Stephen Wight
|
Age: 28, as of 27 February. "I'm getting to that stage now where I do begin to understand that birthdays do have quite a significance on your life. Luckily," he laughs, "I've still got my young looks."
Hometown: Wight was born in Romford, Essex, where he lived until he was six. At that point, his parents uprooted their two sons to the Isle of Wight in southern England. "They just took a gamble; they took a risk in life. They just wanted something better and thought, ‘Let's give it a go.’" The move, in turn, gave drama graduate Stephen Gray a viable surname when he joined Equity only to find to his surprise that there already was a Stephen Gray. "I had a short space of time in which to find a new name, and a friend of mine's father called me and said, ‘How about changing it to Wight? You grew up on the Isle and it's also a colour, so how about this for a surname?'" Has Wight paused to think what his burgeoning fame might do for the island's tourist industry? "I should get a commission on their touring," he laughs, describing the Isle of Wight as place that "you live in winter like a tortoise, but when summer hits, it's party all the way."
Currently: Playing audience favourite Mugsy through 29 March in the West End transfer of Samuel West's production of Patrick Marber's Dealer's Choice, a revival that has elicited arguably better reviews and even more excitement than the play's National Theatre debut in 1995 (which itself transferred to the West End). Already the winner of an Evening Standard Theatre Award, Wight has been nominated for an Olivier for Best Newcomer in a Play. Does he have an acceptance speech ready come the 9 March ceremony? "No, I don' t; I don't fancy my chances," says the sprightly, immensely chatty actor who's up against Nicholas Nickleby's David Dawson and Tom Hiddleston, the second of whom has been nominated twice, for Cymbeline and Othello. "And it's weird, I'm a bit superstitious: I don't want to write anything, so that if I were to win and crack a really bad joke, I can get away with the excuse that I wasn't prepared."
Rhys Ifans & Stephen Wight
in Don Juan in Soho
|
Marber Man: Wight owes much of the acclaim that has accrued to him from his work with one person—Patrick Marber, who prior to Dealer's Choice gave Wight a scene-stealing part as sidekick to Rhys Ifans in Michael Grandage's production of Marber's Don Juan In Soho two Christmases ago at the Donmar. "I just consider it an honour to be associated with a great writer like Patrick to have his support and to have him like the work that you do. You can't take that for granted, and I don't take it lightly; it's something I'm incredibly proud of because his writing is so phenomenal. To have done Don Juan and then to have Patrick suggest me for the role of Mugsy, which is a great part—it's just been a thrill."
Mugsy! The Series (If Not the Musical): Mugsy is so ripe a character—his dream of opening a restaurant in a disused East End toilet is so preposterous/sweet (you choose)—that he seems more than capable of steering his own TV sitcom. "We all joke about Mugsy coming back 20 years later and having his own chain called Starbogs," he laughs. ("Bog" is an Anglicism for toilet.) "It's difficult to know where Mugsy would go—whether he would wise up, or whether through the luck of life, he would make success after success through a kind of blind fluke. It's water off a duck's back that he rolls with the punches, that's for sure. I never think too far beyond what happens when the character leaves the stage. Mugsy goes off a winner at the end of the play, so that's the only certain thing in his head—that he's a winner."
Stephen Wight in Dealer's Choice
|
Fully Committed: Wight has his own ideas about what sort of food Mugsy's long dreamt-of restaurant might in fact serve, were it ever to materialize. "It would either be good old British food or he would try and do British food with a twist: bangers and mash spaghetti, like the wrong end of high cuisine." The Heston Blumenthal of the East London, then? Wight laughs in agreement: "He would go, ‘That's what we're going to do, bubble and squeak ice cream. And we won't charge astronomical prices!'"
Doctor Theatre: This is one actor possessed of such formidable, self-evident energy on stage and off that it's off-putting to hear that he went through a bout of viral meningitis just after Christmas which necessitated missing a run of performances. "It was quite weird. I began to feel slightly ill on Boxing Day night. I did the matinee the next day and don't remember much of the second half of the play. It was sort of one of those things where you don't want to miss a show: you build up that relationship on a long run, and then suddenly you're away. In a way, you also try to find a positive in the situation—other choices to accommodate your physical condition at that particular performance. But in a way, good old doctor theatre aided my recovery as well. It got the blood pumping and the adrenalin flowing, and we just got through it."
Poker Face: Unlike some of his fellow cast members, Wight had never gambled before in his life, prior to taking on a play whose second act consists of a poker game that also serves to realign some very dysfunctional father/son relationships in a play about what Wight calls "the interaction of maleness." In the six months that the company has been together, Wight has come to "love poker but not gambling. I mean, I'm not putting money on horses. I just really love poker; I love the fact that the more you learn, the harder it is to play." So, will he continue playing poker once the run of the play ends? No hesitation there. "Yes. Yes, I will."