This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Anthony Michael Lopez: This is Anthony Michael Lopez, and you're listening to Behind The Awards.

[0:04] Eila Mell: Hello, and welcome to Behind The Awards. I'm Eila. I'm here with Bruce.

[0:18] Bruce Gotlieb: Hello there. How are you doing today?

[0:20] Eila Mell: I'm good. How are you? You went to see Chicago over the weekend?

[0:25] Bruce Gotlieb: I did. I did. We took our friend's daughter. Her Sweet Sixteen was in May.

[0:33] Eila Mell: So we gave her a little coupon for tickets to go see a Broadway show of her choosing.

[0:40] Bruce Gotlieb: And she picked Chicago because Reese Weaver of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader. And there's some reality show that she's all the rage and all the girls.

[0:51] Eila Mell: There were tons of girls there that were like there for Reese.

[0:56] Bruce Gotlieb: Right. I'm sure. You know, she just out there dancing her heart out.

[1:01] Eila Mell: All right. But your friend's daughter had a good time, right?

[1:04] Bruce Gotlieb: She loved it. She was on cloud nine.

[1:08] Eila Mell: Well, that's what you want.

[1:10] Bruce Gotlieb: Exactly. Especially if you have to sit through the same show, like what, for the third time?

[1:13] Eila Mell: Well, you know, you know, but I will tell you, Lisa Guzman and Natasha Williams are worth the price of admission.

[1:23] Bruce Gotlieb: And Mama. Yeah. Wow. Are they good?

[1:26] Eila Mell: Fantastic. So what's happening in the news, Bruce?

[1:30] Bruce Gotlieb: So I saw this thing that I wanted to tell you about because I think I know it's right up your alley.

[1:37] Eila Mell: So Joe's Pub, which we love. They do all kinds of really fun open mics and events and like just all kinds of stuff.

[1:45] Bruce Gotlieb: They help support, you know, the theater community and off Broadway. And a lot of Broadway actors and actresses will go and perform there when they don't have a show.

[1:55] Eila Mell: So you can really catch some fun stuff.

[1:57] Bruce Gotlieb: They have coming up on November 2nd, a Three's Company tour.

[2:04] Eila Mell: What? So this March.

[2:07] Bruce Gotlieb: OK. So this March is the 50th anniversary of Three's Company.

[2:13] Eila Mell: Oh, my God. Wow. OK.

[2:16] Bruce Gotlieb: So they're doing this tour called Three's Company. Come and knock on our door.

[2:21] Eila Mell: And they're going to do a cabaret at this, you know, at Joe's Pub.

[2:26] Bruce Gotlieb: And they're going to do a reading of the original pilot episode.

[2:31] Eila Mell: Oh, my God. All right. Who is involved? This is very exciting.

[2:34] Bruce Gotlieb: OK, so Joyce DeWitt, of course, will be co-hosting the event alongside John Ritter's widow, Amy Yazbek.

[2:43] Eila Mell: Wow. I didn't realize that the actual people would be involved.

[2:47] Bruce Gotlieb: Oh, yeah. They're not messing around.

[2:49] Eila Mell: Oh, wow.

[2:50] Bruce Gotlieb: Richard Klein, who originated Larry, will be the evening's narrator.

[2:54] Eila Mell: Remember, we saw him at a show not that long ago.

[2:57] Bruce Gotlieb: That's right. We did.

[2:59] Eila Mell: Jason Biggs is going to be taking on Jack Tripper.

[3:02] Bruce Gotlieb: OK, that works.

[3:04] Eila Mell: Christine Taylor is going to be Chrissy Snow.

[3:06] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, if she does even a tenth of what she did for Marcia Brady, it'll be amazing.

[3:14] Eila Mell: Oh, yeah. She gets that aesthetic.

[3:18] Bruce Gotlieb: She gets the humor of it. She knows where that character needs to live, for sure.

[3:23] Eila Mell: Definitely.

[3:24] Bruce Gotlieb: Bellamy Young will be Janet Wood.

[3:26] Eila Mell: OK, that's not an obvious casting choice, but OK, why not?

[3:31] Bruce Gotlieb: And Richard Kind will be stepping in as Stanley Roper.

[3:36] Eila Mell: Oh, my God. Who's Mrs. Roper?

[3:38] Bruce Gotlieb: Suzy Eastman.

[3:40] Eila Mell: Oh, I love her. Yes, from Curb Your Enthusiasm. Suzy Estman.

[3:44] Bruce Gotlieb: Suzy Estman, yes.

[3:46] Eila Mell: Oh, great. I almost thought it was going to be a Jinx Monsoon or someone like that.

[3:51] Bruce Gotlieb: I mean, they could have, for sure.

[3:53] Eila Mell: I mean, Mrs. Roper is pretty campy, but Suzy Estman is great.

[3:57] Bruce Gotlieb: So then following the New York kickoff, which is November 2nd, this anniversary tour is going to continue through 2027 with the readings in Dallas in February, Cleveland in March, and Los Angeles in September.

[4:11] Eila Mell: So if you're in one of those areas, you should certainly grab a ticket.

[4:17] Bruce Gotlieb: The event is also going to celebrate John Ritter's legacy, raise funds for aortic health and things of that nature.

[4:26] Eila Mell: So it's not only you're going to go and have a great time, but it's also a really great charity and supporting something that obviously is near and dear to the cast's heart and obviously Amy Asbeck's heart.

[4:41] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, that's wonderful.

[4:43] Eila Mell: I wonder if, you know, if they consider Jason Ritter playing Jack instead of Jason Biggs at any point.

[4:49] Bruce Gotlieb: I wonder, you know, maybe just a scheduling thing.

[4:53] Eila Mell: Who knows? I mean, Jason Biggs is, you know, very popular and known for comedy.

[4:57] Bruce Gotlieb: And I'm sure that it'll be even great. Wow. That's big news.

[5:02] Eila Mell: I thought so. I thought that's, you know, probably a night of just, you know, some of that, some of the lines and some of the things are going to just resonate within people that they don't even realize they still have locked in, you know, right.

[5:17] Bruce Gotlieb: And it's like hearing a song on the radio. You just you get transported.

[5:21] Eila Mell: And how do they fill a whole night, though? Because that's, you know, it's a 30 minute episode.

[5:26] Bruce Gotlieb: You know what? It doesn't say I'm assuming other than this live table reading. I'm sure there'll be like some discussion.

[5:31] Eila Mell: Yeah, I'm sure.

[5:34] Bruce Gotlieb: Maybe the cast will be there.

[5:37] Eila Mell: Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

[5:39] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, that's great. That sounds like fun.

[5:39] Eila Mell: And did you hear that Sasha Baron Cohen is going to be in a play written by Quentin Tarantino in the West End?

[5:47] Bruce Gotlieb: I did hear something about that this morning. I didn't get to dig into it.

[5:52] Eila Mell: That's pretty exciting, too. Yeah.

[5:55] Bruce Gotlieb: Who knew that Quentin was taking a jaunt over to the theatrical?

[5:59] Eila Mell: I know, but it's great. He's a great writer.

[6:01] Bruce Gotlieb: And I think he only wants to do a certain amount of movies. So maybe he's looking for some, you know, something different to do.

[6:07] Eila Mell: Sure. So it all works. I think it's great.

[6:10] Bruce Gotlieb: That is great. It's exciting to have fun and new theatrical events.

[6:15] Eila Mell: Well, our guest today is very theatrical. That's true.

[6:18] Bruce Gotlieb: He is. You know, we know him. We met him during Our Town, but he's certainly been in his share of shows.

[6:26] Eila Mell: And we'll talk all about that when we bring him out. So let's welcome Anthony Michael Lopez.

[6:30] Bruce Gotlieb: Absolutely.

[6:33] Eila Mell: We are so excited to welcome Anthony Michael Lopez.

[6:37] Bruce Gotlieb: Very fancy three names to our show.

[6:40] Eila Mell: Hi, Tony.

[6:42] Anthony Michael Lopez: Hi.

[6:45] Eila Mell: How are you?

[6:45] Anthony Michael Lopez: I'm really good.

[6:49] Eila Mell: Yeah, the three names I tried to be Anthony Lopez. I tried to be Tony Lopez. But when I tried to register both those names in the union, somebody already got to him.

[6:55] Anthony Michael Lopez: I was like, I got to go by the name that my mom calls me when she's mad at me.

[6:59] Eila Mell: She called you all three names?

[7:01] Anthony Michael Lopez: Anthony Michael Lopez.

[7:03] Eila Mell: Wow.

[7:05] Anthony Michael Lopez: She doesn't get mad often, but yeah.

[7:08] Eila Mell: Then you know you're in for it.

[7:09] Anthony Michael Lopez: Then I know I've done something bad.

[7:12] Eila Mell: Well, you are very busy. I mean, you work so much.

[7:15] Anthony Michael Lopez: And it's not like you do these small projects, right?

[7:19] Eila Mell: You're always in the most prestigious shows.

[7:22] Anthony Michael Lopez: Like Our Town, Othello. Just light fare.

[7:26] Eila Mell: That's right.

[7:27] Anthony Michael Lopez: Light afternoon comedy.

[7:29] Eila Mell: Is that by design?

[7:32] Anthony Michael Lopez: My design. Somebody else's design. No, I think it's like I'm just drawn to things with substance.

[7:42] Anthony Michael Lopez: And I'm often drawn to material that's literary and deals with deep things. But I love a comedy, too. I love being silly.

[7:51] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[7:54] Anthony Michael Lopez: Well, you are on Survival of the Thickest.

[7:56] Eila Mell: Right.

[7:57] Anthony Michael Lopez: And that's the thing. Like on TV and commercials and stuff, that stuff for me has tended to be goofy.

[8:05] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[8:06] Anthony Michael Lopez: And then theater is like where it's like Titus Andronicus.

[8:09] Eila Mell: Right, right.

[8:11] Anthony Michael Lopez: Well, that's interesting, though. I think that's great that you have different options.

[8:16] Anthony Michael Lopez: It's been amazing.

[8:17] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[8:18] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah.

[8:19] Eila Mell: Do people recognize you from Survival of the Thickest a lot?

[8:21] Anthony Michael Lopez: Last night.

[8:22] Eila Mell: Oh.

[8:23] Anthony Michael Lopez: I was at a coffee shop and this guy behind the counter was like, have I seen you on TV?

[8:30] Eila Mell: I was like, maybe.

[8:31] Anthony Michael Lopez: He was like, are you on Survival of the Thickest?

[8:33] Eila Mell: I said, yeah.

[8:34] Anthony Michael Lopez: He said, if you know Mavis Beaumont, tell her she is fire as hell. And I was like, OK.

[8:39] Eila Mell: How did the show come to you? How did that whole thing come about?

[8:43] Anthony Michael Lopez: It was one audition.

[8:44] Eila Mell: Wow.

[8:45] Anthony Michael Lopez: Just one?

[8:46] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[8:47] Anthony Michael Lopez: It was one tape.

[8:48] Eila Mell: Wow.

[8:49] Anthony Michael Lopez: That never happens.

[8:50] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[8:51] Anthony Michael Lopez: It was one scene. It was like 15 seconds.

[8:56] Eila Mell: And I sent in the tape. And then like a month later, they were like, OK, you're Bruce. You're going to recur four times over the first season.

[9:05] Anthony Michael Lopez: Hell is going on. That was my first recurring role on a TV show.

[9:11] Eila Mell: Wow.

[9:12] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah.

[9:13] Eila Mell: That never happens, though. That's amazing.

[9:15] Anthony Michael Lopez: That's amazing. It was wild.

[9:17] Eila Mell: I know. I mean, you hear these stories of people having to go to network and all the, you know, all the.

[9:21] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah.

[9:22] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[9:23] Anthony Michael Lopez: But then my first day on set and the show was like, oh, I've seen you. You do stand up.

[9:26] Eila Mell: And I was like, I don't do stand up. Are you thinking of somebody else?

[9:31] Anthony Michael Lopez: My life.

[9:32] Eila Mell: So you got someone else's job.

[9:34] Anthony Michael Lopez: I got someone else's job.

[9:36] Eila Mell: Hey, whoever does it better, may the best man win.

[9:39] Anthony Michael Lopez: That's right.

[9:40] Eila Mell: That's right. I was like, I'm an actor.

[9:43] Anthony Michael Lopez: That's great.

[9:46] Eila Mell: It was great. Little did she know, like you've been in the most challenging shows.

[9:52] Anthony Michael Lopez: By that point, no.

[9:53] Eila Mell: By that point, I shot Survival of the Thickest while I was still in workshops for Camelot, which was my first Broadway show.

[9:59] Anthony Michael Lopez: I got you.

[10:02] Eila Mell: Wow. OK.

[10:04] Anthony Michael Lopez: So I was. Yeah.

[10:06] Eila Mell: So I hadn't even. I haven't even done Camelot yet.

[10:08] Anthony Michael Lopez: So I was telling her about that. You know, the Arab Sorkin of it all.

[10:11] Eila Mell: Right.

[10:12] Anthony Michael Lopez: And she was like, God. So then they all came out and saw it.

[10:15] Eila Mell: Oh, that's so nice.

[10:16] Anthony Michael Lopez: I know. I mean, that Camelot was a big deal. When I told a couple of friends that you were doing the show, they're like, that's the guy from Camelot, right?

[10:24] Anthony Michael Lopez: That's crazy.

[10:25] Eila Mell: I know. I know. Isn't that great?

[10:28] Anthony Michael Lopez: That's great.

[10:29] Eila Mell: I love it.

[10:30] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah.

[10:31] Eila Mell: Yes. Is it odd to be like in a space where you shot this so long ago and now it's like, you know, the hot show so many years later of Survival of the Thickest?

[10:43] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah. Well, it's I mean, I had been shooting that since 2022, but it is the time gap is sort of weird where sometimes you shoot it like because we did we did three seasons.

[10:56] Anthony Michael Lopez: So sometimes you shoot the season like in late summer and then it doesn't come out until early next summer. And then you sort of watch it and you go, oh, yeah, like you forget the scenes that you're in, you know?

[11:08] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[11:09] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah.

[11:10] Eila Mell: That's the deal with Netflix, too. There can be like such a gap between like season one and season two. It's like a year and a half later.

[11:14] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah, exactly.

[11:16] Eila Mell: I know you have to watch the show twice because you need a refresher.

[11:21] Anthony Michael Lopez: It's been so long.

[11:22] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[11:23] Anthony Michael Lopez: I have to rewatch the show before I get another season to be like, what's going on?

[11:26] Eila Mell: All right. So you've done a lot of Shakespeare.

[11:30] Anthony Michael Lopez: Is that something that you studied?

[11:32] Anthony Michael Lopez: I loved. You know what? I never studied it.

[11:35] Eila Mell: Wow.

[11:36] Anthony Michael Lopez: I never studied it in school. Shout out Illinois Westland, great program.

[11:40] Anthony Michael Lopez: But I studied classical stuff, you know, and did like Chekhov and Ibsen and you know, but I never did Shakespeare.

[11:51] Eila Mell: Wow.

[11:52] Anthony Michael Lopez: School. And then I didn't really, I always thought that it wasn't for me.

[11:56] Eila Mell: Even like when I moved to the city, I was 24 and I would see these shows in the park and be like, those people are good at that. I'm not.

[12:04] Anthony Michael Lopez: Right.

[12:05] Eila Mell: And then sometime around the pandemic, I started doing, you know, there were all of these workshops on Zoom.

[12:11] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah.

[12:12] Eila Mell: And I figured out that I just really loved it.

[12:17] Anthony Michael Lopez: Like I loved it more than anything else.

[12:20] Eila Mell: What about it?

[12:22] Anthony Michael Lopez: It's the way that the material kind of takes care of you. Like, you don't really have to do much work.

[12:28] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[12:29] Anthony Michael Lopez: If you're sensitive to the material and the images in the text. And it also, it lends itself to style.

[12:35] Eila Mell: Mm-hmm.

[12:36] Anthony Michael Lopez: Which I love. I love aesthetic. I love theatricality. You know, the feeling of like the intention of the words kind of filling your entire body.

[12:45] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[12:46] Anthony Michael Lopez: It's like, it's unbelievable. It's beautiful.

[12:48] Eila Mell: And not having studied it, how did you approach the language?

[12:51] Anthony Michael Lopez: I think when I really started getting into it, I had been working in this way where I was trying to kind of metabolize. This is like very in the weeds, actor talk, but this is the place to do it.

[13:08] Anthony Michael Lopez: But kind of try to metabolize images as I was speaking. So sort of like going really slowly and really try to picture the things that I was saying and become sensitive to how it made me feel and what it revealed about what the character might want.

[13:30] Anthony Michael Lopez: And then I started to discover like, this character is full of contradictions. And they say they want one thing and then the thing that they're doing is actually in pursuit of something else. And then it was like, I have to do as much of this as I can, you know?

[13:46] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[13:47] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah.

[13:48] Eila Mell: Well, you've done a lot. How many times have you done Othello?

[13:51] Anthony Michael Lopez: I've done Othello twice. The first time was 2016, Sam Bold's production at New York Theatre Workshop with David Oyelowo and Daniel Craig, Rachel Brosnahan.

[14:02] Anthony Michael Lopez: Then you did Kenny Leon's production.

[14:04] Eila Mell: And Kenny Leon's production last year with Denzel Washington, Jake Tomeo.

[14:09] Anthony Michael Lopez: And two very different productions, too.

[14:11] Eila Mell: Very, very, very different.

[14:56] Anthony Michael Lopez: And things like that, you also have been on The Gilded Age, which we love. We love all of the... just the opulence and the costumes and it's just, I love it. It really embraces you and brings you back into a time.

[15:09] Eila Mell: Exactly. Yeah, that was fun. That was an experience. Yeah. We shot that in a- I was playing like a- I was part of the, uh, Clock the Clock.

[15:20] Anthony Michael Lopez: Death plot. Right?

[15:21] Eila Mell: Yes.

[15:23] Anthony Michael Lopez: Like the clock making assistant or whatever. And we shot it in this old warehouse that was full of like actual antique kind of office-y stuff. It was cool.

[15:34] Eila Mell: Yeah, that show is like the new law and order for New York actors.

[15:38] Anthony Michael Lopez: That is so real.

[15:41] Eila Mell: But stage actors.

[15:43] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah, exactly. That's right. Well, maybe, maybe as the clock invention storyline, depending on where it goes, hopefully they'll bring you back to do more, you know, tinkering around.

[15:55] Eila Mell: Totally. Justice for clock assistant.

[15:58] Anthony Michael Lopez: That's right.

[16:00] Eila Mell: You have a romantic interest. Why not?

[16:02] Anthony Michael Lopez: Why not? You can come back and sue because it was your idea, really.

[16:06] Eila Mell: Oh, that's right. Oh, my God. Good idea.

[16:07] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah. Ooh, that's a better storyline.

[16:09] Eila Mell: Yeah. Let your agent float that to the producer.

[16:12] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah, yeah. Stop telling him.

[16:15] Eila Mell: Um, so, but you also did the Titus Andronicus with Patrick Page that ran, was it last season?

[16:23] Anthony Michael Lopez: No, it was, it was this. Yeah, it was this spring.

[16:26] Eila Mell: Yeah, right. That was really one of my favorite projects I've ever done.

[16:31] Anthony Michael Lopez: Ah, just like, I really wish that it could have gone on and on. Yeah, my agents thought they were like, yeah, that is the kind of thing that should be out there.

[16:41] Eila Mell: Right.

[16:42] Anthony Michael Lopez: He is just, he's like, he's a master.

[16:47] Eila Mell: I learned you worked with him before.

[16:49] Anthony Michael Lopez: We did a reading together of something else in 2024, like late 2024. But other than that, no. But when I was going funny Gilded Age when I was going into do my looping where you like speak over the video, he was coming out of the I was walking in and I was like, I know you. But yeah, he's just he's a genius.

[17:14] Eila Mell: He's amazing.

[17:14] Anthony Michael Lopez: He did the adaptation for Titus Andronicus.

[17:16] Eila Mell: Really?

[17:17] Anthony Michael Lopez: He did our adaptation himself.

[17:19] Eila Mell: That was, wow. That was a real passion project for him then.

[17:22] Anthony Michael Lopez: Was Yeah, yeah, it was. It was gorgeous. That's the cast was stacked. And it was a joy. And talk about like theatricality, but it was still really rooted.

[17:33] Eila Mell: Yeah, that play is so violent.

[17:36] Anthony Michael Lopez: But it's also people great. Just I've never seen it or heard of it done where it's like, delicious and fun.

[17:42] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[17:43] Anthony Michael Lopez: Why? It's so funny. The audience was responding back to us kind of the entire time, every performance, like they were vocalizing with us, like through the show.

[17:55] Eila Mell: Wow. Well, the theater, you know, that you're in probably also lent itself to that.

[18:00] Anthony Michael Lopez: The jewel box.

[18:01] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[18:01] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah, it was small. Right. You know, my friends came to see it, like the last month, everybody, every time people came to see it, they would talk to me about it afterward. Everybody cried. People just cried because they were moved by, I don't think it was like just the subject matter. I think it was like seeing a piece of theater that was like, unabashedly theatrical, you know?

[18:24] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[18:25] Anthony Michael Lopez: Not trying to like, be clever, you know, like, really earnestly try to do the thing.

[18:30] Eila Mell: I think there's something to be said for that, too, though. The production that you were in of Our Town did that, too.

[18:36] Anthony Michael Lopez: It left. There was no need for effects or something, you know, other than just the rawness of the piece.

[18:44] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[18:45] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah. That's another that's another play that, like, is really like, there's so much in the text. Like, you just pay attention to the text. It gives you everything. I love that play. I mean, it's so simple, but yet it's there's so much to it. It's devastating.

[19:01] Eila Mell: Yeah. When she goes back after she dies.

[19:05] Anthony Michael Lopez: I know. So and I will. And Zoe, Katie, her, Zoe and Katie together. Delicious, delicious.

[19:15] Eila Mell: Richard Thomas in that.

[19:16] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah.

[19:16] Eila Mell: Oh, my God.

[19:18] Anthony Michael Lopez: And Jim Parsons, of course.

[19:19] Eila Mell: Of course.

[19:20] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah. I think everybody was so I felt like perfectly put in.

[19:26] Eila Mell: I think so, too.

[19:27] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah.

[19:28] Eila Mell: Yeah. Kenny Liao really knows how to put a group together for sure.

[19:31] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah, I know. You know, some people didn't love that adaptation just because of the I guess the updating of the design.

[19:41] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[19:41] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah. But, you know, Bruce and I really liked we thought it worked.

[19:46] Eila Mell: Yeah, we loved it was polarizing. Some people really didn't. Some people kind of chafed against it. But it's like, that's you know, that's art.

[19:53] Anthony Michael Lopez: I know. But I also I always feel like why do a show if you're just going to do it the same way? It's been done for 100 years.

[20:01] Eila Mell: I agree. I agree.

[20:02] Anthony Michael Lopez: And it's not like we updated anything about the text or, you know, the performance style or anything like we just kind of we we did what we saw on the page.

[20:12] Eila Mell: Right.

[20:13] Anthony Michael Lopez: And like the design was was different. The design was sort of timeless.

[20:17] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[20:18] Anthony Michael Lopez: Because you had an incredible designer bail for it.

[20:22] Eila Mell: Bail for it.

[20:23] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah, exactly.

[20:24] Eila Mell: Yeah. Day Day, the costume designer. Incredible.

[20:27] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah. Tony winner.

[20:27] Eila Mell: Tony winner. Casual.

[20:29] Anthony Michael Lopez: That's right. Both of them, actually.

[20:32] Eila Mell: Yeah. But, you know, we were lucky enough to get to see you guys in the studio in rehearsal.

[20:39] Anthony Michael Lopez: Oh, that's right.

[20:40] Eila Mell: Yeah. And I mean, we were so captivated by that, you know, sometimes the blanks are, you know, filled in when you see it in rehearsal, because you're missing a lot of design elements. But it just spoke so beautifully. It didn't even need the design elements to to get the point across so beautifully.

[20:59] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah. That's a play you can really do on its own. You really don't need much.

[21:02] Eila Mell: No, there's so much going on in the language and the relationships.

[21:06] Anthony Michael Lopez: And Jip Parsons just sort of held you, you know, in his hand.

[21:10] Eila Mell: Right.

[21:10] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah.

[21:11] Eila Mell: And Julie Halston was so fun. I mean, to get to work with her. She's a legend.

[21:15] Anthony Michael Lopez: Star.

[21:17] Eila Mell: Oh, my gosh. No, I know. When they announced the cast, because I didn't know, you know, you don't really know until they announced the entire cast. I was like, right. Katie Holmes, Jim, Richard Thomas, like, I know.

[21:30] Anthony Michael Lopez: Believe me.

[21:31] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[21:32] Anthony Michael Lopez: Did you grow up watching reruns of the Waltons?

[21:35] Eila Mell: I didn't.

[21:36] Anthony Michael Lopez: But he was a legend among my mom and her siblings. And it was the thing of like, good night, mom.

[21:44] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[21:44] Anthony Michael Lopez: It's a bad thing.

[21:46] Eila Mell: Right.

[21:47] Anthony Michael Lopez: And then Richard and I were dressing roommates for that show.

[21:50] Eila Mell: Oh, wow. What a treat.

[21:51] Anthony Michael Lopez: And he's just a sweet, sweet guy.

[21:54] Eila Mell: Oh, he's an angel.

[21:55] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah.

[21:57] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[21:57] Anthony Michael Lopez: And he's I feel like everyone knows him for the Waltons, but he's maybe somewhat quietly had just this incredible stage career.

[22:06] Eila Mell: Completely.

[22:06] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah.

[22:07] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[22:08] Anthony Michael Lopez: And he's been to July. And yeah, I mean, so much. And that's just Broadway, obviously. But I think people only focus on the Broadway.

[22:12] Eila Mell: That's right.

[22:20] Anthony Michael Lopez: And he's toured all over the world. Right. He'll he'll pick a project like a Peer Gynt or like he just did before the Ballisters. He did a play about it was a solo show about Mark Twain.

[22:32] Eila Mell: Oh, wow.

[22:34] Anthony Michael Lopez: Toured everywhere. So he just picks these projects that make him happy.

[22:38] Eila Mell: Yeah, just goes he just like dives in for years.

[22:41] Anthony Michael Lopez: Oh, wow.

[22:42] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[22:43] Anthony Michael Lopez: And the Ballisters was just incredible.

[22:45] Eila Mell: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[22:48] Anthony Michael Lopez: Did you did you know Kenny before our town?

[22:51] Eila Mell: No, no.

[22:53] Anthony Michael Lopez: So that was just an audition.

[22:54] Eila Mell: That was just an audition.

[22:56] Anthony Michael Lopez: That was Jim Carnahan cast our town. And our town was another one where it was like one audition and no callback. And that was it. And so for that production, Kenny included like different, not kinds of people, but different, you know, like, he wouldn't necessarily expect.

[23:14] Eila Mell: Yeah, he wanted to make sure that there was a cross section of all of contemporary society, every kind of demographic was represented in that show.

[23:27] Anthony Michael Lopez: He wanted to say something about community in the modern world, and right, kind of how he's gotten so divided, you know, and there's a reason that he did it in 2024, you know, he wanted to say something about how can we come together? What does it mean to come together? What does it mean to live in community with other people who are different?

[23:47] Eila Mell: Right? Because the way that play is written, it's about a small town of people, and they find differences in each other.

[23:54] Anthony Michael Lopez: And they find differences in each other. And they kind of there are there are conflicts. But demographically, they're basically very similar.

[24:03] Eila Mell: Right, exactly.

[24:04] Anthony Michael Lopez: That was his vision was that like, people are going to be very different, and from very different backgrounds in this community.

[24:13] Eila Mell: And it makes more of the point that they all come together than when they are from different.

[24:18] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah, yeah, because act three, you know, spoiler alert, she's dead. And, you know, and it is about and like, at the end, the stage manager, the narrator, Jim, is talking about, you know, the stars and how, ultimately, we're just these tiny little things, you know, living on this little planet, surrounded by stars, we're all gonna die, you know, right. And so what are these what are these divisions actually matter?

[24:43] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[24:48] Anthony Michael Lopez: And I thought it was a bold move that that worked really well to have, you know, some of the dialogue in sign language.

[24:56] Eila Mell: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[24:58] Anthony Michael Lopez: For John.

[24:59] Eila Mell: Yeah, yeah, totally.

[25:01] Anthony Michael Lopez: I've never seen that before on stage, you know, unless it's about that, unless it's like a children of a lesser God. And this is what I love, too. It's like Kenny will just cast good actors, regardless of disability.

[25:13] Eila Mell: Right, you know, sure.

[25:15] Anthony Michael Lopez: And then he'll just like, make it work.

[25:17] Eila Mell: Right?

[25:18] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah. You know, Bruce and I went to the show with other people. And I think they had no idea that you had a disability.

[25:25] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[25:27] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah, sometimes I don't know. So I think that's great that it it's so wasn't an issue that people didn't know.

[25:34] Eila Mell: Yeah, yeah.

[25:35] Anthony Michael Lopez: And then sometimes I like showed off. Yeah, I'm telling you, I wear a little cut off capri.

[25:40] Eila Mell: Right?

[25:41] Anthony Michael Lopez: I did a Titus Andronicus. Yeah, I mean, I'm privileged in that way that like, not many or, you know, most disabled people have the privilege of being able to like pass for non disabled.

[25:53] Eila Mell: Right.

[25:54] Anthony Michael Lopez: Sure. I you know, I'm aware of that. But you know, so very much disabled, but like in Titus Andronicus, we worked into the story. So I was his eldest son, and we were coming home from this 10 year long war. And, you know, they were showing the costumes were showing off my prosthetic leg as a kind of propaganda to be like, this is, this is the war hero, you know, presenting the war hero, who had made a huge sacrifice to Rome. And, you know, them sort of cheering him and celebrating him, which works into the story, because by the end, they don't love their current emperor, and they wish that the war hero were, you know, leading them.

[26:38] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[26:38] Anthony Michael Lopez: So it was like, perfect. Was that part of the conversation? And in the very beginning to do it that way?

[26:46] Eila Mell: You know what, Jesse, Jesse Berger, the director of that show, didn't think of it until like, we had coffee before we started rehearsal. And I was figuring out, let's see if there's a way to, to make it work, because I think there is. And then we just worked on it. And it didn't, it wasn't much, it didn't have to be much. Also, I walked around with a cane. In that show, I had a cane, you know. And my big rush at the end of the play was I killed the king. But the cane revealed into a sword.

[27:20] Eila Mell: Oh, wow.

[27:20] Anthony Michael Lopez: That flashed the king's face with, you know, so it just worked into kind of the pageantry of it all.

[27:27] Eila Mell: But that's so interesting, because it's like the thing that you're seemingly dependent on becomes, you know, your power.

[27:33] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah, right.

[27:34] Eila Mell: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And seeing how a mobility device can turn into kind of becomes a symbol of power and authority in this guy is really interesting. And what a good message, too.

[27:48] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah, yeah.

[27:49] Eila Mell: And also just fun.

[27:51] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[27:52] Eila Mell: Rick Sordale was our fight guy on that. He, yeah, he came through with a good cane. And he gave it to me. And it lends to the theatricality of it all, too.

[28:02] Anthony Michael Lopez: That's right. You know, yeah.

[28:04] Eila Mell: Did you get to keep it?

[28:05] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yes, he gave it to me.

[28:06] Eila Mell: Great.

[28:07] Anthony Michael Lopez: Amazing.

[28:08] Eila Mell: How cool.

[28:09] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah, yeah. You're such a busy guy. Do you have anything coming up that you can talk about?

[28:16] Anthony Michael Lopez: Nothing I can talk about.

[28:17] Eila Mell: Okay.

[28:18] Anthony Michael Lopez: I've got some things that are happening. I've got some workshops and some new plays going on.

[28:26] Eila Mell: Excellent. Fun.

[28:27] Anthony Michael Lopez: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining us. This is such a pleasure.

[28:31] Eila Mell: Yeah, you know, we adore you.

[28:33] Anthony Michael Lopez: Same. It's very mutual.

[28:36] Eila Mell: Well, come back when you have something else, because, you know, you're part of our team.

[28:41] Anthony Michael Lopez: Oh, yeah. That's right.

[28:42] Eila Mell: And we'll see everyone next time on Behind the Awards. Bye-bye.