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Video: Matthew James Thomas Is Making Magic on Broadway
Feb 28, 2025
Matthew James Thomas has got magic to do, yet again! Thomas, who is already beloved by Broadway audiences for his pst performaces in shows like Pippin, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark and Time and the Conways, returns to the Lyric Theatre this season as the new Harry Potter in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
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Welcome to Backstage with Richard Ridge
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Harry Potter and The Cursed Child has been casting its bell on Broadway for nearly seven years, winning six Tony Awards and has become the most successful non-musical in Broadway history
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And joining me here at the Lyric Theater is one of the show's stars Matthew James Thomas, who plays Harry Potter
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It is great to be catching up with you, my friends, sitting with you here. So I think we first met in this theater when you made your Broadway debut in Spider-Man
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Yeah, wow. How many years ago was that? 13. 13. 13 and a half
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13 and a half? 13 and a half years. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. Yeah
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It seems like, seriously, it seems like six years ago. And then you're like, it can't be 13 and a half years ago
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But when you walk into this building again for Harry Potter, did it bring back memories
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Like, oh my gosh, I was here before. few panic attacks. I mean, I'd seen them renovating the theatre because I was working
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next door, doing a play, and I came by to see Jerry Harris and all those guys when they
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were renovating the entire thing because they took out, they gutted the old theatre
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and put in, I think they even changed the depth of the balcony, which is unheard of, getting
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ready for the show. And that was 2017-18. Yeah. This is such a beautiful show
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You've seen it. Millions have. Oh, I've seen it. I've seen it numerous, numerous times
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But it was so great to go back last week to see you make magic in this show
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And I want to ask you, did you first see the show in London? I did
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Right after I was taking a break from whichever show it was
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And I went to see the, it was 2016, wasn't it? Didn't they open yet? The two part there
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And I loved it. In fact, one of the producers from the show was Must have been Pippin because Barry Wiseler was ahead of me getting a drink
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and I recognized as Macintosh. And I asked him what he thought of the play
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he said, it's fantastic, isn't it? And I said, yeah. So, like, when you saw it the first time, like
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I was totally blown away the first time I walked into and see, and saw Harry Potter live
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Yeah. What were your reactions when you saw it first? Well, I certainly didn't know what to expect
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you know, when you're seeing something like this, this huge film franchise turn, put onto the stage in the live
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was very exciting. I've told the story many times, and I'll tell it again
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but that something happened in the show was, I think it was seven or eight-year-old girl was sat next to me
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and something happened in the show, and I won't give it away. But I said, what the
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And she turned around, said, yeah. Because it was this, you know, you know the bit I'm talking about
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Stuff that had happened on the stage that I just hadn't seen before, I didn't think was possible
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And that's where I think the show catches you a lot, not just with the special effects, but also the story
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You don't see the things coming that do. Did you think then when you saw that saying, maybe Harry Potter one day, maybe I'll be up there doing this
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No, not a clue. No I mean of course the idea of doing something like that would be great I loved the length of it too I think seeing something that could sprawl across all of that story was really quite thrilling
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And so the idea that when I heard about the opportunity for this to come up, where they'd condensed the story, but it still had the same power
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that was very interesting to me as a challenge to take on. So what is it like living in this magical world of Harry Potter and the Curse Child
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It's nuts. Yeah. It's totally nuts. Even though I know the show, it's in my blood
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I wouldn't say in my blood, but it's in my body. And I've been here for four months or so now
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And this is where the fun starts for me, because you're sort of venturing outside of the safety of now
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I know the character. I know, well, I don't know the character, but I know the lines
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I know where I'm supposed to be. That's in my body. And now you start to explore
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Now they're real fun. adventure begins, for me, truly, at this stage in a process, because the show is settled
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with this new company, some returning cast members and some new people. And now the show
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starts to become hours, and we start to really search in and out the nooks and crannies. And that's
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the real fun stuff. So I'm actually, I'm really excited for this next, you know, six, seven
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eight months, however much we've got left. Yeah. You know, the interesting thing is the night I was
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there last week. There were so many people who flew in from all around the world
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And they were like, we wanted to see Harry Potter and the Curse Child here on Broadway
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I mean, what that means to you as an actor, realizing where the audience is coming from. Well, you see, this fellow the other day I was coming in early and they were just, they were so
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excited standing out, taking pictures of the theater, you know, and I think they said something
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like, you know, I've been waiting for six months for this or, you know, planning their vacation
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around coming to see this one production. And I've said this to you before I think
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I always think of this as like it's somebody's first show in the audience. And I love this show for that reason because it's very accessible, I think
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People may have expectations of the characters in the world, but there's no way that they're not going to be surprised by what they find
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And having that experience with new people to the theatre world who haven't seen something before is genuinely, I think, the most exciting thing that can happen
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And you feel it every night. You hear people reacting to theater, live theater in that way, and it's thrilling
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It's a great privilege. But like when you come out and they're like, I'm Harry Potter, you can hear the gasps in the audience
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What is that like? Somewhat terrifying. You know, I think that question gets asked a lot
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You know, how do you feel about playing this iconic character? And my answer is, I can't really think about it
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If I do, then I'd be dreading it every night because obviously you've got to match everyone's expectations if you're coming from that angle
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But really it like the show moves so quickly in that first 10 15 minutes that I just I hold on and see where I end up Again like that the fun thing about being in the process now is that my body trusts the movement but my mind is totally open to what going to happen
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And you get a fresh audience every night, people who know the story, some people who don't know the story
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And you can feel that. You go on that journey together with them. You've no idea where you're going to end up
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So it's very exciting. Yeah, for people who don't know, this play takes place after the books end, right
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Later on. Just explain a little bit. You don't really need to know the books
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No, all the films, to be honest, I think it's a father-sum play
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So you're going to come on that adventure no matter what. It's a play about friendship
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It's a play about relationships. So if you don't know the franchise, then it's fine
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But if you have seen the films over at the books, then you're going to start Platform 9 and 3 quarters where you leave them
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And, you know, now it's Albus's turn. Harry's had kids with Ginny and you're about to see them embark on their rather terrifying and exciting journey
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Yeah. Do you remember your first performance on stage as Harry in this show
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Yes, I do. I do. We'd had two months of rehearsals and I think for the most part I was just like concentrating and making sure I had my lines down
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But I will say this, the audiences have lived up to that same feeling
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They're always as excited. I thought it was an opening night crowd, and it was, but our audiences were always like that
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It always feels like that. Did you audition for the films of Harry Potter
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I did, yeah. How old were you? I was a baby. Yeah. I must have been, well, their age, how old were they, 9, 10
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Yeah. So I went to a theater school called Sylvie Young Theatre School, which we very far
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fondly referred to as Hogwarts because it was a Victorian schoolhouse that was turned into
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you know, well, remained, I think it was a church and turned into a schoolhouse and then turned
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into a theatre school. So a lot of the characters that you would meet in that world
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reminded me of a lot of the teachers that I had in that school. And yeah, so of course we were
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all auditioning for the films and there was an agency within the school. And one fun story is that
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I actually got kicked out of one of the films because I was a slightly precocious kid
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Maybe a little like Albus, you might say. And I had an argument with my music teacher Ray Lamb, and so he kicked me out of the choir that then went on to be
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It was like the opening of the third or fourth film. I can't remember. There was this lovely choir at the end of the, you know
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I wasn't in it. Yeah. Well, you're having a full circle moment now playing Harry. Yeah. You know, going back to starting early, I think I saw you in London
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We just talked about this before we went on camera. you did Oliver in London. Which is crazy
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With Barry Humphreys. Yeah. The cast in that production as well. I've talked about very fondly about that production because I was so young
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I remember coming out of the trapdoor for the first time into the workhouse
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And I did sort of know then. I like well what else am I going to do with my life This is it It was so exciting Just even the smell of the smoke you know watching the green cue light go off I think that was eight nine And then working with those
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incredible, incredible actors. I mean, can you imagine being in the vicinity of someone like
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Barry Humphreys at that age and them just being there in the moment every single show? They were
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real. in wasn't fake. in was, that was in. Did you get caught under the stage one night
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I did. Rather, how did you know that? You know everything. Listen, what happened
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I think I probably was, I went out in the wrong order and they were these giant like metal grills
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Yeah. And they were real. So it got dropped on my head and knocked me out
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And at the end, everybody was in, my mom was like, where's Matthew? It was knocked out, clean, underneath the stage
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See, this is why you can't stay backstage when these shows are running. It's true. I also made me
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very keen about backstage safety. Yeah. So I've picked some really sensible shows to continue. Yeah
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Well, let's talk about Pippin. You also took Broadway by Storm again when you performed the role of Pippin
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How magical was that show for you? Oh, unbelievable. And I don't want to say unmatched, but at times feels the process of getting to recreate something
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like that that was beloved by many. You know, the interesting thing about doing that show was, like, I think as an actor, I was fighting the process a lot
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because having read it and heard it in school, it all felt very presentational to me
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And it's not my taste in that way. I didn't love seeing shows that were presentational
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And so when the opportunity came up to do that, first of all, I sort of pushed it away and
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I was like, no, I don't want to do that. Actually, in this theatre, my friend Luther Creek said, you should read the script before
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you make any opinions. And I did read the script and he changed my mind
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And then I went into audition for them. And you could feel that the idea in the room was
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we were all on the same page. We all sort of wanted to challenge this material to see what we could get out of it
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And that was really what made that process so special that, like, everybody on that team
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all of the actors, all of the acrobats, everybody fought for that thing and each other
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You know, we just came head to head until the thing became what it did. Yeah
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And it's an experience, like, I think putting anything together, you know, the risk that you take getting up there in front of an audience
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the camaraderie, you know. But yeah, to answer your question, it was just one of the greatest privileges
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I still can't believe that I got to be a part of something like that, and to have that creative experience developing a work like that
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What are you loving the most about doing Harry Potter? Working with the actors
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Working with these great actors every night. I never know what they're going to bring or teach me and they do every night
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So that's kind of always going to be my answer, I think, is getting to work with other people
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And of course, being with a new audience, being with people who potentially haven't seen a show before
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and feeling what they feel for the first time
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