He had the world on a string after Dead Poets Society, but instead of pursuing big movie stardom, Robert Sean Leonard opted to work in theater and do small films with friends, like Ethan Hawke's Chelsea Walls.
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It's hard not to ask Robert Sean Leonard where he's been for the past decade. After his incredible turn as Neil, the sensitive aspiring actor who kills himself in Dead Poets Society, Leonard seemed to fall off the map. Oh, sure, he turned in some fine performances in small roles in The Age of Innocence, Mr. & Mrs. Bridge and even the Sylvester Stallone film Driven. But none of those parts seemed to capture his talent as well as Dead Poets.
Sitting in a restaurant around the corner from the West Village apartment he shares with his girlfriend, Gabriella, Leonard looks fit and happy. He's carting around a trombone, which he's learned to play for his role as Harold Hill in Broadway's The Music Man. Every few minutes he launches into one of that play's monologues.
"Listen," he says earnestly, "I do great. I've been working on Broadway steadily, and in between I do some small film roles. Sure, I drive a used car and I could use a bigger apartment, but my work over the past few years has been very, very rewarding."
Leonard has a Tony and an Outer Critics Circle Award to prove it; he won both this year for his remarkable performance in Tom Stoppard's play The Invention of Love.
"Where do you keep the Tony?" I ask, because I've seen Tonys used as everything from bathroom doorstops to bed shims.
He blushes. "My parents made me give it to them so they could show it to their friends. Let me tell you about the night I won. I went with my girlfriend, and we sat in front of my friends Mary-Louise Parker and Billy Crudup. Mary-Louise won [for Proof], and then I won, so it was a real blast for our little quartet. After I got the award, they ushered me backstage and told me that I had to go a few blocks up to the Sheraton because that's where all the press was. So I figured Gabriella would come find me there when it was over. They took me up there, and I walked into this room, which was packed with press. I looked around for the other actors, and not one of them was there! I sort of freaked, and one of the Tony people said, 'Hey, don't worry.' And I said, 'I just left my girl back there with Billy Crudup.' Only after the show did the rest of the actors come."
Leonard's decision to appear in Driven could signal he's graduated to big studio movies that pay well, but that action film was more of a fluke. Leonard's next two films are indies: he'll appear in Tape, directed by Richard Linklater (Slacker and Before Sunrise), which also stars Ethan Hawke and his wife, Uma Thurman, and Chelsea Walls, which is Hawke's directorial debut.
"Ethan's my best friend," Leonard says. "And when he told me he wanted to direct Chelsea Walls, which was written by our friend Nicole Burdette, I knew I wanted to be a part of it. And then Rick [Linklater] was going to direct Tape, and Ethan and I were so excited about playing those roles. And in between, I get to go on stage eight times a week and have a ball. What more could I want?"
Before I can ask my next question, Leonard asks one of his own. "Have you ever met a killer?"
"Not that I know," I stammer.
"Exactly my point. So why is most of film and television obsessed with killers? I find it kind of silly and sad. Sometimes you want to know what a real person would do in a certain situation. That's why I took both these roles. In Chelsea Walls, my character has conflicts that seem real. And in Tape, Ethan and I are old friends who talk over an event in our past that haunts us still. Isn't that what good storytelling should be?"
Leonard has been acting since he was 12, when he appeared as the Artful Dodger in a summer stock production of Oliver! When he was 16, he took over for Matthew Broderick in Brighton Beach Memoirs, and he hasn't looked back since.
"How do you prepare for a role?" I ask, because it's apparent that this guy is no slacker.
"I'll tell you a weird story. I went to L.A. to do the audition for Driven. My part was a sports agent who's very glib. It was about three or four pages of dialogue. So I memorized it a couple of days before the audition, and I went in that day dressed like I imagined this guy would dress--in a slick suit. I walk in, and there are all these guys in baggy shorts with those macramé-and-bead necklaces on, poring over their scripts, trying to learn their lines. And I was wondering, 'What have these people been doing for the past week?' I must admit that it was one time when I wasn't surprised that I got the part."
With that, Leonard picks up his trombone and we head out into the New York streets. The first person he passes, a girl of about 15, sizes him up and giggles. "Loved you in Dead Poets," she says.
"Thank you so much," says the Tony winner, with a big grin.
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