Video: Andy Karl Is Living for the Spectacle of MOULIN ROUGE!
Feb 13, 2025
Just weeks after concluding an off-Broadway run in Teeth, Andy Karl moved five blocks south to the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, where he is now starring as The Duke of Monroth in Moulin Rouge!. Watch as he tells us all about it in this video.
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Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World
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Olivier Award winner and Tony nominee, Andy Carl, has returned to Broadway stepping back into the role of the Duke
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in the hit musical Moulin Rouge, and I caught up with Andy here at The Hirschfeld
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Well, first of all, welcome back to Broadway, my friend. Thank you so much. Welcome to the Moulin Rouge
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I'm very welcome. How does it feel to be back? First of all, I love being on Broadway
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but I love being on off-Broadway as well. I just finished teeth and shortly out
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after, a week later I started rehearsals for Moonla Rouge, so I feel like I've been in the area
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There's just so much creativity here, and this cast, I can't tell you how amazing they are
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I do a lot of sitting and watching the show as my part as the Duke, and I watch the choreography
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Sony's choreography is amazing. I'm back with Alex Timbers, who we did Rocky together years ago
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and so it feels like it's family. I'm happy to be back. It's really amazing
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I've seen the show three times before, and I saw the original cast, saw it along the way
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and then saw it again right before I went into it. And you're immersed into it
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and I feel the same way when I'm backstage. I'm immersed into this score
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I'm immersed into all these costumes. Backstage, you know how on stage during the show
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they try to make it look like it's a backstage area as they're performing this new show
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And so it feels like a 360 version of that for me
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So I never feel like I'm not on. Yeah. The Duke. What's his full name? How do you say his full name
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Andre DeLacques, Benetchu, the Duke de Monroff. And yeah he a character I think it a perfect song that he has called Sympathy for the Duke which is Rolling Stone Sympathy for the Devil
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Because he does operate in a way where I have a lot of sympathy for the Duke
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because I have to, because if I'm playing him, I have to have empathy and sympathy for him and realize where he's coming from
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He's a businessman, and he wants to get what he paid for
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So I think he's brought into this show. into the Moulin Rouge under false pretenses to meet a woman
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And it's flipped on him when he's told he's actually chosen to be someone who can be a beneficiary for the Moulin Rouge
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Keep it running. And he's like, okay, you want to do business. Well, let me tell you how I do business
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And he becomes this, the evil person of the show. So for me, it's sympathy because he just wants to do business
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And when he's offered a business deal, of course, you're going to do a deal with the Duke
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He's going to take you down a very interesting path of what he wants and not what you want
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You know, he's sort of the villain of the piece. So what is it like living in those shoes and sort of playing the villain
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It's fun, right? Yeah, I'm getting in my villain years, so a lot of facial hair and eyebrows, which I always had anyway
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So it's a, like I said before, I really have empathy for this character
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character because you have to think of how he got to where he is
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Being an aristocrat brought up with a silver spoon in his mouth and
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just looking for adventure but also he never was given an opportunity to care for
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anybody below him So he cares not for the people that are you know need from him And he knows that everybody needs money from him So he wants you know payback
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So I think it's, for me, it's never a question of saying, is he evil
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It's just, he's just trying to do the deal. Yeah. How many rehearsals did you have
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A few weeks, would you have? I had two weeks of rehearsal directly after teeth, which was another evil part
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quote unquote. So, yeah, I think with this show, with the Duke in the first act
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he does a lot of sitting and watching and pondering and seeing what he wants
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So in a way, it's very relaxing by first act. But it is a matter of making sure that I eye all the things that the Duke wants
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He wants a teen. He wants the club. He wants to see what he's investing in
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And he wants to understand how he can take advantage of that. when the time comes. So I am as the Duke taking sight of everything, but also as Andy Carl
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I am enjoying the hell out of this show while I watch it. So you get one put-in for those people
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who don't know, you get to run the show before you go into it. What was your put-in like for
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Moulin Rouge? I had, I was given all my costumes, all the lights, all the sets, all the
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choreography, all the stage on a Friday. Go. I said, you know, I've done this stuff for a while
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Well, maybe I can handle it, but it was a lot to get into because the Moulin Rouge is an immersive world
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And there's, you know, the state, there's a part of the stage that comes over the audience
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There's VIP seating here. You have to watch your step. And it gets very dark in some places So it was very quick very fast and furious and we skipped over certain parts and just got to some of my parts So then I had three days off and then on Tuesday it was
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my first run of last week, and this is my second week. So it was sort of crossed my fingers
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hope I don't mess up and do the best job that I can. People loved it that came to see me
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but it wasn't until Wednesday night when Alex Timbers came to see the show where I knew I needed
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to be at my best. And I wanted to do a good performance for him
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because Alex and I have this history with Rocky and now and just over the years of knowing each other
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There was something about, I just truly respected his vision and I wanted to do a good job for him. That was the first show
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that I had where I thought, I nailed it. And so I'm going to continue to try to do that
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for audiences for my brief run here. So what do you say to you afterwards
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He said, he came up and he was very complimentary. And the thing that rang
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in my head was he said, no notes. So I was like, all right, I did well, no notes
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I loved that. Dialect, I didn't even ask. I just said no notes. And I ran with that
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So finally, what are you loving the most about being back in this show, Mulan Rouge
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I just truly love the spectacle of this show. I love the costumes
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I love every bit of it. I love that it's a theatrical experience. It is, Mulan Rouge is sort of a play within a play
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And it gives you that. essence of what it is to bring beauty to the stage, but also with my character, who's going to finance that
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It's always a give and take and the push and pull of who's got the power. And being creative with that and telling that story is truly a beautiful theatrical experience
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So I'm happy to be a part of it
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