"I can't speak." This is how Robert Sean Leonard—an actor who has been performing professionally since age 14, who has uttered lines written by Shakespeare, Stoppard, Williams, and O'Neill on stage and screen—begins our conversation. He's explaining his reluctance to give interviews, specifically when he has to speak in sound bites on red carpets. "I have no eloquence," he elaborates, noting the irony. "I'm good if I'm doing Glass Menagerie; I know what to say and how to handle it. But anytime I'm in public and a question comes up, I feel like I should just bounce it over to Hugh Laurie. He's the star. And there are pluses and minuses, pros and cons, to being Harold Hill."
It's interesting Leonard would reference the title character from The Music Man; it's yet another role he's played on Broadway, in 2001. On stage, Leonard is often the focus of the action, be it his role as a young A.E. Housman in Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love, which earned him a 2001 Tony Award, or as John Pace Seavering in the 2003 Broadway production of Richard Greenberg's play The Violet Hour, which marked Leonard's most recent appearance on stage. But TV audiences know and love him best as second banana Dr. James Wilson, the patient, put-upon best friend to Hugh Laurie's misanthropic title character on the Fox procedural House. According to executive producer Katie Jacobs, Leonard was the first actor cast in the House pilot. "When Robert came in and read and we knew we wanted him, he already had a test date for another show," she says. "He was our first—and very immediate—choice. Many people wanted him, and we were the lucky ones to get him." Indeed, with House mercilessly mocking Wilson for his nice-guy persona, following him on dates, and regularly forcing him to shell out money for House's lunches and transportation, nobody has perfected the exasperated slow burn like Leonard has. Though fans of the show felt the character of Wilson was woefully underused in the show's first season—a charge Leonard disagrees with—his role has grown in the past three years to the point where this season's finale, appropriately titled "Wilson's Heart," centered around a wrenching, breathtaking performance by the actor, as his character struggled to save his girlfriend's life. Jacobs, who directed the episode, reveals that the finale wasn't just hard on Wilson's heart: "Robert actually showed up to work with an arrhythmia the first week we were doing the finale. He's had one before, but this one had lasted 48 hours. We had a doctor on the set and kept an eye on him." Though she won't say outright that it was due to the stress of filming the episode, she notes, "I think it was scary for him to go into that emotional territory. He really wants to get it right. The different colors written for him to play in the course of that episode, it's anything but one-note. It's tough stuff. Revealing that much and giving as much as he gave for that episode would certainly be enough to cause me an irregular heartbeat."
Moviegoers first took notice of Leonard in Peter Weir's 1989 classic Dead Poets Society. But Leonard already had years of stage experience when he landed the role of doomed student Neil Perry. Though the film granted the young actor many opportunities—and introduced him to Ethan Hawke, now his good friend and frequent collaborator—Leonard chose to continue working mostly on stage for the next two decades. He would occasionally appear in front of the camera, such as working with Martin Scorsese in The Age of Innocence and delivering a sensitive turn as an AIDS patient in the TV movie In the Gloaming, under the direction of Christopher Reeve. But Leonard made no secret that his first love was the stage. And he has every intention of returning when his run on House ends.
In person, the handsome 39-year-old Leonard looks hardly a day older than when he shot Dead Poet's Society. He's also prone to self-deprecation, and his colleagues frequently tease him for dwelling on the negative. When told that Laurie has referred to Leonard as an Eeyore, Jacobs laughs and says, "I think the two sometimes have an Eeyore-off. I'm not sure who wins." But Leonard comes across as rather upbeat. He's opinionated (he's been boycotting the Academy Awards "ever since James Woods lost to Paul Newman" in 1987) and brutally frank (he repeatedly says he's taken jobs because he needed the money). But not unlike his characters, he is also outgoing, slyly funny, and, yes, eloquent.
Back Stage: How did you become a professional actor at age 14?
Robert Sean Leonard: I was in a nonprofessional summer stock group in New Jersey. My dad's friend from college knew a secretary at a very small agency called Peggy Hadley Enterprises. And my dad's friend saw me in a high school summer stock play. I think I was playing the Dodger in Oliver! He recommended I go in and read for the secretary at the agency. Kids are cash cows for agents in New York in commercials. So I immediately started going out on commercials. I told them I wanted to do plays. It was amazing how small the crowds became at the auditions for plays. If you're auditioning for Fleischmann's margarine versus the Perry Street Theatre, the crowd suddenly gets very thin. And I got the understudy role in a play called Coming of Age in Soho.
Back Stage: Did you and your family know this was going to be a career, or were you just having fun?
Leonard: I think we all knew two years into it, by the time I was 16. After that understudy role, I immediately got a part in a very small production of a play Off-Broadway with Cynthia Nixon called Sally's Gone, She Left Her Name. When you're at a theatre audition, there aren't many 14-year-old kids who want to do plays in New York. Why should there be? There are plenty who want to be in movies; go to those and the rooms are packed. But theatre, it was mainly Cynthia, Chris Calley, Chad Lowe, Martha Plimpton, and me. I still know everyone, because they were the only ones in the room. It's strange: I always struggle with that because people ask me for advice if their kid likes theatre. I never know what to say. Part of me feels like saying if they're sure, the best thing they can do is drop out of school in seventh grade and start auditioning. But you can't advise anyone of that, because it's crazy. But that's what I did.
Back Stage: You've mentioned before that you took only a couple of acting classes. Was there a reason you stopped?
Leonard: I can sum that up easily. I took a class at HB Studios when I was 16 or 17. Once you're in a class, you can't leave to work; you have to stay. They want you to really study. And I auditioned for The Beach House with Swoosie Kurtz and George Grizzard, and I got it, which was a problem. I didn't mean to get it; I was just practicing auditioning. So I had to say no. And George Grizzard called me on my phone. He said, "Is this Robert Leonard? This is George Grizzard. What the hell are you thinking, turning down my play?" I said, "I'm in a class." And he said something to the effect of "Let me tell you something. You will learn more about acting in one fucking night with me than a year in that shithole." Typical George pleasantries. And I thought, "He has a point." I could learn by going to class, or I could learn by doing it. I'm sure both ways are good, but one you get paid for and get to hang out with George Grizzard and Swoosie Kurtz.
Back Stage: How did the role in Dead Poets Society come about?
Leonard: I was 18, and I knew I wouldn't get it. There are New York actors, and there are Hollywood actors. In New York, auditioning for movies means you go on a videotape with a casting director and you don't get it. It's a video camera and a tripod, and you read with a woman, they send some videotape out to a poor schmuck assistant director in L.A. who looks at 18 idiots in bad lighting. That's not how you get movie roles. I auditioned for so many movies in New York and didn't get one. Then I did.
Back Stage: Did you receive lots of movie offers after Dead Poets?
Leonard: No. There are different ways of coming out as an actor in films, I've noticed. There's the Stand By Me phenomenon and the Juno phenomenon. One, a movie comes out and is very successful and the people in the movie are kind of known, but they're not what's being celebrated. When Stand By Me came out, they weren't talking about Wil Wheaton; they were talking about the film. When Juno came out, Ellen Page was what everyone was talking about. Dead Poets Society, for us, was a Stand By Me phenomenon, and I thank God in a lot of ways. The movie was famous; we weren't. Or we were collectively famous: the boys from Dead Poets Society. But Robert Sean Leonard, the name, didn't lift out of the movie. River Phoenix wasn't a star until after Stand By Me; it took other movies like Running on Empty. It took Reality Bites to make Ethan [Hawke] a star. There are people like Ryan Phillippe who have spent 20 years trying to be a star and it looks like he may finally be succeeding. I think people respect my work, but I was never in one of those movies that made me a star.
Back Stage: You starred opposite Kevin Spacey as Don Parritt in The Iceman Cometh on Broadway in 1999, but you've openly said it's a horrible part—
Leonard: The role is unplayable. And I wasn't good. There are differences between different actors' interpretations of Don Parritt, but none of them are successful. It's a terribly written role. But I had to take it. I also took Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing, and it's a horrible role. I think Romeo's a horrible role. I've played a lot of horrible roles. There are a lot of very, very bad roles for young men, especially in older plays. In newer ones it's a little better, once you get past Arthur Miller. Is Edmund a great role in Long Day's Journey? Absolutely. Is Jamie a better one? Of course. Is there anyone remotely interesting under the age of 30 in any Shaw play ever written? No. Could Juliet eat Romeo for breakfast? Of course she could. People don't like young men, and I don't blame them. They're fickle and full of themselves and annoying and repressed. And since playwrights are so smart and astute and observant, usually what they want to represent on stage is the opposite of that.
Back Stage: Are there any exceptions to the rule?
Leonard: Tennessee Williams created heartbreaking young men on stage, but Shakespeare couldn't do it. It's hard to do, because who cares about a 19-year-old boy? What's more boring than a 19-year-old boy?
Back Stage: A 19-year-old girl?
Leonard: See, I disagree. Maybe it's worse for women's roles nowadays, but in general the young female parts have been far more interesting than the boys. And I don't just mean that because I think they're cute.
Back Stage: So why did you have to take these horrible roles?
Leonard: For the same reason I did Philadelphia, Here I Come at the Roundabout and King Lear in San Diego. I knew what I wanted to be very early on. I wanted to be Sam Waterston.
Back Stage: Why Sam Waterston?
Leonard: Because that was the road to being who I wanted to be. I had no doubt how to get where I was going. The way you get to be a very good actor, in my book, is by playing as many roles as you can in as many great plays as you can with as many great actors and directors as you can. Probably in that order. If you can do Glass Menagerie on Broadway with Laurette Taylor, good for you. If you can do Glass Menagerie with Laurette Taylor in Delaware, good for you. But the key first and foremost, is to do Glass Menagerie. I don't care where. It helps to be very clear what you want. When I was 14, in some freaky way, I knew. Peggy Hadley asked me, "What kind of career do you want? Do you want to be Tom Cruise or Charles Laughton?" And I said, "I want to be Sam Waterston. I want to play Hamlet and Much Ado in Central Park. I want to do Benefactors. I want to play Sydney Schanberg in The Killing Fields."
So I knew what I wanted, and the way to be that guy was when you have a chance to play Romeo, you play it. You don't hold out because you might get a part on ALF. That was my road, and I don't think any other road is less valid, but my road was I want to be the guy that Kevin Kline walks up to after the show and says, "Great performance." To me, that was the die-happy thing. And it happened. James Lapine recently called me to do a reading of The Heidi Chronicles with Jennifer Ehle, and I walked in, and in my world, that's it. It doesn't get any better. And I told him, "You don't know how much it means to me that you like my work."
Back Stage: Were you actively looking to do TV when House came along? Had you ever considered a series before?
Leonard: Yes. I did a pilot five years ago with Patrick Dempsey and John Larroquette called Corsairs. It was very good. I thought it was fucking great. I never saw it, but I read it and I shot it and I liked it. It would have been a great part. But this is a great part too. And yeah, I needed money.
Back Stage: But you had just done a big part in the Sylvester Stallone NASCAR movie, Driven. Didn't that pay well?
Leonard: Driven paid nothing. I got scale for Driven. It's very easy to figure out how much actors get paid for things. The only math you need to do is, Who needs what? What do they need? What do you need? However much they need you, that raises the likelihood of you getting more money. However much you need them, that lowers the likelihood of you getting a lot of money. A movie like Driven, they didn't need me. I didn't gain them anything. There wasn't some theatre shut-in crowd they really wanted to nail. They liked me and I gave a good audition, but if I said no, they would have gotten the next guy. I didn't have any bargaining power.
Back Stage: Is it true you took Driven because you were tired of doing movies that never got released?
Leonard: Yes. It was the most calculated move I ever made. I called my agent and said, "I've done five movies in a row that didn't come out." I said, "I want something that gets distribution. I don't give a shit what it is." And we crunched the numbers, which will kill you every time. It was a movie about the No. 1 sport in the world, financially. We were going to make an exciting movie with Renny Harlin directing. Stallone, who I really like, was playing a good part for him. It was a part for me I'd never played before: a fast-talking, gum-chewing agent. It all looked good. Then it was released, and one person saw it. I still don't know what happened. I can say categorically it did nothing for me.
Back Stage: Was that the only time you did something specifically to further your career?
Leonard: It was certainly the most obvious one. My career has mostly been jobs I love or cases where I needed money.
Back Stage: So what drew you to House? Was Wilson the only part you auditioned for?
Leonard: Yes, I auditioned for the role of Wilson and didn't really know much about it. At the time, we didn't know who the lead was. None of us had seen the full script, and it wasn't called House. It was Untitled David Shore/Paul Attanasio Project. I thought it was an ensemble show. I knew it was a procedural. I love my character. He's nice but he's also sarcastic, which is great, because I would lose my mind [otherwise]. It's a good job. And I'm well-paid. It's ridiculous.
Back Stage: You sound like you feel guilty.
Leonard: I do! Are you kidding me? My brother is a policeman; my sister's an English teacher. When I hear what they make versus what I make it, it's ridiculous. I mean, I understand how it works. I can look at Derek Jeter's payroll and I get it: The numbers add up. The team makes this much a year, and he's 11 percent of why they make that much. So it makes sense. But it doesn't mean that it's not ludicrous. Things can be rational and ludicrous at the same time.
Back Stage: Many fans of the show felt you were underutilized the first season.
Leonard: Really? I never felt that way. I have no problems with days off, so you're not going to get any campaign from me—one of the reasons I was drawn to the show. It's one thing to be Harold Hill; it's another thing to be Harold Hill 16 hours a day, six days a week. I don't like working very much. I'm the most unambitious person ever. I'm so happy; I have nothing to prove. There are a few roles I want to play, but mostly I just want to keep doing a play every now and then, watch kids grow and eat cookies and drink tea. I love theatre, but filming is work. I've never made any claim to love it. I'm not working tomorrow, and I'm so excited. I'm going to get up, I'm going to read The New York Times on the beach, go for a run, read, and watch a Yankee game. Why would I choose to not do that over putting makeup on my face and pretending to be another person? I know a lot of people who find film acting fun. I feel blessed to do it, and I feel blessed to have the job. But when I'm doing theatre, I don't want a day off.
Back Stage: What's the biggest difference between the two?
Leonard: The hours are a big part of it, because you have no life. And I love my life. When you arrive here and it's so early it's dark and you put makeup on your face and pretend to be another human being then you drive home and it's dark again, you realize all you have to look forward to at this point is being unconscious before you drive back to work. That's no way to live. If I were Hugh Laurie, I would have had a gun in my mouth three years ago. I don't know how he does it.
Back Stage: Speaking of Hugh, he claims to have a negative attitude—but he says you're an even bigger Eeyore than him.
Leonard: [Mock indignation] I'm an Eeyore? How dare he? I guess I do steal his thunder, because he likes to be that guy, and I can out-depress him. The very first day we met in Vancouver, I did that, saying the show would never get picked up.
Back Stage: So are you really that negative or are you just having fun?
Leonard: I think I'm a realist. And I think I just like to upset people. People in Hollywood are such babies; they really are. They can't take it. I mean, I love our show, but it's a procedural. We misdiagnose someone at 9:11, then again at 9:23, then at 9:41, and we figure it out at 9:52. I remember they would bring in the ratings, and I would say things like, "Oh no, Gilmore Girls [is] kicking our ass in the 4–9 age group!"
Back Stage: Your chemistry with Hugh is so apparent on the show. Was that an instantaneous chemistry?
Leonard: I liked him immediately. We both had similar references. He's worked with so many people I admire. There probably aren't many American actors who admire Brian Blessed and Imelda Staunton and Rosemary Martin. I could be wrong: Ashton Kutcher might be up on it. Who knows?
Back Stage: So what are the great roles you hope to play some day?
Leonard: That's easy. Bluntschli in Arms of the Man and Richard II. Oh, and Eeyore.