BWW Exclusive: Nicholas Podany & Bubba Weiler on Making Broadway Magic in HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD

Welcome to Backstage with Richard Ridge

The Global Phenomenon, the Tony and Olivier Award-winning Best Play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

has just welcomed a new host of witches and wizards, and I'm sitting with two of them that are making their Broadway debuts

Nicholas Padani and Bubba Wiler, who are playing Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy

First of all, I'm so happy to be sitting with the two of you. Thanks, we're happy to

Yeah, happy to be seen you. Okay, so you're making your Broadway debuts. Yeah

So I can say, welcome to Broadway. How does it feel? Yeah

It's amazing. It's a total dream come true. It's something that I've dreamed of dance since I was a very little kid and came here to see Spring Awakening

And that was the first time that I was like, oh, people can do this for a litig

And, you know, a couple months ago, I got to call my dad and tell him that I'm going to be on Broadway. So it's, yeah, it's been a dream

That's great. What about for you? I mean, my first Broadway show was Spang a lot

I'm pretty sure. Yeah, yeah, the Monty Python thing. And then, yeah, from there on out, because I did the whole trip to New York

I'm originally from L.A., and so did the whole trip out. Got to see that theater was such a culture here, and that made me so excited

And then beyond that, also doing Harry Potter. Like, it was sort of a double shock where the first thing that would hit me

is that like I'm going to be in Harry Potter and the second. Oh, and it's on Broadway. Like, that was double shock

Okay, so before this happened for you, were you Potterheads? Yeah, huge

Who was bigger? Definitely. So you were brought up on the books

The films, tell me. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I started, well, my mom read me the books to get me to go to sleep when I was six

And that's actually, you know, she's originally from Kent in England. So she would do all the accents and everything like that, all the dialects

And it's what made me want to start acting because she's so good

Like I always say like Jim Dale's fine. She's great. My mom is so good at, you know, reading the books and doing the stories and everything

And it what made what made me want to start telling stories myself as an actor

And so, yeah, like doing the dialect that she used to do is Harry, but me doing

as a potter. It's so, it's the coolest thing ever. Was it the books for you

So my story is that I... It's a good story. I, um..

I missed them as a kid because, um, when they were first coming out

I was, I think going into third grade. And, um, I went back to school and was really nervous to make friends

And everybody had come back from summer and had read Harry Potter

And I hadn't. But all these kids were talking about Harry Potter. And so this really cool kid came up to me was like, how like, you read Harry Potter

And I was just like, yeah. I was like, yeah, I read it

And then, you know, all the kids who didn't read it were, like, catching up during school. But I couldn't do that because I had this whole, you know, like, ruse to maintain

And then one of the kids had a Harry Potter theme birthday party

And in order to enter the door to the birthday party, you had to answer a Harry Potter trivia question

And so, like, with all these kids watching, this kid's mom asked me, like, something really

Really easy, like, how does mail get delivered in the whispering world? And I had no idea

And I watched all these kids just be like, oh. You lie. So I like, yeah, so I like swore off the very hard

Yeah. You never went to the party. I didn't, I didn't. Well, they like a interview

Did they like you? Yes. Okay, all right. That'd be cool. Go back home. But I didn't want to be there anymore

Did you actually speed read the books? Well, no, I like swore off him. I was like, that's not for me

I was so embarrassed. And then I went to college and my

very best friend in college, she's like a huge fan. And at a certain point she was like, look

we can't be best friends if you haven't read Harry Potter. And so for her 21st birthday

all she asked is that I read the first book. And then I read them all in like two months

Like it was, as soon as I started, it was a love affair. That is a great story. Yeah

Okay, so, I mean, these are such iconic roles. I mean, sought after roles too

What was your audition process like to get these roles? Yeah, it was a lot

It was a long, intense process. Because in the show, you've seen it now

there's so many boxes you have to check. You know, you have to be a great actor

You have to be a great mover. You know, you have to be able to pull off

some of the magic elements. So it's a lengthy audition process. It was a combination

I think we just had three or four acting auditions and it's a couple of movement

A lot of movement. Yeah, yeah. So you do acting auditions and movement auditions one time

It was at the same day for me where, you know, we finished up doing this long, intensive dance that's in nine, eight time signature

We're all sweating. And then they go, all right, and come in and do your side. So, you know

And I have friends from college who are currently auditioning for the or were auditioning for the San Francisco cast and they were doing all the movement auditions And they kept asking they like this is really intense Is it actually this hard And I was like yeah Yeah It tough

Yeah, but it got your stamina going. It's a lot more about mind over matter, I think

Yeah. It's a really fun process, though. They make it, they make, they put all the actors at ease and especially the movement calls were just, were so fun

And they were all very, like, group-oriented. And so you never felt like you were on the spot or anything

And one of the exercises is about, like, you've just got your wand for the first time

Is the wand controlling you or you controlling the wand? How are you dealing with magic

And I haven't pretended to have a wand since I was like eight

And it was so fun to get to do that again. Yeah. Well, let's talk about who you each play

Talk about the roles. And what was your way into them? Because you're not in the books except for the last one

I'm Elvis Potter, who is Harry Potter's son, but also Ginny Weasley's son

And my first instinct, you know, reading the books and also knowing that there was going to be a play coming out when I first heard about the show coming out is like, oh, it's going to be Harry Potter's son

And when starting to audition, I realized, you know, reading the script and everything, he is far more a Weasley than a Potter

He has this kind of dry humor and fierce love and sort of stubborn love that I see in Ron, Fred, George, Bill, Charlie

Like, all these people, and especially Ginny. And so I started doing a lot more research into her

And that took, A, a lot of weight off my shoulders as an actor

I mean, a lot of Albus' narrative is feeling the weight of being Harry's son

And as an actor, looking at Ginny was wonderful. And that's an entire world that when reading the books I hadn't at first realized

and she's a terrific character, a terrific character. And so to, you know, investigate what life was like at the borough

and how would Albus be there, and, you know, what is this relationship with Hermione

and all this sort of stuff? And that was a delightful journey to go on

Yeah. Great for you. I play Scorpius Malfoy, who is Draco's son

And, you know, one of the things that's a great opportunity, about playing this role is that it's not in the books

And so there isn't this sort of legacy to carry on. I mean, there is because it's a counterpart franchise

but if you're playing Harry or Ginny or Drago, there's this responsibility to uphold the characters

that people know and love from the books. It's corpus. You kind of get to start from scratch, which is really nice

And, you know, he is... He's an extremely lonely child. Just because of his upbringing, he's an only child

The Malfoy's live a very certain, sort of isolated way. And he isn't exposed to friends growing up

because there's sort of this malicious rumor about him. And, you know, first thing I did was think back to when I was his age

I went to an all-boys Catholic military school for high school, which I think was a great place for a lot of people to go to high school

It wasn't the best place for me to go to high school. And so just remember that feeling of, you know, sort of being in a place that that doesn't fully embrace you, right, as Hogwarts does not embrace Scorpius

And, you know, the anxiety and the fear and the loneliness that goes into that. And then the other thing I had to do was I'm fortunate to be from this giant loving family

I have five older brothers, I have five older brothers and sisters. And, you know, amazing parents

So my life really was kind of like growing up at the borough. So it's like how do you go from the borough to Malfoy Manor

And so you just start like stripping those things away and how would it feel to not have those things

My family was, you know, it was just the four of us, me and my sister, my mom, my dad

Very tight. and I always I'm fortunate enough to be from a family

where I always felt very much a part of it and so to go from that

pick the polar opposite where you know Albus is an introvert born

to an extroverted family and there's nothing wrong with that but he's got all this built up

empathy and all this built up love and he doesn't know where to put it

meets Scorpius and it's like a perfect match for each other Yeah, and that's lovely

It's also something that, you know, when I was digging back to high school, is that, like, when you are in an environment like that

and you meet the one person who does think and act like you

and he does accept you and understand you, just how important that is and how it becomes your lifeline

And that's actually one of the things that John Tiffany said to me in my last audition

and he said we talked for a really long time about school and everything he says well it seems like you the kind of person that remembers your your mates um and he was like i just want to know the only people i want to work with

are the people who remember their friends from high school and when you have an experience like that

you can't you can't forget your friends from high school yeah my my personal scorpius from

high school is coming on may 5th i'm so excited he's coming up from oh yeah yeah that's also

the great one of the many universal messages about harry potter which is about your

sitting in the audience yesterday, watching all the young people, and even people, you know, in their 40s and 50s, all look back and went through the same things all of you kids go through in this show. It's like, you know, where you fit in, how you fit into family, the importance of family, making your own family outside of your family and everything else. You guys are flawless in this show. Like I said, I can't believe you're in your fourth week of this. This show is so fluid. There's so much going on in this. There's beautiful acting and magic and moments and movement and all of the things

this stuff. What were rehearsals like? How many those for you two

They were young. How many weeks did you have? 15? Sonia Friedman, that's how it's done. Wow, right? That seems crazy

It was like around three months, yeah. It was three months of rehearsal, yeah

Three months of rehearsal. And we, I mean, we were super fortunate that we also got to work in the theater

on the cast that was currently on the Year One cast on their, like, off

days. So like Thursday and Friday they would only do shows at night

So we got to go into the theater and actually work with all of the props that we were

going to be using in the show, which was wow. So nice to like have

But yeah, I mean, we had that long rehearsal, but you have to remember that it's two plays

Right. So you need it. And it was two plays. I mean..

Too complicated places. Yeah, too very complicated place. To huge place. Yeah. We're doing magic. And it's

magic being done by people who were not hired because they were magicians. Like, figure yourself

Whoa! But what's easier to magic? Um, I think there's probably a more natural magician

Am I? You're really good. I think you have harder, um, allusions to do

Hmm. Yeah, sometimes. You have, you have really tough stuff to do as well, though

Like, yeah, you do. Well, anyway. No, I need to cut you off by that

But, you know, you guys went in together into this show, along with a lot of the other leads

Do that make it easier going into the show together? Absolutely. I think it's so important for an albus and a Scorpius

to develop a relationship together. And so nice that we were both doing our first time on Broadway together

Yeah. I mean. Yeah. We were like really, you know, just totally in the same boat the whole time

and, you know, this dynamic is just so important to, I think, both of our performances

It's everything. There's one point in the show where you're such a good actor that every night

I kind of have to take a second and be like, is this, is this Bubba being mad at me

Am I okay? Are we okay? Sometimes it is. Whoa, Baba, don't do that

It's a really good actor. Yeah, really good. But yeah, yeah, I mean, like, like, 90% of my stage's time is with you

Oh, yeah. It's real, yeah. It means the world to me that I got to, yeah, that we got to build this together

And so, I mean, I feel like I just hit the lottery, like, the fact that not only do I get to do the show and with Bubba, but also with, like, my favorite Scorpius

Oh. Yeah. Gross, throw up. That's all good. What do you remember about that first performance on stage in the show

Did you do a double? Would you start on Tuesday? When did you start? A double day

We did Thursday Friday. Yes. Well, I mean, we had an invited dress on Tuesday

Which we did the whole thing. Did the whole thing. That wasn't a full audience. That was only a handful of family friends

Yeah, and you couldn't really, because they were up in the balcony and dress circle

and what we've found out doing the shows, you can really only hear the reactions of, like, the first five rows

So, like, you couldn't really hear them. But, I mean, they loved it

But doing it for a full audience, just getting your first laugh

or, like, reaction from the audience was so cool. I hardly remember any of it, honestly

Yeah. Yeah, you told me about that. I just remember, I remember doing the first scene

and being like, I can't feel my legs, right? And then, like, you know, you say one line

yeah, all right. Actually, my dad called me right before, right before the first show

He was about to see it, and he was like, hey, Bub, like, you know, as a little kid growing up

I only dreamed of just pitching one pitch in the major leagues

I just wanted to pitch one pitch. And he was like, so, you know

as long as you say one line like you doing pretty pretty well And I was not like that the best thing you could have ever said So I got my first line out And then I felt better But the whole thing was just kind of a blur It was um I uh I was like

I was like, I think I said all the right things. Um, yeah. I, I remember your first entrance

like, and I just, and I just, you know, saw you in the blonde wig and everything. And I was just like

Bubba looks really good. Like, you look really good. And that made me feel better

And as soon as we started doing the scene, you're right, couldn't feel my legs or anything like that

I always feel like, but yeah, as soon as we have a scene together, I always feel totally fine

Right. Like that's a bit of a rest bit from the rest of the play as I get to like have a scene with you

and then go off and do magic. Yeah. So where did you both feel comfortable

because you look and sound incredible up there. And like I said, so much of this show is fluidity

Like, what's your backstage track like? leave. I never stop running. Yeah, you never stop running, and you also are just like always getting out of the way

because there's always something else going on there. Yeah. You can't stand, like you cannot stand still. And if you're, and if you don't have to run, you need to run to get to the kettle on time

in order to get your throat coat and, you know, just like, shrug throat coat and go back up

Right. Yeah. You know, this is one of the hottest tickets in town. Yeah. People flying from all around the world to experience not just Harry Potter, but they're seeing

a live show for the very first time. you're helping to change, you know, their lives

It's something they're going to remember forever. Talk about meeting the fans. What's that been like signing at the stage door for you, too

I would wait outside for the midnight book premieres, you know, in full robes and everything

And so now I go out and, I mean, seeing these kids who are like 8, 10, 12, and they have one of the two of our wands, you know

And sometimes both. You can just tell that in some cases, magic is so real for them in that moment

When you finally see them in magic, they have just watched real magic happen on stage

They read about it, and then they saw it in movies, and now they've watched it happen

And it's so exciting. Like, it is, I feel like what this play is doing

for kids now is what the books did for my generation with reading

Because so many people, it's their first time seeing a Broadway show or a show

a play, a live play. And whether or not you have the magic

the relationships that you see on stage and the story that's being told is

nothing can compete with seeing that in person and feeling like you as an audience member

are partially responsible for letting that story happen. Everyone in that room has a sense of ownership

that the thing got done. And you feel that and you see that

Especially, I mean, a 10-year-old asking me to sign a wand, it's the coolest thing

It's the coolest thing. For you. One of the greatest gifts of getting to do this play

and to getting me a part of the whole Harry Potter world is that it's the kindest, like, warmest audience

you could ever ask for. They are so supportive, they're so open and ready to see what they're about to see

And it's just a joy to get to perform for all of these audiences

I don't think in any other play, that I've seen, I mean, Dumbledore makes an entrance and people go nuts

Hagrid makes an entrance and people go insane. Not necessarily even because of what's happening in the narrative

but because it's this opening of catharsis of these people who know these people

who have grown up with these characters. They get to see them again, and that's so lovely

Yeah, and, you know, I think this could have been a much scarier experience for us

having to be such a high-profile show, you know, large roles are Broadway debuts

But there is just such a spirit of love and support, both that the audience is giving to us

but that the story is being approached with in the first place, that it really has made it just so cozy

So cozy. What a way to make your Broadway debuts. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of the best

Yeah, yeah. This has been great for us sitting with you at Broadway World. Thank you, guys

and welcome to Broadway. Thank you. The best. Thanks