Ryan Molloy as Frankie Valli
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Age: 31
Hometown: North Shields, a tough suburb of Newcastle in the north of England, an area whose distinctive cadences are evident in Molloy's speech. This working-class U.K. fishing milieu might seem worlds away from that of Frankie Valli's New Jersey roots, though not necessarily, says the show's main man. "They're quite similar. I grew up with a real community spirit. And because our father was away a lot in the navy, my sister and I were basically raised by my mother; having that gives you a lot of mental toughness." What's more, he says, "my mother was a huge Four Seasons fan. She was really involved in the northern soul scene and used to love to go down and rock out to the music. So although I didn't really think I knew all these songs at the first sing-through, the minute they started playing, I knew them instantly. My mother must have instilled all these fantastic melodies into my mind."
Currently: Playing Frankie Valli in the West End premiere of Jersey Boys, the Broadway smash that has followed Mary Poppins into the Prince Edward Theatre. How are U.K. audiences taking to a show whose title would seem to refer to prepubescents in the Channel Islands? "Every night, it's a bit of a shock just to see an English audience react so passionately to something; it's like they've been waiting for a long time to get their band back, and now they have." Molloy is speaking prior to a Monday preview, with eight days left to go until an opening night that could well catapult its as-yet-unknown leading man to stardom, as happened to Tony winner John Lloyd Young in New York. "The first 40 minutes, when they come out and do ‘Oh What a Night' in French, [the audience] is quite confused about what's going on. I think that's the beauty and intelligence behind the show: it's almost like hearing something very quiet that starts getting louder and louder and finally, with ‘Sherry,' reaches a point where it just really hits."
Jersey Boys stars Philip Bulcock, Ryan Molloy,
Stephen Ashfield and Glenn Carter
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Vocal Chops: What about having the stamina to get through so daunting a vocal set—even if Molloy, like his Broadway equivalents in the part, is only doing six shows a week? "I've always sung, even during times when nothing was going on, and I knew this great man from Newcastle who came from the world of bel canto opera, so he just gave me a great basis to keep the voice strong." As a result, says Molloy, this show "feels like a ballerina going back to her pointe work. And the good thing about the show is that even though it's a tough sing, it does sit everywhere in my range. Everything's getting a workout."
Transatlantic Differences: As for those wondering whether a British cast can sell this material, here's Molloy on that topic: "There are some parts that are acted more intensely" than in New York, he feels, just as "there are other sections that have a lighter sense of humor attached just because the English sense of humor is different to the American one. And English actors are more intense as a rule because of the training we have to go through."
Three Lives: The performer sees this assignment as the pinnacle of what he regards as his third life, following early teenage interest in live music that led to his joining a group called Rider, which has since disbanded. By that point, Molloy had become keen on acting and followed his sister—now a photo editor for Newsweek, based in New York—to the U.S., spending several years in Los Angeles studying at UCLA and working the circuit. ("I was going up for Penny Marshall movies and Joel Schumacher movies. It was great.") He returned to the U.K., enticed by a record deal with RCA in London that didn't work out, by which point, "the thing that had opened up for me was the acting" in shows like Jerry Springer - the Opera, Godspell on tour and ENO's On the Town, with Caroline O'Connor. "That gave me my heart back," he says of his renewed love for acting. "It got my inspiration going again."
Shake On It: Any thoughts on that famous "Jersey handshake" between Valli and Bob Gaudio, creator of so many of the Four Seasons' greatest hits? (That role is taken in this production by Stephen Ashfield.) "Me and Stephen have really got it down," Molloy chuckles down the phone line, the cast having spent much of this past December at so-called "Jersey camp" in New York and then Nashville order to bond with another and focus on such things. "I just make sure to look at him as if to say, `You fuck with me, I'll fuck with you.'"