NEW YORK - Despite this time of récessionnistes, John Benjamin Hickey succeeded to the excellent work of land not only one, but two.
The actor was released on Broadway as a journalist affected by AIDS in a well-fact revival, praised "The Normal Heart of Larry Kramer" and brother troubled of game Laura Linney on "the big" c. Showtime
The only snag: it has to do at the same time.
One is Theatre eight times per week in Times Square, while the television program requires that he spends three or four days a week, the filming of 25 miles northeast of the city to Stamford, Connecticut, for the second season of the acclaimed series. He laughs at his luck, what he calls a "spoilt for choice."
"It could be a confluence more madness of events," he said during lunch in a café in Greenwich Village near his home in one of its few empty afternoon. "The time couldn't have been better and it could not be worse."
He has juggled with the two with some success. Hickey, in his fifth Broadway show, won his first Tony Award nomination as best actor in a play feature. Next month, he competes against Mackenzie Crook of "Jerusalem", Billy Crudup in "Arcadia," Arian Moayed of "Tiger of Bengal at Baghdad Zoo's" and Yul Vazquez in "The Motherfuckers - with the hat."
His two jobs have transformed the Hickey casual in someone who remembers railway schedules and calculates the traffic patterns. It was also found among the sprint through Times Square crowd to make it to the theatre in time.
Once, he almost missed a performance. To make the evening curtain at 8 p.m., he likes to take a train in Connecticut do more later 6: 15 pm. One night recently, he was obliged to take a still closer to 6: 30 pm. Then it was 15 minutes late - and he still had a 45 minute drive.
How this man - who described as "hothouse flowers" with a sensitive stomach and a "boy Presbyterian soft of Plano, Texas" - manage a nerve path - its?
"The only thing I did was I got my script of"the Normal heart"and just started to read." I could hardly concentrate on it, but simply by looking at the words helped me to go to the place, that I needed to be metaphorically and train me y literally.
The train of Metro-North Railroad fired in Grand Central Terminal at 7 h 38, leaving only 22 minutes to pass on the side is the town in Times Square. Avoid the crowded streets, he jumped on the subway. Then he ran.
"I have five minutes the curtain," he said with a smile. "It adds a certain amount of drama."
Hickey, who turns 48 next month, credits all sorts of people - the Director of its lining in the Teamsters Union which give him a ride in Stamford - for the ability to both projects. "It has been many people lean backward to help make the impossible possible.". I have so many people to thank. ?
The appointment of Tony helped, too. Performers, crew members and the producers of "the big C" trying to accommodate schedule of fanciful Hickey even more now that they have a better idea of what it was up to in New York.
"It was a bit like having a beautiful wife and a beautiful mistress," he said. "" "". Your wife does not want to hear a word about how hot is your mistress and vice versa. I felt like I was leading to this double life. ?
The role of the scene is consuming him emotionally, too. Hickey plays a man dying of AIDS, which he searches asking doctors and hospice workers, as well as to simply remember the toll took diseases. The homework for this mainly required only gazes up to my ceiling during the night and thinking about the people I've lost, "he says.
Daryl Roth, the producer of Tony-winning, said helping Hickey with his odd schedule that was the least she could do for a player that gives the show a large part of his compassion, fall in love on stage at the beginning and struggling with the death later.
"It is such an accessible player because I think that he bares his heart and soul in its performance." It does so in a way which slips on you. It is not with the bravado - he is just who he is. It opens and allows you to see his emotions. ?
Hickey, a graduate of the Juilliard School, made his debut on Broadway in 1995 when "Love!" Valour! "Compassion!"transferred to off-Broadway. He has also appeared in the "Cabaret" from Natasha Richardson, "The Crucible" with Linney Liam Neeson and "Mary Stuart" with Janet McTeer.
"I always felt lucky - blessed - the career I have had.". I really like to be an actor. I like being a companion, "he says. "It has always been kind of going where the work was".
His film roles range from "the ice storm" to "" Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. "" On television, it seems to have gravitated towards cop shows - "Law & Order", "Law & Order: los angeles," "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" and "NYPD Blue".
"When I am nearly shaven and bathed, I look at as a lawyer," said.
Hickey never thought to do two jobs at the same time this spring. He signed to do one night benefit reading of "the Normal heart" in October and is so that he transformed into a production all over the place.
Fearing that he could not make the issuance of television and the room, he asked Council Linney, a friend for 25 years, since the day where he was a year ahead of him at the Juilliard School. She urged trying to juggle two juicy parts.
It also helped that it is the Executive producer of the television series: "only advice I give to acting students, ' be nice to your underclassmen." "You never know who might be able to help you find a job, a day,'", explains Hickey.
On Broadway, he also found an old friend - Joe Mantello, known as the Director of Broadway shows such as "Wicked," "take Me Out" and "Murderers." In "the Normal heart," Mantello goes back to its roots as an actor, playing the central character Ned weeks and lover of nature of the Hickey. Mantello directed Hickey in five pieces and they have known each other for at least two decades
The play, Hickey said, has struck a chord with the public of today even though it was written in the mid-1980s. It details the emergence of AIDS and how a group of activists fought with a public indifferent, although that theme of the piece of resistance transcends disease.
If the game becomes too heavy, Hickey can always find comfort in its other functions, the filming of the second season of "the big C", but also dealing with a horrible disease.
On the show, he plays an eco-warrior wickedly funny who suffers from a mental illness, and yet there are plenty of black humour. "There is this lightness in the world I love - a comical lightness, which is that in a show about cancer is very difficult,"he says."
A little of that humor out when Hickey is asked what he learned in now pressed the play and the television program. It turns out that it is not always easy to find people willing to commiserate on his crazy schedule.
"Nobody wants to hear an actor complain of too much work - primarily from other players,"he says with a smile. "
