The star of ‘Will & Grace’ puts his lesser-known gift as a classical pianist to use in his Tony-winning role as mid-century musician Oscar Levant. The actor speaks with Annabel Nugent about this fulfilling left turn in his career
… Audiences are having to rethink their perception of the actor, now 55, in light of his Tony-winning turn on Broadway as the troubled pianist-raconteur Oscar Levant, who died in 1972. Three years after its American debut, Good Night, Oscar is transferring to London with Hayes stepping back behind the keys and into Levant’s shiny black wingtips. That one-year break was necessary: “They had asked me about transferring towards the end of the New York run,” he recalls, reclining in his chair. “They said, ‘Do you want to go to London?’” He raises his eyebrows past his thick black frames. “And I said, ‘No, I want to go to bed.’”…
As roles go, Levant is an actor’s dream: a real meaty character with a network of sinews and tendons, layers of flesh to tear into. It’s the hard stuff. “Nobody would have ever cast me in this role,” Hayes admits. That he landed the part was the result of 20 years of hard work campaigning for himself, together with the production’s team. “When you’re an actor like I am, you have to create your own path,” he says. “You have to become self-generating because nobody’s going to do the work to see you in other roles. They’d rather just check boxes, which I get.” He’s forgiving of the industry’s blinker vision: “If I were in the same position, I’d probably do the same thing.”…
Though it’s taken a while to reach this point, Hayes has long made peace with the slow burn of his career. “Had this come to fruition earlier,” he says, “I don’t know that I would have been ready to avail myself to an audience in the way that I do with this. It kind of happened when I stopped giving a s***.” He rushes to clarify: “By that I mean, not giving a s*** as in embracing the fear of expressing myself.” He needn’t have clarified; if anything is clear from his performance, underpinned by a careful study of Levant’s tics and mannerisms, it’s that Hayes cares. A lot.