2005 Tony Awards Q&A: James Earl Jones

Nominated for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play, James Earl Jones has a long and distinguished career on stage that includes memorable performances in The Great White Hope (Tony Award), Fences (Tony Award), "MASTER HAROLD"...and the boys, The Iceman Cometh and Othello. His many films include The Great White Hope (Academy Award nomination), Dr. Strangelove and Field of Dreams, but he is probably best known as the voices of Darth Vader in the Star Wars films and Mufasa in Disney's The Lion King. He's won two Emmy Awards and recently earned his eighth nomination for his guest appearance on "Everwood." His last Broadway appearance was in the 1987 production of Fences, for which he won Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards. He subsequently took the play to L.A., where he won the L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award.

This show marks a return to Broadway for you, what has that been like?

The experience of coming back to Broadway… Actors start out, and it's a very private world, a very quiet world. The focus of the show was first intended to just be done as a reading in Washington, DC at the Kennedy Center. The Broadway idea came later, but it's all part of acting. And, for me to come back to Broadway meant that I was going to come back to the theater that I started in, the Cort Theater, on 48th Street, in Manhattan, in New York City, in the State of New York…I don't know how to push it anymore than that, but it's a return.

Tell us about that first show…

I got cast as the houseboy in the Sunrise at Campobello, which is all about the Roosevelts. I had 3 lines, and one of them was "Mrs. Roosevelt, dinner was served." I proudly said that line every night, and I even remember stuttering on it. I'm a stutterer, and one night I came on and stuttered the line, but that was my theater beginning. On Golden Pond brings me back to that, and back to the theater. It's great serendipity for me.

The show received a good critical response, do you read reviews?

I avoid reading reviews, even though I honor and respect critics, especially those who are involved in developing the art of criticism, because it is an art. There are people who know what the art of criticism is, so an actor can get a bad review, and can still enjoy reading it. I don't have those experiences, I don't read them, but my wife does.

Are you feeling excitement about being back on Broadway?

Well, excitement is one of those judgment words that I avoid using, but being back on Broadway is wonderful of course. It's not what it's started out to be – serendipity is my favorite word to describe it.

You've certainly traversed many of the mediums of entertainment, in what regard do you hold stagework?

I don't know if I enjoy stagework more than anything else... I love doing commercials as you must have noticed. When I've done a TV series, I loved getting up at 5 o'clock every morning, and having a steady job. But I started out in the theater, with my training at the American Theatre Wing, and off-Broadway, regional theater, and eventually the Cort Theater on Broadway. I get to Broadway every few years, and in a noticeable way every 20 years. And this happens to be one of those noticeable ways. I've been involved in more spectacular plays, but theater is the great white hope.

What has the experience of doing this show been like?

This is the most different experience, but in a way, I think that I love being in this play more than I've loved being in any of the wonderful plays that I've been in. It is, a simpler experience – it's family, who are not going anywhere, they're on vacation, and they visit each other, and talk with each other. The old man gets to bond with a 13 year old boy, and that revises his life. I play the old man….

How do you personally relate to the character?

He loves to talk about death, not because he loves death, but because he thinks about death, and I recite the Dylan Thomas poem every night, and that describes the play, describes this man, and this man salutes Dylan Thomas. We die, we all die, so go out strong, and go out existing till the end, because we really don't give up life until we feel that we've achieved it.

You're certainly amongst the more well-known of this years nominees, judging by the line of press waiting to interview you as well – do you place value on that fame?

This is nothing that we start out to do, none of us start out do be famous, I hope so at least, because if we do, you're heading down a bad path, looking for heartbreak and lots of other bad stuff. The little boy in our play is a good example of how to go about this profession. When he's offstage, he draws, and his mother is always there. His mother's a dancer, and he's highly disciplined. When he's on that stage, he's the most disciplined actor in that company, and the most fun to be with. I love all the other actors, but in the scenes with him, it's about an old man appreciating a young kid's lack of senses, because he can say what he feels, and the old man longs to do that. He bonds with the little kid, and he says things that are often quite rude, but it's how he views the world. That's important for everyone to be able to do.