A Conversation with Bella Brown
from the Palladium balcony to Rapunzel's tower
Bella Brown has had a phenomenal few years, stepping onto some of London’s most prestigious stages—and occasionally balconies, too. Currently appearing as Rapunzel in the Bridge Theatre’s Into the Woods, Bella was the Mistress and alternate Eva Perón to Rachel Zegler in Jamie Lloyd’s Evita at the London Palladium. In this conversation, Bella talks about Sondheim’s work, stepping out onto that Evita balcony, and what it means to prepare for moments that may arrive suddenly, publicly, and at scale. Our conversation begins below:
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It’s so good to meet you. I’m excited to delve into Into the Woods, but your first professional Sondheim experience was Old Friends. When you look back at that production, with that incredible cast, does it feel like the perfect training for Into the Woods?
It really does. Especially to have been with Bernadette, the icon herself—and now to be in a show that she created, after having met her and worked with her. I consider her a huge inspiration. Working with people who truly understand Sondheim’s music, and who knew him personally, I feel like I have some understanding of who he is despite never having met him.
It wasn’t even necessarily that there were particular words of wisdom I remember. It was just watching these performers. Their process. Watching how they allow themselves to take time. I don’t think Sondheim is something you can rush. I used to watch Bernadette every night sing “Send in the Clowns,” and that alone was a lesson. That’s the stuff I really work on, and the stuff I really took away from Old Friends.
I love this Into the Woods production at the Bridge so much. Could you talk a little about stepping into that rehearsal room, and then seeing the vision that Jordan [Fein] and Tom [Scutt] have for the show and how it lives on stage? Was there anything that particularly surprised you?
The biggest thing, really, is the set. The set really is the thing that allows this show to breathe. Rehearsal is a process where you’re discovering, and you’re learning, and everybody’s discovering and learning and figuring out what the show is. And then you get to the theatre. I feel like I didn’t fully know who Rapunzel was in rehearsals at first. I think she’s really quite delicate, and so vulnerable, and so misunderstood. And then, in our particular version, there’s the narrative of her hair, and how she loses so much of it. Towards the end of the show, she’s really just a shell.
When I first put on that bald cap, I realized, oh, I feel really vulnerable. I could feel that in rehearsals. I’ve never seen myself without hair, and it was quite scary. So, when we entered tech and previews, I really felt her journey, and felt that connection with her for the first time.
I’m reminded of that Fleabag scene: “Hair is everything!”
Hair is everything!
I guess for Rapunzel, that’s always been especially true. And seeing you in your tower, I couldn’t help thinking that this has been a year of literal heights for you, whether that’s a tower or, say, a Palladium balcony…
That’s so true. A year of a lot of blonde, and a lot of heights.
I was thinking about Evita and Into the Woods, and what unites these two totally brilliant productions you’ve been at the heart of. I think what really stands out is the sheer intricacy of how every moving part works together, which is so exciting to see play out. Is that something that you feel from the stage?
Yeah, definitely. And within both of these shows, there’s quite a strong female presence. I think that something Sondheim does better than anyone, actually, is how he writes his female characters—not just in Into the Woods, but throughout his discography. And in Evita, there is a really strong female presence, but a lot of that is these questions of how we perceive women, how women ideally should look, how women ideally should behave, how they want to behave, and how that can changes people’s opinions of them.
In Evita, with both the Mistress and Eva, there are norms that they are expected to fit into, and—especially in Eva’s case—they don’t do that. They are very driven. Similarly, the Witch in our Into the Woods does not conform to any sort of norm, and “Last Midnight” really, really shows that. Rapunzel’s downfall is heartbreaking, because we can understand why she’s ended up the way she does. She wanted this freedom. She loved her mother, but at the same time, she was being suffocated by her. You see her downfall, and you can’t help but feel for her.
One of the most beautiful things about the whole Evita season was seeing how much love and support there was for your Eva performances. When you were auditioning, was appearing as Eva always on the cards? And was it uniquely daunting to be covering the central role in such a talked-about production?
Yeah, absolutely. I’ve covered, I’ve been a swing, and it’s something that I think is not for everybody. I think tackling more than one track at once has its own challenges, because it just requires so much time. And leading a show led by someone of such status as Rachel was definitely nerve-wracking, of course.
I was only in for an Eva cover very, very late on. I did seven rounds of auditioning, and all of it was for the Mistress, along with dance auditions and stuff. Three weeks before rehearsals, I got a call from my agent saying something like, “They’re reaching out to people in the cast and asking whether they’d be interested in auditioning as an alternate or standby for Eva.” And I thought, you know what? I’ll throw my hat into the ring. We’ll see where it goes. I didn’t put any pressure on myself at all, which is why I think I was quite happy with what I produced. I was like, if this goes nowhere, I’m still going to be in the show, so I’m not going to be mad about it.
A week later, I was thinking, it’s probably not me, because we start in two weeks and they’ve probably found somebody. But at something like 11 o’clock at night, I heard from my agent, who had met with Michael Harrison, one of our producers, and he was like, “You are going to be an Eva cover.” I just thought, that’s insane! I found out I was doing Evita in January, and I’d spent the past three months before our rehearsals at the end of April being so set on what I was going to do. And all of a sudden, two weeks before rehearsals, I had not just a whole other track to learn, but the track to learn.
At that point, it was still up in the air as to whether or not it was going to be as an alternate or a standby—and it came through that it was going to be an alternate, and I was going to have set dates. I was like, I do not know what to do with myself.
And there were anxieties there, too. Evita is a show that will sell itself, but so much of this production is Rachel. Rachel is a true titan and champion of her craft. And nobody knows who I am! So this was quite risky, not just for me, but also for the Jamie Lloyd team. But as soon as we got into rehearsals, all my anxieties were put at ease—not just by Rachel, but by the whole company. Everybody was behind everyone. I felt so trusted and capable of making these choices in that role—a role that was still being created by somebody else.
Even up to the point of going on for my first show, I had so much intense rehearsal that I knew that track like the back of my hand. There was no way they were going to let me go out there and go on the balcony, and be filmed, and not feel ready. And I did feel ready, and everybody on stage had my back. I’ve never experienced such a rapport with a company like that. Everyone was so supportive. So supportive. So there was definitely anxiety, but it eased rather quickly.
Are you able to put into words what it felt like to step out onto that balcony for the first time with the crowd below you? How did that actually feel, in your body, at that moment?
It was very strange. I knew that people were going to be out there, but there’s a different pressure being able to perform for an audience on stage, and it feel quite intimate, to a crowd of people who are out on the street to see one number. And you also know that it’s going to be recorded, and people are going to put it all over the internet. My thought going into that moment was that I’d keep my main focus on the people who are inside, who are getting the full context of what this show is. This moment is still for them, through the camera.
And then you think about it, and you step out onto that balcony, and you realize, this is quite beautiful. All these people have turned up to see you perform one of the most iconic numbers in musical theatre history. I felt so much gratitude and appreciation for the people that wanted to come and see it. And I also realized, this really does connect to the people actually inside too. I mean, it doesn’t get more true to life. We talk about trying to give a really dedicated and accurate performance, and here I am performing, as Eva, to strangers who’ve all willingly come to see this.
So, I loved it. I don’t know if I’ll ever experience anything like it again, that feeling of so much gratitude and excitement, but I loved it. I really, really did love it. It was a really wonderful experience.
After such an extraordinary few years, I’m wondering whether you ever think back to graduating in 2023. What did you hope the future might hold for you then?
I didn’t have a clue. I’ve learned so much about myself as a person, and as an actor, since leaving university. I’m still fresh, still only a couple of years out, and I don’t know what the future holds for me at all—but I feel like I’ve learned a lot about taking things one step at a time, not necessarily having to rush into things, and just letting things be.
At the same time as letting things be and being confident in my own ability, I’ve learned to be like, you know what? If I feel like I still need more work, I can make that happen. There’s always more to learn. And it doesn’t necessarily always have to be classes. In classes, and in the jobs themselves, I want to keep learning. I never want to stop learning. Learning doesn’t stop when you leave university, you know?
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Hair is everything! Great interview
This is so beautiful🥹!