There’s something slightly philosophical in the manner of this man, sitting here in jeans and a jumper before a host of journalists, waiting to question him about his latest venture.
Richard Schiff, who’s spent the best part of seven years playing liberal White House staffer Toby Ziegler in The West Wing, has walked a somewhat unexpected path towards the West End, where he’s about to star in Underneath the Lintel – a play about the mysterious journey of a librarian, which he’s already perfected on stage in New York.
In person, Schiff comes across as humble, hopeful, yet unassuming in his latest creative endeavour. At a time when Hollywood is casting its next run of movies, most would have been too scared to leave the country, but Richard packed his bags with total trust in a young British producer he met at a golf championship, hosted by Ant and Dec. “There was something about the kid I just liked,” he says, with a smile on his face, and as producer Paul Coxwell gives us a wave, it’s nice to see confirmation that not all Hollywood success stories are the shallow remains of the people they once were.
It’s true that with movies such as I Am Sam, Lost World: Jurassic Park, Deep Impact, Malcolm X and the Oscar nominated Ray under his belt, plus showbiz connections such as Steven Spielberg, you’ve got to give a man credit for hopping an ocean in search of something “a little more fulfilling”. But as he looks at his audience and describes what a friend once told him –
“judge a man not by the heights he reaches, but the depths from which he came”, we get a little sense of the way this man works, and what’s really important at the height of his career. “It’s a fork in the road,… I don’t know why I’m drawn here, but I feel there’s an intelligence here that you don’t get in the States.”
We could take that in many ways, these days, but we know where he’s coming from. When asked if he has any doubts about coming to the West End for something that’s considerably less fashionable than the host of razzly dazzly musicals that have opened lately, he shakes his head and smiles, “This play might not be a musical, but I find it operatic. It is musical to me, in that it speaks volumes. I’m moved by it.”
We’re sure London will be moved by it, too.
Underneath the Lintel opens in February at The Duchess Theatre.
Book your tickets here
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