On a recent morning in midtown Manhattan, Oscar winner F Murray Abraham quietly emerges from a narrow hallway in the back of the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, wearing a white polo shirt and carrying a biography of Duke Ellington. Two hours later, he will trade in his short sleeves and book for a darkened toupee and tuxedo, to perform in a matinee showing of Terrence McNally’s meta-comedy It’s Only a Play.
“It’s the hottest ticket in town!” says an enthused Abraham, after taking his seat in a makeshift lounge behind the stage. Above his head, crew members stand on a scaffold, prepping for the afternoon’s performance, which will feature Abraham as the irascible, bomb-spewing theater critic Ira Drew.
The show, co-starring an ensemble cast of Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Stockard Channing and Megan Mullally, is about the disastrous opening night of a Broadway play. The story is a wry, self-deprecating look at the world of stage acting, infused with all the insecurities and egotistical business decisions that come with producing a major production. For Abraham, McNally’s tale taps into a sense of community – a place where people get together for one common goal.
“There’s no give and take, there’s no blood, there’s no viscera, and in this play there’s a lot of that,” says Abraham, when comparing it to what’s currently on Broadway. “There’s a oneness that happens through real laughter that we are missing so much in our lives – a gathering of strangers for a purpose. It indicates community in an otherwise, I think, disintegrating society.”
It’s Only a Play’s early success (it grossed $8m before previews began in August) makes it Abraham’s second high-profile project this fall. In addition to his work on stage, the veteran actor reprises his role in Showtime’s Homeland, as the mysterious intelligence agent Dar Adal, a man even Abraham doesn’t know much about.
“I wish I knew more,” he says, following it up with an Adal-esque, “I am not going to tell you anything!”
Abraham’s portrayal of Adal is more in line with the nefarious image audiences know him for.
While viewers might not recognize his name, they’re familiar with his face and features: arched eyebrows, large nose, devilish grin, deep voice. Abraham’s career as an actor – which spans almost 50 years and a combined 200 films and plays – has been punctuated by critically acclaimed performances of tragic, and sometimes villainous, characters – from Shylock in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice to, famously, Antonio Salieri in Milos Foreman’s Amadeus, a role that won him an Academy Award.
How did a former gang member with a Texas drawl grow up to be one of the most dependable character actors of the last half-century? To understand Abraham’s rise, you have to understand his dedication.
“Murray loves what he does – I think he loves it more than breathing,” Mandy Patinkin, who co-stars with Abraham on Homeland, told the Guardian. “He has a ‘quiet’ about him that draws you to him and commands your attention. He’s a thrill to work with, meaning he almost does it all for you, you just need to show up and be in the room with him.”
“Here’s the thing about Murray: he’s not just a superb actor, he’s a superb acting partner,” Tom Hulce told the Guardian, who co-starred with Abraham in Amadeus, as the titular character. “Actor to actor, there was not a moment he was not with me.”
Abraham grew up in El Paso, two blocks from the Rio Grande. The son of an Italian mother and Syrian father, Abraham learned how to fix things at a young age: cars, toilets, electrical systems. His father, Frederick (Abraham’s inspiration for putting the “F” in his name), was a mechanic. Although the skills he learned were valuable, they didn’t get him far. By the time Abraham was 14 he had joined a gang.
“Things were not very good,” he says. “I was crazy.”
Abraham would spend his free time over the border, in Juarez, doing “stupid things, stealing cars and wrecking them”.
This was a tumultuous period for Abraham – he was fighting, stealing, getting arrested, even sleeping with prostitutes. “How we came away without any diseases is astounding,” he says.
But then a teacher named Lucia P Hutchens stepped in and introduced him to acting. His first play, The Old Lady Shows Her Medals, by JM Barrie, won him a scholarship to college. He ended up failing every class except for theater, so he packed his bags, stuck his thumb out, and hitchhiked to Los Angeles to pursue his newfound dream.
“I am, and I say this almost sincerely, afraid of nothing on stage,” says Abraham, regarding his work as a professional actor. “I will try anything. As a matter of fact, I embrace the danger.”
Abraham used that fearlessness to his advantage early on, performing on stage and snagging bit roles alongside major stars like Robert Redford, George C Scott, and Al Pacino, who he worked with in both Serpico and Scarface.
By 1983, the then-relatively unknown Abraham was cast in what would become his career-defining role: Antonio Salieri in Amadeus. To prepare, Abraham stayed in a separate hotel from the rest of the cast and studied. The solitude paid off, as he went on to win the Oscar for Best Actor.
“I have advice for people who win Academy Awards,” says Abraham, 30 years later. “If your agent doesn’t come up with a really good offer within six months of having a nomination, you have to change your agent. No matter how loyal you may feel. Because if you can’t get a really good job, a big job, out of that, there’s something wrong. Don’t let that sense of loyalty get in the way of your career, unless it means a lot to you to simply stay loyal.”
Abraham admits he only has himself to blame for not going after what he wanted: bigger roles and greater movies. Still, he has no regrets about the projects he’s done since winning Hollywood’s pièce de résistance. There have been critically dismal films, sure, but he’s also had the privilege of working with the likes of Woody Allen and Wes Anderson. Most importantly, Abraham has never stopped acting, even when things like age might get in the way.
“There’s a resilience that you begin to miss as an older person,” says Abraham, who will turn 75 this month. “You don’t bounce back as easy. It’s that same thing you hear from so many people. You begin to lose friends – people in your life are disappearing – and of course that affects you. You begin to realize, Is it possible? Am I really going to die?”
That last comment makes him chuckle.
“In a way it makes you more aggressive,” he continues. “At least that’s how I feel. I feel more aggressive about accomplishing things.”
Thankfully, his aggressiveness has not forced him to lose his sense of humor. Just read the biography he’s listed for It’s Only a Play. Actors typically start with an extravagant flourish of roles, but Abraham leads with something a bit more humanistic: Macy’s Santa, a job he took in Queens when he was still a struggling actor.
“There was a huge influx of immigrants at that time, all searching for their identity, as I was,” he wrote in a follow-up email, about his time as Kris Kringle. “The various accents, the amazing variety of cultures that came to visit Santa, was thrilling to me. I decided to write down ‘Merry Christmas’ in each of several languages, phonetically on a tablet; I’d ask the parents quietly what they spoke, and then I would wish the child Merry Christmas in their own tongue. The look on their faces when Santa was for real, because of a single phrase, was so gratifying. As a first generation American I can’t begin to tell you how important that was to me. It is one of my dearest memories, and maybe my greatest performance.”
It’s Only a Play opens in New York City on 9 October. Homeland airs Sundays at 9pm ET on Showtime in the US and premieres in the UK on 12 October on Channel 4.
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