O-T Fagbenle

Currently: Making his West End debut as Sporting Life, the drug-dealing slickster whose scheming ways doom the happiness of the title couple in Trevor Nunn’s production of the Gershwin operatic classic Porgy and Bess. “I was filming something in New York and was considering relocating there,” Fagbenle remembers, “when my agent called me and said there were a couple of good auditions to go for in London that included Porgy and Bess. I knew of the show and some of the songs, but I had no idea of the plot, so they sent me a script.” He read it and was immediately drawn to the part. “Sometimes you have to struggle to get into the mindset of the person you’re going to play,” he says, “but as soon as I read it, I knew this dude.” The audition process was a long and daunting one. “The last time I’d sung onstage was in a show called Ragamuffin that toured Britain,” Fagbenle recalls, ”but that was reggae and rapping, which is quite a different style to West End singing.” He credits having a “strong vision” for the role with his success in winning the part.

Hometown: Fagbenle was born and bred in London, but he’s also lived elsewhere. “I consider myself a Londoner. I was born here at University College Hospital, right opposite RADA where I went to drama school, but I spent a lot of my childhood abroad. We were a nomadic family, so I lived in Nigeria and Spain growing up. We came back when I was around 11, and I have been here ever since.”

Hooked on Theatre: The actor made an early start in the theatre world. “I played saxophone when I was quite young,” notes Fagbenle, “and at the age of about 14, I got involved in Ritual Theatre Arts. It's an African theatre company with a great director, Rufus Orisayomi. He would do semi-professional shows, and I would play the saxophone for them.” Slowly, the director started giving his young musician small parts to play in the productions, such as Fleance in a Nigerian adaptation of Macbeth. As he got older, the parts grew, too. By the age of 17, Fagbenle went on tour to Germany playing the title role in Macbeth.

O-T Fagbenle in Porgy and Bess

Epiphany: It wasn’t a given that Fagbenle would go to drama school. He had applied to Birmingham University to study economics and politics. “And then one night I had an epiphany,” he says. “I was helping out on the lighting of a school production, and I realised I loved it. I had always loved being a part of the theatre, but I realised there that I loved all of it, and that it was more than just about the acting. I loved the magic of the theatre. So I came home and said I wanted to audition for drama school.” He had left it until quite late in the day to make the decision. “I was too late for Guildhall, and there were only RADA and Central left, but I hadn’t heard of any of them anyway. I was going to a weekend arts college in Kentish Town, and they had a box of prospectuses there. My mother had heard of RADA and Central, so those are the ones I auditioned for. I was very wet behind the ears. I didn’t realise that RADA had this reputation until after a good few months of being there.”

Getting Out There: Fagbenle attended RADA from 1998 to 2001. “It sounds like I was very innocent,” he says of his time there. “And in a way I was. I remember sitting at RADA and thinking that there was no one who looks like me on stage or TV. I was getting quite depressed. But I was the first person to sign with an agent in my year and was sent to audition for a play, Les Blancs, that Paterson Joseph was doing at the Royal Exchange in Manchester and got offered it. It was the last play by Lorraine Hansberry, who wrote A Raisin in the Sun.” He was still at RADA at the time, and the school has a fairly strict policy of not allowing students to work professionally until after they graduate. “I still had four or five months of my third year at RADA to do, but I spoke to the principal—and because it was such a great opportunity for me—he allowed me to do the show and still graduate fully. Before I had much time to contemplate what the world of being an actor would be like, I was out there acting.”

[AD]Something Special: He started making his way in the world, appearing in regional productions, TV and film. In 2004 he returned to the Royal Exchange, this time as a leading actor, in a revival of John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation: “It was my first proper lead,” he notes. “I felt like I’d come full circle. And I won the Manchester Evening News Award for it, too.” He then decided to take a break from theatre. “After Six Degrees, I tried to make a conscientious effort to get more film and TV experience. I am interested in all aspects of my art .It would have been easy to go from theatre job to theatre job, but then I would not have been available for anything else. So I decided not to do theatre for a while unless something special came along. I did a couple of years in TV and movies, and then something special did come up—Porgy and Bess.”

It Ain’t Necessarily So: For Fagbenle, it wasn’t necessarily so that the character of Sporting Life should be evil, mad or dangerous. “I didn’t want him to be this generic slimy guy. I always saw him as an entrepreneur—fed up with the conventions of living in this grubby little fishing town and desperate to make something of his life. So in the scenes where he’s trying to convince Bess to come to New York, it’s about a man who is fed up with his position in this world as a poor, black man. ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’ is his opportunity to say that life doesn’t have to be this rigid. I can relate to that.” The actor says he still feels powerfully drawn to the song. “I’ve got something to say through this song that touches me as an individual and as an artist. I am so excited and privileged to be able to say it. And it’s been a privilege, too, not only working with Trevor Nunn, but also with this phenomenal company. Watching Clarke [Peters], who is a hero of mine, both professionally and personally, and Nicola [Hughes] is an education in itself. I sit in the wings even now to watch them working. The level of their abilities and their professionalism is a masterclass in acting and performance.”