Glenn Carter as Tommy DeVito

Congratulations on playing such an important role in getting the London Jersey Boys off to what appears to be a roaring start.
Thanks, yes, it’s been going really well. I mean, I don’t think anybody involved had any doubt—people like the cast, the actors who read the script. Personally, I had no doubt whatsoever that Jersey Boys was going to be a massive hit. Speaking for myself, it’s a great part, a great script, really well-structured, snappy, with a lot of momentum, and I didn’t think the reaction would be as vocal as it is at the end each night. I just think it’s a shame that it almost comes on the back of a genre that has been labelled the “jukebox musical,” which this certainly isn’t in terms of catchy songs just thrown in for the hell of it; that phrase in some respects trivializes what the show is.

What Jersey Boys manages so well is to use the Four Seasons’ music both to comment upon and advance what, of course, is a real-life story, whereas Mamma Mia!, say, is entirely fictional.
I did the very original workshop of Mamma Mia!, and my understanding at that point was that they were going to make it a musical drama. What it obviously eventually became wasn’t the original intention of the story, at least I don’t think it was, whereas this story has stayed very true to the experiences of the Four Seasons, which is wonderful. There’s real pathos, real heart to it, which is something that musical theater often lacks.

Glenn Carter in Jersey Boys

Did you know much about the show beforehand?
No, I had absolutely no idea what it was, and I hadn’t seen it on Broadway; I still haven’t. When they said, “It’s the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons,” I thought, I’m not interested in that. I thought it would be some chintzy musical that had been done just to make money. I’d also kind of been doing some Shakespeare and one piece written for me [Moonlanding] in the last couple of years, and I was keyed into doing that. That’s what I was enjoying. I‘d sort of lost my urge to do the big shows.

Why was that? After all, you’d had such a great run, including Grease, Joseph, Cats, and Les Miserables, not to mention your more recent, higher-profile Andrew Lloyd Webber gigs.
I wouldn’t use the word “tired,” but I was feeling as if I was just standing on a stage singing a song, and I think it’s very easy to get stuck in a type—for an actor to get pigeonholed. I’d done a dozen big West End musicals, and the format just felt as if it was so expected—how it was directed, how it works, was all fairly formatted, and I wanted to challenge myself. I wanted to get better. Without wanting to sound arrogant, I felt with everything that was around that going into the job, I knew what would be required of me. I felt as if I’d come to the point where it was a known quantity and I kind of wanted something else. I didn’t quite know what else but I knew I wanted something different. I didn’t feel I was growing; I didn’t feel I was learning.

That’s presumably what took you up to Derby for so long a stint.
I did six or seven productions there over three years, all small productions on low budgets where I was learning very quickly scripts I’d never done. That’s what I was craving was that regular constant challenge of making something fresh rather than the West End challenge of reproducing something all the time. I don’t mean to sound vain, but I’d become part of a select group of people that were fortunate enough to get into that little club going from musical to musical in the West End, but I wasn’t developing as an actor. I also took a bit of time out and did some property developing. I’ve gotten to the point now where I’ve been fairly successful.

So what persuaded you to come aboard this one?
There were one or two personal reasons, and one or two professional ones. To start with, as soon as I read Jersey Boys, I thought, it’s great, and it was a characterization I had never done before: a brash rogue, lovable but totally politically incorrect. Tommy is loud, dominant and aggressive. Everything I don’t actually enjoy in life: it’s been a great challenge to be true to a character like Tommy who, after all, is a real person for whom I have the utmost respect. And it was nice that the show had only been done in America so far; the script was great, but it hadn’t become a franchise yet—though I’m sure it will be done all over the world.

Glenn Carter in Jesus Christ Superstar

That makes sense to me, but what about the personal reasons you cite.
I’m quite a political person and I had some political issues not with the West End at all but there were some things I wanted to involve myself in politically: I did a lot of campaigning for stem cell research to be legalized here and felt that it was being restricted for religious and actually also for commercial reasons. I became involved in that argument, and I’m very happy about that, but it’s fair to say that my acting career was actually halted by the debate.

Really? You mean a sort of informal blacklist?
I think I did get slightly ostracized by the community. The fact is, when you’re putting on a show, a producer needs to trust that that is your focus and that you’re not going to be preaching some political thing, and I had always been there just to do the job and still am. But there are times when you’re needed to do something that’s more important, and I was focused on that. I thought there would be a backlash to my acting career and there was, though only in certain areas, and the commercial theater was one of those areas. There was one point where for three months I was probably the only vocal advocate for stem cell research in this country because it was so contentious and had been condemned by the church. I knew it would tarnish my career, but sometimes there are things that are worth more than standing on the barricades [in Les Miz] going, “Pow! Pow!” I remember doing that with a wooden gun in the show during the Tiananmen Square crisis, and I have never felt so pathetic in my life. Where there is a call for people to fight for freedom against oppression, I would rather just be on the political side.

Tell us about your short hair, which is quite a new look for you.
It’s all gone, all shaved off now. I actually cut it for the Buzz Aldrin play I did in Derby, Moonlanding, and it was a bit weird to see myself like that for the first time in years. I’d had long hair as a child and have always tried to keep it longer, but my girlfriend was desperate for me to cut it. She kept saying, “Try short hair! Try short hair!”

Not very Jesus-like.
No [laughs]. This part completely blows out of the water the Jesus curse. I don’t believe in curses and hexes and superstitious things at all, but when you’ve played such an iconic character as Jesus, it’s hard for people to see you as anything else. That’s another reason why I’m very glad this part exists in the way it does. Jersey Boys has been a comeback in all sorts of ways.