The “Schitt’s Creek” star makes his Broadway debut this month in Tracy Letts’s new comedy “The Minutes.”
Noah Reid will be on the video call in a minute, his publicist tells me. The 34-year old “Schitt’s Creek” star, who played Dan Levy’s lover, Patrick Brewer, across four seasons of the Canadian comedy, just got home from a rehearsal for “The Minutes,” the new Tracy Letts comedy he’s starring in on Broadway. Then … Bam!
He looks like he’s calling from the inside of a greenhouse.
“These are my landlord, Marie’s,” Reid, his brown curls tucked in a black beanie, says of the half-dozen plants — there are more out of the frame — crawling up the door and stretching toward the early evening sunlight in pots on a table of his Ridgewood apartment in Queens. “I can’t tell if I’m more nervous for my Broadway debut or to keep these plants going.”
“The Minutes,” a dark comedy about a small-town city council meeting that was originally slated for March 2020 at the Cort Theater, opens at Studio 54 on April 17. Reid, who plays the clean-scrubbed outsider Mr. Peel, replaced Armie Hammer, who left the production last spring amid accusations of rape and sexual assault, which he has denied.
“It’s probably been four years since I’ve done a play,” said Reid, who has been a frequent presence on Canadian stages. “I’d completely forgotten how much physical, mental and emotional energy it takes.”
He has a busy spring on the horizon, taking on the role of Billy Tillerson in the new Amazon Western mystery thriller series “Outer Range,” which he spent seven months filming in New Mexico. (The series premieres April 15.) He also has a sophomore album out, “Gemini,” which touches on his acting experiences and is reminiscent of the stream-of-consciousness style of 1970s singer-songwriters.
Over the course of 45 minutes, he shared how Charlie Chaplin’s film “The Great Dictator” relates to events in Ukraine, the show he would play any part in and why his favorite piece of art is hanging on his refrigerator. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
1. Nina Simone’s Live Recordings Her voice feels like it comes out of the center of the earth; it’s like a direct passage to the soul. As a pianist, she can navigate so many different genres: classical, jazz and blues. She plays with such confidence. And that’s what makes her live recordings so incredible, her ability to just, stream-of-consciousness, drop into her complete truth.
2. David Shrigley’s “The Book of Shrigley” David Shrigley is somewhere between stand-up comedy and cave paintings. He does these brilliant esoteric, simple drawings — you might even say bad drawings. Part of it is that you feel like you could do the drawing, but you haven’t done the drawing — you haven’t found that moment of truth. There’s something incredible about the simplicity of it.
3. Leonard Cohen’s Book of Poems “Stranger Music” When I first heard his music as a kid — this guy with this weird dark voice and these synthesizers — I didn’t understand why anyone would want to listen to this. And then, when I was in high school, I started reading his poems, and I was able to see the humanity, the spirit, the sense of humor. It became clear that music was a way for him to put his poetry into the world in a more easily consumed way.
4. Sol e Pesca Restaurant in Lisbon It’s in an old tackle shop about the size of a shoe box on this little road in Lisbon. It feels very tucked away. You go in and sit on this tiny stool, they bring you a basket of bread and you order a few tinned fish items. They put them in a bowl so you’re not just eating out of the tin, and they have Vinho Verde on tap. It’s the simplest, most beautiful meal I’ve ever had.
5. The Detroit Industry Murals by Diego Rivera My sister did her master’s in Detroit, and we went to the Detroit Institute of Art and saw these fresco paintings by Diego Rivera. There are 27 murals that are all 360, with a big skylight above you. It’s a tribute to Detroit’s manufacturing industry, and you have people pushing and pulling on machines, the fire and the uniforms. It’s so character driven, and the detail of each individual person — I was dumbstruck. I didn’t want to leave.
6. Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” Charlie Chaplin said later that he wouldn’t have made the film if he had known what was going on in Nazi Germany at the time, but I’m glad he did. It was an entry point for me to understand how the arts can both start conversations about meaningful things — and make fun of them. It takes a turn for the serious and he gives this impassioned speech, this kind of plea for humanity at the end that people have been rediscovering and posting on Instagram. It’s one of the great speeches of all time. And it still has so much relevance, especially when we see what’s going on in Ukraine. There’s a line that’s like, ‘You are not machine men.’ It’s a plea to the army to put down your weapons.
7. Canyon de Chelly I used to take part in the gold rush of pilot season, when all the Canadian actors would flock down to Los Angeles to try to scare up some work. I would drive down and take a different route each time because I thought it would be interesting to see a little bit of America. I did this walk down into this canyon, in the Navajo Nation in Arizona — it’s about an hour to the bottom — and it’s red soil and trees and there are buildings built into the cliffs from probably 1,000 years ago. I was just standing there and having this tangible realization that this country is ancient.
8. “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” by Eugene O’Neill When I was in 11th grade, I saw the Bob Falls Broadway production with Brian Dennehy, Vanessa Redgrave, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Robert Sean Leonard. I bought the play shortly after and was completely obsessed with it. It’s certainly not my family history, but there are things in every family that it feels that you can’t talk about or, or things that are difficult to talk about or behavioral patterns that drive you crazy. I fantasize about getting to play any part in that play some time in my life.
9. Spiral Arc on Lake Huron My parents bought this vacant piece of land overlooking Lake Huron in southwestern Ontario the year I was born, and it became our family cottage. That was in 1987, and over the next two decades, they spent countless hours designing and building the strangest building in Huron County. The neighbors call it the spaceship — it’s shaped like half a heart, and it’s clad in metal and it’s mostly windows and the sun sets over this uninterrupted view of Lake Huron. It’s my favorite place in the world.
10. The Ultrasound This is my favorite piece of media at this moment. It’s an ultrasonic photograph of my son in his mother’s womb, and it’s occupying the gallery on my fridge right now. I’m completely obsessed. He’s about four months out from being born. I have a name in mind, but I might have to do some work with my wife to get it over the finish line, so I don’t want to say what it is yet!
Source: Television - nytimes.com
