This week's episode brings you one of America’s hottest young actors, bubbling under as a major star since Girls and now ready to pop, the man described onstage by Nathan Lane after the final performance of Death of a Salesman as “the best actor i’ve ever worked with onstage”. It's Christopher Abbott. He and Jonny discuss clearing up boxes and making a nest for the baby he was about to have with the great Aubrey Plaza; the German word that Chris has in common with the very first Willy Loman; his psychological setting that has to do with religious roots and losing them; Chris’s interest in phenomenology; his first performance as Hark (the Herald Angel), coming from a working class area in a big town, cinema as church, believing he had a knack from the beginning, how much we perform for the other actor or the audience and what Kenny Lonergan said about Jonny’s performance in Salesman; Chris’s retirements, self-confidence, his own father watching him play a tortured son and his hardscrabble beginnings in the business.
","author_name":"Jonathan Cake"}