A Conversation with Jesse Tyler Ferguson

It is a privilege to welcome Jesse Tyler Ferguson to The Sondheim Hub. Beloved by millions for his 11-season run as Mitchell Pritchett on Modern Family, Jesse is a Tony Award–winning stage actor with deep roots in the theatre. This month, he makes his London theatre debut in Sondheim’s final musical, Here We Are, at the National Theatre. It was such a pleasure to speak to Jesse about the show, and about Sondheim more generally. Our conversation begins below:

📸: Luke Fontana

Jesse, it’s so good to meet you. We’re speaking a few weeks into rehearsals for Here We Are at the National Theatre. I’d love to start by asking you about arriving in London, and what that very first day of rehearsals was like.

It’s been my dream to work on the West End for a very long time. I don’t think I ever imagined that my first time working in London would be at the National, and that in itself is just mind-boggling. Getting to work in that space is such a privilege. I’m also aware that a lot of Americans don’t ever get to work at the National, so it’s really, really cool.

And to be working with people who I respect so much is a dream. Some of them are very dear friends who I’ve known for years, like Jane [Krakowski] and Martha [Plimpton]. And then there’s someone like Rory Kinnear, who I’ve been such an admirer of for so long, and who I never imagined I would get to share a stage with. It was a very surreal first day of rehearsal.

Another cool thing for me on a personal level is working with Denis O’Hare. We both won a Tony Award for playing the same role in Take Me Out, which I just got to do the Broadway revival of. He’s another person I admire so greatly—but again, I had no idea we’d ever get to work together. So to work alongside Denis too, who I’ve greatly admired for so long, is just so great.

It feels like a very serendipitous job, where I almost can’t believe all of these different things are coming together. There was a lot of emotion for me in those first rehearsals. So many things were coming together that I’ve always dreamed of—and the biggest one, of course, is that I get to do a Sondheim musical. I’ve never had the opportunity to do a Sondheim musical before, and I’ve been such a great fan for so long. I’ve auditioned for them before, but I’ve never been cast.

I got to meet Sondheim very briefly, but I never got to work with him. Of course, I’ve seen everything I possibly could see of his, and I was lucky to be in New York at a time where I was getting to see so many great productions—especially of his later works. I loved seeing him figuring out what Road Show was, and then seeing that at the Public Theater. And of course I saw Here We Are at The Shed. That was something that I was absolutely not going to miss, and I lost my mind for it. I admired it so much, and I left that theater thinking, I’m so lucky to have seen that.

And so to now be in a place where I’m rehearsing Here We Are, and I’m inside this piece, it’s an overwhelming feeling. And I know I’m not the only one in this cast who feels that. We’re all absolutely in the same boat.

Yes! I was listening to your Dinner’s on Me podcast episode with Jane Krakowski just before the casting for Here We Are was made public, and I remember you saying something like, “We’ve never worked together, and we’ve known each other for so long.” When you were cast, did you know that you’d have these ‘old friends’ on stage with you?

Everything was a total surprise. I knew Denis O’Hare was going to do it, and I knew Tracie Bennett was coming back as well. I thought they were both so brilliant in their roles. Joe [Mantello] asked me if I had interest in doing this part, because my friend Jeremy Shamos, who originated it in New York, wasn’t going to be able to come to London with it. And because Jeremy is an old friend of mine, I felt like that was another sign from the universe saying, “It’s okay, you can do this.”

Jesse Tyler Ferguson & Jane Krakowski. 📸: Marc Brenner

Joe did say that he was going to try to get Martha Plimpton to play my wife, Claudia. I am dear, dear friends with her, and I knew that she’d be perfect for this part, so I was hoping that it would all come together. I called Martha immediately to say, “If you can do this, you really should.”

And you’re playing a brilliant character by the name of Paul. For people who’ll be coming fresh to Here We Are, how would you sum him up? Has he surprised you at all in these first few weeks of rehearsing?

He has surprised me, because I was playing him a completely different way for the first week of rehearsals. Joe pulled me aside and gave me some perspective into how he fits into the piece as a whole, and I shifted my way of playing him. When you’ve seen the show already with such an incredible cast, you’re aware of not wanting to repeat performances. I think I’d been working a little against what I had seen—and, honestly, what was on the page at times. And so now I’ve been finding a Paul who’s very authentic to who I am.

What I love about Paul is he’s just a really good guy. He’s a very jolly person. He’s very happy. But he’s also a horrible person. He’s greatly wealthy, and he certainly lives in a bubble, like many of the characters in this show. But he also turns quickly. He has a low threshold for discomfort, and a lot of these characters are put into uncomfortable situations pretty quickly. And so it’s fun to watch as he dissolves into this other version of himself. It’s been really fun to figure that out.

For people who are most familiar with you as Mitchell in Modern Family, will they see quite a different Jesse in Here We Are?

I think so. There are shades of lots of people that I have played in Paul, but certainly he’s completely different from Mason in Take Me Out. And yes, I do think he’s wildly different from Mitchell in Modern Family, too. It’s been fun to figure out all these new colors. I think in this show, though, we are all playing roles that are somewhat shades of who we are. We don’t always have to work too hard to be these people. But at the same time, we’re very often finding these versions of ourselves at our absolute worst.

I know your love for Sondheim runs very deep. Was there a particular moment, experience, or show that switched you on to his work in the first place?

I discovered a lot of his work through the recordings that exist: both cast albums and video recordings. I wore out my copies of Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd, and Sunday in the Park with George. I had them all on VHS. I think Sweeney was one of the first that I watched—and if I had to pick a favorite musically, that would be the one. I find Sweeney Todd endlessly exciting.

And then I found Sunday in the Park with George… and that changed everything for me. I think a lot of people who end up being artists cite that show as being such an important piece, because it says so much about being an artist, being different, carving your own path, and being authentic to yourself. It teaches us that ignoring critics and just being is possible. That show means the world to me. It really switched on a lot of things in my head.

Jesse, I so appreciate you taking the time to talk. Just finally, how are you liking London so far?!

Oh, I’m having a ball. My family is all with me, so we have the kids here, and they are loving it. My son has different Lego sets themed around London landmarks. He’s building the London Eye right now. He just built a red telephone booth, and he was building a double-decker bus too, and now he’s seeing all of these things in real life as well. So we’re having such a great time exposing our kids to London.

And then the theatre here is so incredible, of course. I’m exhausted after work, but somehow I’ve still been finding the energy to see as much theatre as I possibly can. I’m finding that really, really invigorating. It’s a dream to be working on something so complicated during the day, and then to sit back and watch people achieve something so beautiful and exciting at night.