BWW Interviews: GHOST THE MUSICAL's Fernando Contreras

There have been so many movies being made into Broadway musicals recently, and the Patrick Swayze - Demi Moore starring, pottery making, hauntingly romantic movie is no exception. GHOST THE MUSICAL is currently touring the United States, and is wowing audiences with its beautiful score and amazing special effects.

I recently spoke with actor Fernando Contreras who plays Willie Lopez about his experiences leading up to his involvement with GHOST, the supernatural illusions in the production, what it's like to play the villain, as well as similarities and differences to the movie.

Check out the full interview below:

You are a founding member of Pipeline Theatre Company in New York. I understand that Pipeline was originally founded as part of a school project. Can you tell me more about that and what Pipeline is all about?
Sure. Well I went to NYU and I trained through the Atlantic Theater Company, which is a huge off-Broadway theater company in New York. They have an acting school, which trains both through NYU as well as through a conservatory-style program that they have on their own. In the NYU program in your third year, that's your company year, so it's focused... We do have our acting classes and voice and speech and movement classes, but one of the bigger parts of that year is creating a company. They give us the stage, they give us a budget, and they let us go. They kind of mentor us with a group of our peers on putting on a show. We put on a show in the spring of 2009. That was our third show in the company technically, and after we left when that spring was over, that summer we decided to continue it as a company on our own. We decided to form and start all the legal paperwork and all that, and so we continued from there and we're still going strong thankfully.

What kind of shows does Pipeline put on?
Pipeline focuses on what we like to call theater of the imagination. It's kind of like finding the imagination in every show that you do and with playwrights that we work with. More recently we're working with new works, but we didn't start that way. We've done published works, you know theatre that's been done already, but we try to do things that can be completely fresh and new in New York City. We focus on the magic that theatre brings to an audience and how we can explore different ways of doing that.

And what are some of the ways you have found to accomplish that goal?
We start with the show. The show is really important because we're focusing on newer works. We're working with local playwrights, up and coming playwrights in New York that have really strong messages to tell. One of the greatest examples, which wasn't a new show was THE ASH GIRL, which is a darker re-telling of CINDERELLA. The playwright is Timberlake Wertenbaker. We focused on THE ASH GIRL because CINDERELLA is a classic fairy tale of a girl down on her luck and she wants to marry the prince and they meet each other, but it's completely different. It's racially stimulated. It has different racial issues in the show as well as kind of a more gory CINDERELLA, but it still has a happy ending. So it does have that message of perseverance and how beauty is not all it's cracked up to be

Has any of what you've done with Pipeline translated over into what you're doing with GHOST since this is a fantastical, supernatural show?
Yeah. It's kind of funny because what I realized, with you asking that, what I realized is that GHOST has a huge element of both mysticism and is a mystical show and is a "beyond the normal" play or musical where people are just interacting. As actors, we really have to force our attention kind of elsewhere, but know what's going on at the same time especially when we're in the same scene with the Patrick Swayze character Sam Wheat, who is a ghost. We're all, well most of us, are humans so we can't really interact with him at all especially my character in most of the scenes. So in that sense we've really had to... it's a heightened theatre experience... and I think that my theater company does a lot of things like that where a lot of different elements, technical and directorial, all come together to achieve that in the same respect that GHOST does.

Is it difficult for you to be on stage with him and to be aware that he is there, but not be able to interact at all? I feel like that would be very distracting for me.
It was difficult at first, more so in rehearsals, but I know where he is at all times because we rehearsed it for so long. It is kind of funny when he's like screaming in my face and I can't really react to anything.

How did you become involved with this production of GHOST?
I had auditioned for a different show. I had auditioned for MAMMA MIA, and the casting director was the same person. There's a MAMMA MIA tour out right now. I waited a while for the MAMMA MIA call to come, whether it was a yes or a no, but it didn't come. And then I got a call saying, "would you like to come out for GHOST?" And so I asked about MAMMA MIA and they were like oh we're all set on MAMMA MIA, so I was like great let's go to GHOST, let's try for GHOST. They had actually had several calls for the character that I'm playing, which is Willie Lopez, and they had several calls and just couldn't find him for whatever reason. The casting team, the directing team couldn't find the actor to play this role. This was kind of their last straw. They had called for video submissions, and I wasn't available to go to any of the calls. I was doing a workshop in New York and they were like well great we're going to have an audition on Friday, August 2nd at 10am. I said ok well I have to be at a show for the workshop I'm doing at 12. And they were like ok well come in at 10 and we'll see you and hopefully you'll be able to get out in a timely matter. And I was like great! So I showed up early, and I got there and a half hour later I was dancing, and five minutes later they gave me the part. They were like great we'll see you Monday. I was like great I have to go to my workshop I'm sorry! I just had to run, I had no time to celebrate because I had a show to do, but it was a great experience. It was so fast, and I started two days later.

That's when you know you were meant to play that part, when it happens that quickly!
Yeah, exactly.

So this is the first national tour that you've done, correct?
Yeah.

What has it been like for you to be on tour with this show?
It's been amazing. I'd traveled some with a different show, but never in this magnitude. This is a lot bigger, there's a lot more people, and it's for a lot longer of a time, and it's a different level. The other was less on this Broadway national tour level. It's been great. I love travelling and I've always wanted to go to these cities. I mean right now we're in Atlanta, I've never been, and I love it. And literally for the last like ten years I've been like I have to go to New Orleans. A friend of mine lives in New Orleans and she was like you would just die, you'll love it. I'm so excited to come New Orleans. I'm super, super psyched.

Set us up here. GHOST is about Molly and Sam. They're these two lovers who are separated after Sam's death. Can you give me some more details about what goes on with this plot?
Absolutely. So they have just moved in together. They're starting this new chapter in their lives. He's a banker, she's an artist, and he's kind of not wanting to go to this art exhibition that she has coming up. But he goes, obviously, because that's his girl and they just moved in together and so they're trying to make things work. There's this beautiful song called "Three Little Words" after the art exhibition where she just wants him to say "I love you" because she says it all the time. In the movie he says "ditto." They're kind of going through this moment of like just say it, and he's about to say it and then he's interrupted by this thug, who I play. It's a mistaken murder. He's not murdered intentionally. The mugger is just there to actually mug him and steal his wallet, and he is mistakenly killed and the mugger just runs away. Sam gets up right away and goes to chase him and then realizes he's not able to communicate with anyone because that's the moment he becomes a ghost. The show takes us through his journey of trying to figure out why he was murdered and who's behind it. And he's trying to also protect Molly because the thug is entering, with Sam's keys, is entering the house and talking to this other person on the phone about going back to the apartment. So he's trying to protect Molly and trying to figure out why he died at the same time. Through the show we figure that out and, even after he figures that out he continually tries to find ways, with the help of another ghost and obviously by finding the psychic who is the only one that can hear him... he enlists the help of the psychic and with the help of the other ghost he finds a way to protect Molly and get the revenge that is needed.

Are there any sort of special effects or music that make it clear to the audience that ok now he's dead, now he's a ghost, and now we're stepping into a more supernatural thing? How does it change?
Yeah I mean there's an amazing special effect that happens a few times in the show where, when someone dies, we see the body and we see them as a ghost. There are multiple deaths in the show, but when Sam dies he runs after the thug and then Molly starts yelling and she's over his body that he just got up from. As an audience you see him running and then you turn to Molly and there's his body so you're like what? How did that happen? So that special effect is kind of the indication where the audience will immediately know that he's dead. Because it could just be oh he got shot but with the adrenaline he gets up and started chasing the killer. But that is the indication that he's dead. There's special lighting where you can see that oh everyone else is in normal lighting and he is a ghost. You can tell by the lighting that they use how to differentiate Sam as a ghost from other people.

So your character, Willie Lopez, is basically one of the villains of the show. He's the one that kills Sam. Give us a little more insight into your character. Why is he after Sam in the first place?
Willie has this kind of unexplained relationship with Sam's best friend Carl. We don't find that out until later in the show, but he's essentially working with Carl, for some other purpose not in any way to kill Sam. He's kind of like a hired lackey. I feel like there's a little more to it. He has this relationship with Carl where there's kind of a power dynamic between the two of them so they're both essentially the villains. Carl hired Willie to mug Sam. We follow Willie through and Sam follows Willie as well to try to figure out why he killed him, what he's up to next, and what he wants with Sam because Sam has nothing to hide. So he's like why is this guy following me? Through the show we find out what Willie's up to and who he's working for, which is Carl, and there's a tiny little story that is Willie's in the show as well.

I've heard a lot of actors that say they have a whole lot more fun playing the bad guy. Is that something that rings true for you?
Willie is such a fun character to play, because I'm not like that in any way. I mean, of course not. I'm not a thug. But it's so much fun because the directing team just gave me a lot of freedom in exploring who he was and what he was. So I was able to do different things and really explore what that character was, and it just became more and more fun. And they loved it and I loved it, and it really reads on stage when there's such a different energy on stage. Willie is such a different energy on stage. I think the audience is very drawn to him in a negative way, but they're drawn to him because he's such a different character from the rest.

A lot of audience members will have seen the movie, and there are some iconic scenes from the movie that they may be expecting to see. How does the musical compare to what we see in the film?
Well Bruce Joel Rubin who wrote the screenplay actually wrote the script for this as well, so he stays true to it. And he's written songs along with Dave Stewart and Glen Ballard to kind of bring to life what the movie did, but on a stage with music. It differs in that way a little more obviously where there's music that is sung whereas in the movie there isn't, but the iconic scenes are there. The pottery scene where Sam and Molly are kind of creating and she doesn't even know that he's there but she kind of feels his presence is there and it's beautiful. It brings the whole cast to tears every time. The scene where Oda Mae, played by Carla Stewart, in the bank scene where in the movie it's Whoopi Goldberg and she's in this ridiculous outfit at the bank and she asks if she can keep the pen, which is a really funny line from the movie is also in this production. So yeah, a lot of the iconic scenes are there and are just as satisfying as they are in the movie because they're so memorable. People want to see them. Even if you haven't seen the movie, I love the movie and I love this in a different way. An audience member actually came up to me specifically and was like, "I am the hugest fan of the movie and you guys did it justice. It's different, but just as beautiful. As awesome and heart wrenching as the movie was." I was really glad to hear that because I haven't had a lot of chances to talk to audience members, honestly because they don't recognize me after the show because I have a wig on, but it's really, really great. If you watch the movie you're going to be wowed by how similar they are but also how different they are.

There are quite a lot of movies being turned into musicals and vice versa, but it's always interesting to see how the spirit of the story is there even though some of the elements might be a little different. Is there anything else that you think audiences should know about GHOST before they see it?
I mean, the music. I didn't really talk a lot about the music and I really love the music. The music is so beautiful. It's a little more rock and roll style, but I think it's catered towards a younger audience. There are also ballads that are really beautiful. I think everyone's going to love the gospel numbers. There's a little bit of everything for everyone. People are really going to be, who haven't heard about it or know it, are going to be really, pleasantly surprised with the music because it's beautiful. And some of the stuff that the band does is unbelievable. It's so magical because it's such a little band but they do so much. They sound like a thirty piece orchestra. It's amazing.

Be sure to check out Fernando Contreras as Willie Lopez in GHOST THE MUSICAL at the Saenger Theater from November 19 through November 24. This supernatural, magical show is only here for a short while, and it's not one to miss. Check out www.saengernola.com for tickets an