NEW YORK — Between the blustery, rainy afternoon and the mint herbal tea he orders to warm up, British actor Julian Ovenden must feel right at home while making his Broadway debut in “Butley,” opening Wednesday at the Booth Theatre.
He has a little help from playwright Simon Gray, as “Butley” is a thoroughly English play, famously produced with Alan Bates as the lead in 1971. This time around, Nathan Lane assumes center stage, as Ben Butley, a cynical, cantankerous literature professor at a London university who turns away his eager students with the brusqueness of a maître d’ at a four-star restaurant. Ovenden co-stars as Joey, a young colleague who shares an office, an apartment and a complex romantic past with his older mentor that becomes clearer as the pair banter and trade insults.
“There’s a kind of dependency between them. They’re like kids really, quite childish. It’s not a grown-up relationship,” says Ovenden.
The actor had to overcome his own initial intimidation about acting beside Lane, but he has nothing but praise for his co-star, who performed the same role to raves in Boston three years ago.
“When you’re working with someone as famous as him…you don’t quite know what to expect,” explains Ovenden. “But he’s a star in the proper way, in the old-fashioned way. He’s brilliant and, first and foremost, he’s an actor. He’s not a celebrity or a personality. You know you go and meet film stars nowadays and 75 percent of them, they’re not really actors.”
Ovenden clearly aspires to Lane’s career model. The eldest of three children, he grew up immersed in the world of music, playing the trombone, piano, organ and trumpet, and singing in choir school (his father is a chaplain to the Queen). He earned a music scholarship to what he self-effacingly calls “another school” (that would be Eton) and then yet another choral ride to Oxford. His last year at university, Ovenden decided to try drama school, and soon after found himself in a Diet Coke commercial that brought him an avid female fan base. He has since earned his chops with British TV work on shows like “Foyle’s War” and theater parts ranging from Shakespeare to Oscar Wilde to musicals.
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Though he’s happy about his constant stream of roles and the stage reputation he has earned in London, the actor clearly has a love-hate relationship with fame. He hopes to do film work (and has lived in L.A. for the past year-and-a-half), but is wary of the public attention that might come with increased success.
“I mean, you have to have some kind of profile to get work. If I’d done no work, I’d probably not have got this job,” he says. “But that’s what you employ agents and managers to do is to find a way for you to get these things without having to sell your soul.”