article archive
A Young Man's Journey Into Stardom
by Kevin Kelly
The Boston Globe
November 13, 1992
If Robert Sean Leonard isn't one of the best young actors in our midst, I miss my guess. His performance as Edmund Tyrone (Eugene O'Neill's piecemeal self-portrait) in the Huntington's "Long Day's Journey Into Night" is so subtly perceived - then carried through - that it very nearly clouds the memory of Bradford Dillman's performance during the play's premiere in 1956. Playing Jamie Tyrone, the elder brother, Jason Robards went on to become a legendary interpreter of O'Neill. But, at the Huntington, Edmund is the more indelible of the two roles. Whether Robert Sean Leonard, who burst into our movie consciousness in "Dead Poets Society," follows Robards really doesn't matter. Right now, at 23, he is simply an actor of unmistakable talent. It turns out that he's a natural who hasn't had an acting lesson in his life. Further, he dropped out of high school.
One of three children of Robert and Joyce Leonard (respectively, a teacher, a nurse), he was raised in Paramus, N.J., with his brother, now a Connecticut policeman, and his sister, now an English teacher. His "real" name is Robert Lawrence Leonard. When the time came for him to join Actors Equity, there was a Robert Leonard already on the Equity rolls, a situation requiring him to use a full middle name. He elected to cancel Lawrence and borrow Sean from his brother.
"I really didn't think much about becoming an actor," RSL said last week during an interview at the Huntington. "I thought it'd be fun to be part of the crew in a summer stock company. So for three summers - 10 weeks each - I was part of the New Players in Ridgewood. When you signed on, you were expected to do everything, including act. I didn't think much about it. I just started to act. And I liked it."
Within a short time Leonard was spotted by Gloria Bonelli, a scout for Peggy Hadley Enterprises, a New York talent agency. He has since moved on to ICM.
"I had heard about him - about this extraordinarily talented young actor - and went to see him in this young people's stock company in Ridgewood," Bonelli said. "He was playing the Artful Dodger in 'Oliver.' I think it was 1984, I'd have to check. He was about 14, 15, and he was just a sensation. I fell in love with him he's so talented. He has this incredible way with everyone he meets. People just take to him."
Bonelli explained that her tip about Leonard had come through an actress she knew named Margaret Leary, who had more or less retired and was teaching voice. For a short time Leonard had been one of Leary's pupils. She also said that Leonard's father had gone to college with Martin Winkler, his son's high school teacher. Winkler had been so impressed with the boy that he became his high school drama coach. He has since become Robert Sean Leonard's manager. Winkler had accompanied Bonelli to the Ridgewood "Oliver."
"I remember Gloria coming back to the office," Peggy Hadley said last week, "saying she'd found this extraordinary young man. Bobby was with us from the time he was 15 until he was 21. Martin Winkler coached him for a bit, but Bobby really hasn't had any formal training. He didn't go to Juilliard or to Yale. He's just one of these deeply intuitive young actors. I imagine he must be driving ICM crazy because he's not interested in the usual stuff, in becoming a big movie star. He just goes off and does his own thing. For example, he went to London to do 'Our Town.' Then he'll go and do a Kenneth Branagh movie. He turns down the glitter. He's just a wonderful young actor. My, yes!"
"No big deal," Leonard said about himself. "I love what I'm doing - only I feel it's odd that I have a career that's so successful. It's not like I worked at it, laid it out, programmed it. It just seems to keep happening. I'd thought about playing Edmund in 'Long Day's Journey,' maybe because I felt I knew him, understood him, but I really didn't think I'd get the chance. Then my friend Jon Jonathan Walker called out of the blue and said that he'd been cast at the Huntington as Jamie and they were looking for an Edmund. Jon and I've known each other a long time. We were in 'When She Danced' with Elizabeth Ashley at Playwrights Horizons in 1989. So you can say I sort of fell into it."
If he "fell into" the Huntington production, there was a reason. In sync with his dramatic abilities, Leonard has an unusual perception about Edmund. He had seen him played elsewhere as a weakling who said, "Yes, Mamma, no Mamma," to the drug-haunted mother in the play, Mary Tyrone. Researching O'Neill's life, some of which is the altered basis of "Long Day's Journey," Leonard came to the conclusion that Edmund was the strongest character on the stage. Consumptive, modest and agreeable as Edmund is, he's much more than a sickly Mama's boy destined for a consumptive death.
"Edmund's the backbone. He's the one with the poetic vision. He's the one who'll go on. He's Eugene O'Neill. O'Neill cheated on some of the real stuff when he came to write Edmund. He left out that Edmund/Eugene had a wife and child he'd abandoned precisely at the time when the play is set. Anyway, I see him as a strong voice, not a sniveler."
Asked if there were actors he'd particularly admired who had, perhaps, influenced him, Leonard said almost without taking a breath, "Sure, Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day." Ignoring a startled gasp, he said, "Growing up, I loved them both. I really did. To me James Stewart had a kind of remarkable honesty I can only describe as feminine. He always gave me the impression that he was free enough to be whatever he wanted to be in a particular moment in a scene. He wasn't just 'a man,' he wasn't just 'tough.' He was more complicated. He was incredibly feminine and human. And I loved Doris Day because she had this utter naturalness. I've gone through other phases of admiration. Jack Nicholson. Bob Dylan. Sam Waterston. Kenneth Branagh; I guess I've seen his 'Henry V' eight times."
Leonard recently completed playing Claudio in Branagh's movie adaptation of "Much Ado About Nothing." He also recently finished playing Daniel Day-Lewis' son in Martin Scorsese's "The Age of Innocence." Flooded with movie offers after Peter Weir's "Dead Poets Society," Leonard didn't drown in his newly found acclaim. He followed the Weir film playing Douglas in "Mr. and Mrs. Bridge," the Paul Newman/Joanne Woodward vehicle, then worked with Beau Bridges, Ron Silver and Stockard Channing in "Married to It," then with Branagh and Barbara Hershey in "Swing Kids." (Produced by Orion, which is currently in Chapter 11, "Married to It" has yet to be released.) Between some of the moviemaking, Leonard found time to play Romeo at off-off-Broadway's Riverside Shakespeare Company. His Broadway work has included "Brighton Beach Memoirs," as a cast replacement - in 1986, when he was 16 - in the lead role of Eugene Jerome; "Breaking the Code," with Derek Jacoby, in 1987; and "Speed the Darkness" in 1991.
While Leonard continues to buff his already gleaming craft, he's also pursuing his education, if - as he said - "a little haphazardly." Abandoning high school to pursue acting, he has since earned an equivalency diploma from New Jersey. He's currently enrolled as a history major at Fordham, but guiltily admits he hasn't had much time for class. His energy goes to theater. His escape from professional pressure is a guitar. He's been strumming for 11 years and writes his own music ("no, no, not published!"). His immediate plans after the Huntington are kept to himself. It's likely, as Peggy Hadley has said, that he'll continue to drive ICM crazy. Standing center-spot under the glaring rays of what seems to be certain stardom, Robert Sean Leonard is apt to sneak off somewhere to play one of Beckett's tramps, happy in the poetic squalor, totally unconcerned about the spotlight.
