INTERVIEW: Tom Milligan finds himself at the ‘World’s End’
Photo: World’s End stars Tom Milligan and Patricia Potter as a mother and son struggling to live with each other. Photo courtesy of Bettina Adela / Provided by Premier with permission.
Emotions run high in the new play by James Corley, now playing at the King’s Head Theatre in London. World’s End stars Patricia Potter, of Holby City fame, and Tom Milligan, an original cast member of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Rounding out the cast are Mirlind Bega and Nikolaos Brahimllari.
The show is set in 1998 at the World’s End Estate in Chelsea. Potter plays Viv, a single mom who has recently moved in with her shy and troubled son, Ben (Milligan). Next door are Ylli (Brahimllari), a single father to Besnik (Bega). Eventually the four start making connections to one another, all against the backdrop of a catastrophe in Kosovo, Ylli and Besnik’s home country. Also, Ben and Besnik’s relationship quickly moves beyond a mere friendship.
World’s End, directed by Harry Mackrill, continues through Sept. 21.
“I first worked with Harry Mackrill, our director, when I did a play at the Hampstead Theatre,” Milligan said in a recent phone interview. “And we became friends, and we stayed in touch. I had done a few readings for him, and then I did a reading for World’s End earlier on in the year. And suddenly it was like, ‘Oh, and your agent will have the offer on Friday,’ or something like that, and I was like, ‘Oh, good, it’s happening. It’s really happening.’ It feels from my side very lucky, and I feel really fortunate.”
Milligan sees the character of Ben as a person with an enormous heart, but he’s flawed and struggles with his new flatmate (his mother) and his budding romance with his neighbor.
“He’s been through a lot, and that affects him so emotionally,” he said of Ben. “And that manifests itself so physically in him. I see him as damaged goods as I guess we all are in a way, which is why I think he ends up being quite relatable to people even though he’s quite an extreme character in some ways. But, yeah, I think he holds on to a lot, and it comes out in big bursts at moments. And some things will always go unsaid with him.”
Milligan said he has enjoyed his time performing on stage with Potter, calling her “absolutely amazing.”
“She makes it look so easy, and she’s just phenomenal,” Milligan said. “So I think from the very first reading I felt really lucky to get to play that relationship with her because she is so lovely as a person and then this sort of powerhouse actor who can make you laugh. She had everyone crying in the first reading, and consequently every night she’s phenomenal. And she’s great fun as well. The mix of the two things has made me look up to her in a lot of ways, and she’s very inspiring as well. It’s a pleasure to work with her.”
When World’s End began performing in front of a live audience, back on Aug. 27, Milligan had a lot of nerves, anxiety and excitement. Rehearsals were limited, but thankfully the director had run them in a unique way: From the beginning, they had the play up on its feet, and they didn’t simply do table read after table read.
“I think that was due to the fact we only had three weeks rehearsal,” he said. “I think often you can sit around a table for such a long time that the idea of standing up and saying lines can feel a bit daunting, but we did that really early on. And so it meant that we had this framework of the play from the first week really, and so as much there was a lot of anxiety in that first performance, because that was the same day we got into the theater, we felt really secure. And we were able to say to each other and to ourselves that we’ve done this. We’ve done it. We’ve run it multiple times in the rehearsal room, which is an absolute gift. We really managed to enjoy exploring what it was like in a theater with an audience with the costume and the set and everything. It was really exciting actually.”
In his younger years, Milligan had a love-hate relationship with acting. He remembers even performing in a Nativity Play back he was a young child, and he was devastated that he wasn’t selected to play Joseph.
“I’m like, why am I not playing Joseph,” he said with a laugh. “I was just an angel. I was gutted, but, yeah, it feels like something I’ve always sort of done. And then at school I really wanted to finish school and do all my exams, and so did my parents and everyone. So at 18 or 19, I had this decision to make whether or not I actually wanted to take it seriously in that sense, so it was like even though I had always done it, it was like, OK, you’re now going to pursue this dream. I had so many supportive people around me, but there’s also lots of people telling you how hard it’s going to be and what a challenge it is and do you know what you’re undertaking. Maybe I didn’t. Maybe I was a bit delusional at the time.”
A gift came in the form of working as a runner on TV and film sets. This occurred in between his formal schooling and his time in drama school, and during the experience, he would watch actors from the other side of the camera. And he would learn the craft of acting.
“I was just like, oh, I’ve got to give it a go,” Milligan said. “I’ve got to do that, so here I am trying.”
Milligan found success almost right out of the gate. He landed the roles of James Potter Jr., James Potter Sr. and Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in the West End. He was part of the original cast and had a blast bringing the hugely successful play to life.
“It’s such a fun memory,” he said. “It was a real gift. It was absolutely amazing. What I learned on that job was that the job of an actor, no matter how shiny the production, is to get up there every day and do it and do it with 100 percent of what you have. A show like that we could never, ever dip below 100 percent because the people who were there watching it cared about it so much. Within that, the family that we made in the cast and the crew and everyone, we were able to lift each other up. I learned so much on the day to day of that job.”
He added: “How are you supposed to find the energy to go on stage and give it 100 percent in any production if everyone is miserable. You have to support each other. You go through so much together. … It was a real family, even in the sense that when it finished some people were staying on, and lots of us were leaving. We mourned it. It was an intense experience, but that was my first proper job after I left drama school. And I can’t really put into words the impact that had on my mindset and how I now approach my career because you learn so much from working with such experienced actors, and then there was also a handful of us who we were totally fresh. It was really exciting and a real privilege.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
World’s End, featuring Patricia Potter and Tom Milligan, is now playing the King’s Head Theatre in London. Performances run through Sept. 21. Click here for more information and tickets.
