tedra-Millan-and-Seth-Numrich-in-22Power-of-Sail22-Photo-by-Jeff-Lorch-Courtesy-Geffen-Playhouse-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Tedra-Millan-and-Seth-Numrich-in-22Power-of-Sail22-Photo-by-Jeff-Lorch-Courtesy-Geffen-Playhouse-696x392.jpg 696w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Tedra-Millan-and-Seth-Numrich-in-22Power-of-Sail22-Photo-by-Jeff-Lorch-Courtesy-Geffen-Playhouse-1068x601.jpg 1068w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Tedra-Millan-and-Seth-Numrich-in-22Power-of-Sail22-Photo-by-Jeff-Lorch-Courtesy-Geffen-Playhouse-747x420.jpg 747w, https://culturalattache.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Tedra-Millan-and-Seth-Numrich-in-22Power-of-Sail22-Photo-by-Jeff-Lorch-Courtesy-Geffen-Playhouse.jpg 1920w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /><figcaption>Tedra Millan and Seth Numrich in “Power of Sail” (Photo by Jeff Lorch/Courtesy Geffen Playhouse)</figcaption></figure></div> <p>“What I love about Paul’s writing is I think he does dialogue really well. When you’re speaking his words it never feels unnatural in any way. It always feels real and grounded, which is such a luxury.<em> </em>There’s so much to mine and that’s just exciting because I can just invest myself as the actor in the work I want to do there. And that feels like it naturally illuminates the text and vice versa. I don’t think I’m going to get bored by the end of this run. When I go into any scene I always have more to work on. And that’s not necessarily true of every writer.”</p> <p>One of the producers of <em>Power of Sail</em> is Daryl Roth (a 12-time Tony Award winner for plays and musicals that includes <em>War Horse</em> in which Numrich appeared) which is fueling speculation that the play might soon set sail for Broadway. If it does, Numrich is confident it will be just as provocative in its next incarnation.</p> <p>“There’s a lot that people can take from this play. I’ve talked to a lot of people after the show. What’s going on on stage is a mirror of what’s going on in the whole room. We’re asking people to sit for two hours with people living through these questions. It’s a nice reminder that [theater] does have something to offer that these other media do not have, which is that we’re going to all sit together in the same physical space breathing the same air. That feels like a radical, dangerous concept right now in the world. It also feels necessary and so I’m appreciative of this opportunity to do that in a way that feels really connected to the questions that certainly I have been experiencing and living through in the last couple of years.”</p> <p><em>Power of Sail</em> continues at the Geffen Playhouse through March 27th. More tickets and more information, please go <a href="https://www.geffenplayhouse.org/shows/power-of-sail/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">here</a>.</p> <p>Photo: Seth Numrich in <em>Power of Sail</em> (Photo by Jeff Lorch/Courtesy Geffen Playhouse)</p> <p>The post <a href="https://culturalattache.co/2022/03/08/actor-seth-numrich-were-all-complicated/">Actor Seth Numrich: “We’re All Complicated”</a> appeared first on <a href="https://culturalattache.co">Cultural Attaché</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://culturalattache.co/2022/03/08/actor-seth-numrich-were-all-complicated/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> </channel> </rss>