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At 24, He's Suddenly Everywhere
by Laurence Chollet
The Record
March 5, 1993
Robert Sean Leonard is very busy these days. He's got the lead, his first, in the film "Swing Kids" which opens today nationally, and tonight he begins previews on stage in George Bernard Shaw's "Candida" at the Roundabout Theater in Manhattan.
Later this month he's in a second film -- "Married To It" a comedy starring Beau Bridges and Stockard Channing. Then in May, a third -- he's landed the plum role as Claudio in Kenneth Branagh's mega-star production of "Much Ado About Nothing."
To cap it all off, Leonard will show up this summer in Martin Scorsese's "Age of Innocence," playing, of all things, Daniel Day-Lewis's son.
This lineup would have most actors dialing Ferrari dealers, but it's the mark of the 24-year-old Ridgewood native that he's not too worried about success or fame. He's just happy to be working.
"This is a very weird time for me," Leonard said the other day from his New York City apartment, with a wry laugh. "I really don't know what it's all going to do my career. I've never pursued fame. My theory is that you do your best work, try to keep growing, and if fame, fortune, or power or whatever, come, fine. But it's not something to be pursued, because it doesn't really exist -- fame -- so it's not something you can control. And if you try to pursue it, you will drive yourself nuts."
He laughs.
"Right now, every night I get to go on stage and say the words of George Bernard Shaw," Leonard adds. "I can honestly say, I'm thrilled."
"Swing Kids" is a coming-of-age story set in Nazi Germany. Leonard stars as Peter Muller, a sensitive young man who's lost his father to the Gestapo, and is trying to find his way between conflicting social-political worlds.
For a while, Peter believes he can have it both ways -- belong to the Hitler Youth by day, then party by night with his group of friends, the so-called "Swing Kids." They dress like little English lords, hang out in clandestine nightclubs, and listen to swing music.
But that's easier said than done. The Nazis have banned swing as racially degenerate -- it's played by Jews (Benny Goodman) and African-Americans (Count Basie). Listening and dancing to it are now a crime. Those caught are branded traitors, and shipped to work camps.
The pressure of political events soon has Mueller fighting with his best friends, Thomas (Christian Bale) and Arvid (Frank Whaley), insulting a slimy Gestapo officer (Kenneth Branagh in an uncredited role), and choosing between his integrity and the wishes of his mother (Barbara Hershey).
The film, written by Jonathan Marc Feldman and directed by Thomas Carter, is based on events that actually took place in Germany during the late 1930s. And it will undoubtedly raise some eyebrows in its attempt to show both sides of the story -- the Nazi and the anti-Nazi. But Leonard says it's just that kind of edge that drew him to the project.
"In America, politics are really secondary to young kids growing up -- the country runs smoothly in their eyes, and that's all there is to it," Leonard says. "I tried to get into the mind-set [of 1939 Nazi Germany] where politics invades your life, and forces you to make choices that young, innocent people should never have to make. But it was just those kind of choices kids were being forced to make at that time... It was a nightmare for everybody."
Last week, Leonard was caught in a whirl of press interviews for "Swing Kids" and final rehearsals for "Candida" but he seemed remarkably cool and collected over the phone. He comes off as easy-going, very bright, and genuinely self-effacing.
He makes no bones about the fact that his first lead role was a mental, physical, and emotional ordeal that left him down and virtually out after 10 weeks of filming in Prague last year, when the weather hovered around zero.
The physical demands alone were enormous. He spent six weeks before filming even started learning to jitterbug and lindy hop, then grew accustomed to 30 to 40 shoots of each dance scene during the actual filming.
"Up until this picture, I was a very bashful young actor, I always felt I was getting away with something -- you know, I was getting paid to have fun," Leonard says. "Now I watch an interview on television and see an actor saying, `Acting is a very hard job,' and I know exactly what he means. And I know he's not joking."
One big plus, Leonard says, was a chance to work with one of his heroes, Branagh, who wonderfully underplays a devious Gestapo agent with a kind face. The highly touted English actor-director-writer was only around for a week, but Leonard says he made the most of the time.
"I knew Ken was preparing to shoot `Much Ado' in Tuscany in the summer, so I got my copy and began a shameless campaign to get a part," Leonard says with a laugh. "And when I say `shameless,' I mean shameless... Two days after we had just met for the first time, we'd be on the set in some dark streets of Prague at 4 a.m. and I'd say, `You know, Ken, when I played Romeo, I said WHEN I PLAYED ROMEO...' And we would end up having these incredible discussion about plays, what can and can't be filmed, and why, all through the night... Finally, Ken just turned to me one day and said, `Well, how about it. Would you like to play Claudio?' and I said. `Sure.' "
Leonard, who now lives in Manhattan, was raised in Ridgewood. His parents, Robert and Joyce, have since retired to the Cape May area, but a brother lives in Waldwick and a sister in Midland Park.
He began his acting career around 12, in a Ridgewood summer stock production of "The Music Man," and by 15 was understudy with the late Joseph Papp's company in Manhattan. He did a lot of off-Broadway before his big break: replacing Nicholas Straus in Neil Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs," toward the end of its run. His Broadway debut came in 1987, when he starred in the original cast of "Breaking the Code," with Derek Jacobi.
After a few minor films, Leonard lit up the screen in Peter Weir's "Dead Poets Society" as Neil Perry, the troubled young prep school student, who defies his father's wish to become a doctor, takes a part in the school play, and comes to a disastrous end.
Since then, Leonard's worked for an astonishing run of directors -- including James Ivory ( in "Mr. and Mrs. Bridge"), Branagh, and Scorsese.
"The most important thing a director can do is make you feel safe and valued, and that's what all the great directors have [done]," Leonard said. "If you don't feel that, you feel that you are constantly being questioned and that puts you in constant turmoil. Peter Weir, Jim Ivory, Ken, Scorsese -- they all are very different, but each one of them makes you feel that you are very important, that they are lucky to have you. . . . And that's a great thing to feel."
A lot of actors find it easier to act in films than on stage, but Leonard says he's not one of them.
"Plays are easy, much easier for me," Leonard says. "I mean, there I was in Tuscany, playing a famous Shakespearean scene, with Ken [Branagh] behind the camera. In a few moments the cameras were about to roll, and whatever I did was going to be preserved forever on film. How people can live with that is terrifying to me... Stage is easier, a lot easier. If you screw up, you can always come back the next night and make it better."
