INTERVIEW: Andrew Polk pulls double duty on Broadway, TV
Photo: From left, Kristen Sieh, John Cariani, Alok Tewari, Andrew Polk and George Abud star in The Band’s Visit, which continues through April 7 on Broadway. Photo courtesy of Matthew Murphy / Provided by Polk and Co. with permission.
Andrew Polk is a busy man, and he would have it no other way. He is currently starring in The Band’s Visit on Broadway, and his long tenure in the musical is finally coming to an end when the show shutters April 7 after a Tony-winning run. He’s also appearing regularly on a number of TV shows, including Showtime’s Billions and Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
Somewhere amongst all the jobs he finds time to take a breath and maybe eat a meal sitting down.
On Billions, Polk plays Freddie Eisen on a few episodes in season four, which is currently airing. He auditioned for the part and found himself in an existential experience: He was planning to appear on a show he binge-watched with his wife.
“It’s this strange sensation where we were just catching up to finish Billions,” Polk said in a recent phone interview. “And then I started doing it, and now I can’t wait to see it just because I can’t wait to see the show. It’ll be also doubly strange that I’ll also be on it.”
Polk described Eisen as a Michael Cohen kind of guy, referencing President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer. On the series, he plays the lawyer of Chuck Rhoades, played by Paul Giamatti.
“Most of my stuff was with Paul Giamatti, who is such a great actor,” he admitted. “Honestly, a great guy, just generous in the way he works with you, the way he’s a human being. I just finished doing an episode with Saul Rubineck, Paul Giamatti, me, Ben Shenkman and David Aaron Baker. That’s a series right there with those characters, so I had a great time working with people.”
Polk said he transitions back and forth between the worlds of TV and Broadway. Sometimes it’s smooth sailing; other times it’s difficult. He said acting in front of 1,000 people at the Barrymore Theatre is one type of acting muscle, while portraying a character on the small screen is a completely different muscle.
“It’s not the same muscle,” he said. “The only way I can describe it is in theater it feels like the choices you make are deeply emotional, maybe that’s because you have to reach so many people, and in TV and film, I find myself making choices about what I’m thinking as an actor. I know that’s getting too much in the weeds about my process, [but] that’s just working on a completely different scale for television and in film. It’s a completely different muscle for me. Yes, you have the same skill sets you need to tell the story, but to do that you’re doing something completely different. I find I need a completely different energy than when I’m jumping into a show, The Band’s Visit, for instance. It just takes an extraordinary amount of relaxation and focus for TV and film.”
He has been pulling double duty over the course of the last eight to nine months. The experience he summed up in one word: “wild.”
In practice, he acts on the TV sets during the day and then heads to Broadway for evening and weekend performances.
“On the surface, as an actor, that’s kind of the dream,” he said. “You’re doing both, and in reality, it’s totally exhausting. There was a funny story. I was shooting an episode of Mrs. Maisel sort of before the Tony Awards where they’re more restrictive about letting actors out for TV and film than they were afterward, and there was a scene in which I’m in a deli. And I finish my scene, and I sit down. The director of the episode, who is a theater director, Scott Ellis, a wonderful guy, he understood my situation that I had to make curtain. And he cleverly changed my exit. Instead of sitting down, he changed my exit to leaving the deli in case they ran late, and I actually had to leave. And that’s exactly what happened. They were running late, and he said, ‘Instead of sitting down, why don’t you just leave the deli?’ And I left the deli, jumped into a car, and they drove me down to the theater to make my curtain. So for the TV nerds out there who are seeing why I’m leaving the deli, it’s because I’m literally on my way to make my curtain.”
There’s also the challenge from an actor’s perspective of playing completely different roles, sometimes within minutes of each other. It’s not only Mrs. Maisel, Billions and The Band’s Visit. There was also City on a Hill, Instinct, The Punisher and House of Cards.
“I find it not so much a physical challenge, but a challenge of dipping into the styles of the different TV shows,” Polk said. “All the TV shows that I’m doing have a completely different style, and I really have to take a moment when I’m preparing to do a shoot to put myself back into the world that they’re in. The Band’s Visit, I’ve been doing this now on and off for three years, the better part of three years, so that feels more like a muscle that when I get to the theater, I have a whole routine that gets me into that situation. And I can get very easily into that world, and the muscle sort of clicks in for that experience. And it’s tiring, but it’s exciting. And I feel grateful that I’m lucky enough to have that challenge.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Andrew Polk is currently appearing in Billions on Showtime and The Band’s Visit on Broadway. Click here for more information and tickets to the musical.
