Will Brill — The Bare Magazine

We met up with actor Will Brill at Cure Thrift in the East Village, where he immediately gravitated toward a colorful love bead necklace, then threw on a funky, floppy sun hat and a floral dress. Will is our kind of original—funny, cool, oddball, brilliant, and game for anything. He just won a Tony Award in the Tony-winning Broadway play, Stereophonic , for his portrayal of Reg, the endearing hot mess bass player in a fictional 1970s rock band. He also played Roy Cohn (unforgettably) in Showtime’s Fellow Travelers and Midge’s brother Noah in the Amazon series, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Check out the candid shots from our afternoon with Will and his candid thoughts about playing really complicated characters, being in touch with his feminine side, and what’s on his cluttered dressing table backstage.

The Bare Magazine: You’re having a major career moment right now, and congratulations on winning a Tony! Are you able to really take it all in and enjoy the ride? Also, where do you keep your Tony award?

Will Brill: Thank you so much! It’s all a bit of a shocker, but a welcome one. I think I’m soaking it up pretty well… It’s rare for me that I’ve ever been a part of a job that has so many extracurriculars attached to it, but they’re all really fun. Like… Look at all this dressing up/imposing we did. I don’t usually get to do that and…Turns out I love it… I actually don’t have my Tony award back yet. It’s off getting engraved somewhere. In a forge? In the belly of a mountain? I don’t know where they do that. When it gets back, I imagine it will go amongst my piles of books? Maybe a little bit hidden? But where I can still access the spinny part in case I need to fidget.

Bare: You’ve talked about how you relate to the character of Reg. What are your ties to him — the chaos/addiction but also the hopeful and transcendent arc he moves toward? What have you learned from being in Reg’s head?

WB: Getting to live through Reg again and again put into stark perspective what I was going through for a lot of years without ever pausing to take stock. It’s easy to think you’re living in the moment and being ever present when you’re wrapped up in addictive behavior, but visiting with Reg every day makes me recall a lot of physical and emotional difficulty that at the time I just breezed through. In my own life, my current life, I have come to a place of really owning my hope… Reg is pretty far from that still. He is clawing his way toward a positive outlook, he’s still sitting at the bottom of a crater.

Bare: Do you have a pre-show ritual? Do you listen to music, a specific song before going onstage? Do you do vocal exercises, stretch/do yoga/meditate? What’s on your dressing table backstage? (Throat Coat tea? A humidifier?)

WB: I do a vocal warm-up with some of the cast and a music warm up with the band and then usually I steam and if I have a little time left over, I’ll spend a couple minutes reading whatever book I’m currently working on. Oh what a great question… on my table currently, there’s a stack of four books (plays by Brendan Behan, a play called Blackout Songs, a book of poetry…. I’m forgetting the last one, it might be an acting book) that my humidifier sits on so that it’s at the right height for my face. There’s a pair of socks and a really cute box that they came in – a birthday present from my dresser, Amanda. There’s some fan mail that I have been remiss in sending out. There’s a cup with pens and saline packets… There’s a little box of jewelry, tissues… It’s super cluttered.

Bare: How do you wind down after the show? How do you take care of yourself – physically, mentally, emotionally – during an 8-show week?

WB: I’m answering these questions at 1:30 in the morning right now… I ate cookies from Schmackary’s with my brother after the show tonight, came home and cuddled with my dog, Molly. All this to say.… I don’t have a great system.

Bare: You have a way of finding the light and dark in very complicated characters who could be really unlikable. (You even gave Roy Cohn moments of vulnerability and humanity.) What attracts you to playing these people with such empathy and understanding, and humor?

WB: I think finding empathy for complicated, conflicted, or combative people is the name of the game. I think everybody fears and believes to some extent, in our worst moments, that they are the same as the worst among us… I certainly do, at least. But the only way you can move forward and be better is to forgive yourself for your trespasses and believe that you’re capable of being better. And it helps to believe these things about yourself if you can believe them about someone else too. Everybody’s complicated.

Bare: How would you describe your personal style? (The flowing Issey Miyake outfit at the Tonys, wearing an orange maxi skirt with Chuck Taylors at the shoot.) Have you always been into fashion? Do you collaborate with a stylist or designer?

WB: I’ve always admired fashion and people who are particularly good at it, who have a distinctive taste. I’ve never really fancied that I do. I’m kind of shy and have a hard time wearing what I think is really cool. And I have a hard time believing that I look cool wearing it. At least historically that’s how I felt. I wanted to wear dresses for a good 12 years before I felt safe enough to. I had some meaningful conversations with my therapist about it. For the Tony Awards, I collaborated with stylist Savannah White! She is so cool and so game and so supportive and lovely. I hope I get to work with her again.

Bare: You wear feminine clothes in an effortlessly masculine way - what’s your secret to wearing a dress with such indie/Kurt Cobain badassery? (At the shoot, you put on a floral sundress, and made it look fetching and punk rock.) Have you always been in touch with this feminine side – what attracts you to the clothes/makeup, how does it make you feel?

WB: I love wearing tight tops and flowy bottoms primarily because they’re so comfortable. But I also think they’re very beautiful and that they are flattering to the human form. I think I’ve always been in touch with my feminine side but, and it’s getting less so, but growing up, it wasn’t always easy to express my femininity seriously… It was very performative, tongue in cheek. It’s weird growing up a mostly straight boy who’s got a real love and desire for his own feminine side. The theater is one of the best places for that boy, though.

Bare: How has your family and your Bay Area upbringing influenced you as an artist, and as a person? You come across as open, free, curious, and game for anything—is this partly due to your family and growing up in California? (At the photo shoot, you gravitated toward a necklace that reminded you of a family member. Can you tell us more?)

WB: There is so much about my childhood and my upbringing that contributed to my artistry… My parents are incredibly supportive people who find great delight in their children’s interests, pursuits, relationships. They gave us (I have two brothers) pretty free rein to run toward whatever peaked our imaginations. When I was a kid, we had this big backyard with a lot of fun nature – oak trees, a cherry tree over a shed full of firewood and car parts, a sandbox, a really, really big rock that we could climb on top of, a small lawn.

I have a really kooky aunt who lived in San Francisco for 35 years, who is an artist, a sculptor, a hippie (married to a NASA scientist). The jewelry reminded me of her.

Bare: What inspires you? What music are you playing on repeat? A book you love? A favorite film or director? Artistic or acting icons? Is there anyone you’d love to work with in the future?

WB: Oh, I am listening to Charli XCX and Chappelle Roan on heavy rotation… But also a lot of contemporary instrumental music from all over the world and a lot of classical… I read Agatha Christie and Carson McCullers for the first time this year and they have both blown my fucking mind. I always have between two and five books going simultaneously… Which is definitely for inspiration but it’s also an escape… Not that I think escaping is a bad thing.

There’s a bunch of writers, directors, actors, stage managers, costume designers, art directors who are working right now who I hope I get a chance to work with someday and/or again. Literally too many to name.