-Our first guest tonight is a talented actor you know from
shows such as "Little Fires Everywhere"
and "Grey's Anatomy."
He recently made his Broadway debut in "Take Me Out,"
which is currently playing at the Hayes Theater.
Please welcome to the show Jesse Williams, everybody.
[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪
How are you?
-I'm amazing. Thanks for having me.
-Thank you for making time for us on your on your one day off.
-Yeah. Yeah. It's a tight squeeze these days.
-I mean, I would imagine the routine and the schedule for
a show like "Grey's Anatomy" is intense,
but this is your Broadway debut.
-Yeah.
-I can't imagine there's anything quite like
the Broadway schedule.
-It's insane. -Yeah.
-It's pretty crazy.
Now that we're done with tech and the rehearsals --
We were doing 10-to-12-hour days of rehearsal,
then doing a show eight, nine times a week.
Now we're just doing our show.
So you get there a couple hours before.
But it is a high-wire act.
It's so much more physical than TV.
-Yeah. And I think one of the hardest parts about TV,
which people don't really understand,
is how it's like sitting around and waiting for your time,
whereas especially with a show like this,
there's not a lot of sitting around for you.
-It's so physical and complete.
I am absolutely depleted and exhausted
after every single show.
-And, yet, you also know you have to do it the very next day.
-Or in two hours, because we do two a day.
-Yeah, so two a day twice a week or once week?
-Do it now two a day, twice a week.
I mean, in previews, it was a show Friday night,
two Saturday, two Sunday.
Then we moved into two Wednesday.
-So, does it at least feel like less work now
after what you went through in the previews and tech first?
-Yes. It was -- -Okay.
-The boot camp was so intense that everything,
yeah, somehow, you're happy.
-And did you feel, like, a lot of pressure about that?
Were you stressed out the opening night?
-I really wasn't.
I feel like I was supposed to be.
-Yeah.
-Everybody put a lot of stress on me --
not only just for it's my first time doing a play --
-Yeah. Ever. -Yeah.
Doing like a three-act play. I've done a one-act before once.
And, so, everybody's -- You know, they're --
You know, they're so excited about it.
Like, "Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure?"
And then there's nudity in the play,
so, again, like, projecting all of this fear on to me.
And I just don't really -- I'm not -- I'm not scared.
It was fun.
-So, this is a play that covers sexuality and race.
And, you know, obviously, it's a baseball play, as well.
And so there's a locker-room scene,
and you mentioned the nudity.
What were -- What was your prediction of what
the reaction would be versus what the reaction actually was?
-I had -- Something kind of got planted in my head.
Me and my a good friend Adepero
went to see "Soldier's Play" right before --
We were in rehearsals for this play before COVID happened,
so two and a half years ago.
We're getting geared up.
We go to see this play.
Blair Underwood is one of the leads.
Legendary, most handsome man in the world,
Blair Underwood.
And we start, like, the second act,
and, you know, I know that I'm going to do this nude scene.
And I'm watching this play.
And he -- It starts the second act.
He's buttoning the top three buttons of a button-down shirt.
He's fully dressed.
He's just buttoning the top three buttons of his shirt.
And the audience goes, "Wow."
The ladies are hootin' and hollerin'.
Like, shut -- The production has to wait like
an extra 10 seconds.
And I was like, "Oh, my God.
What are they going to do for full-on
seven -- two naked men out on the stage?
But we kind of get the opposite reaction in our play.
It's so intense and the language is so dense
that as soon as naked people come out, everybody gets quiet.
You can hear a pin drop or something else drop.
-Right, right.
-It gets really quiet every time we come out there.
So, every now and then, there's some shrieks or gasps
or people scurrying out.
The light of the exit door cascades up there.
-And then people in the street see the nudity,
and they're like, "Whoa!"
-It's a whole different licensing and stuff.
-When was the last -- What was the last
organized baseball game you played?
-Oh, I played until high school. -Okay.
-I played pretty intensely, traveled.
It was a really big connective thread for me and my dad.
My brother played. He was even better than me.
Baseball was everything.
I grew up in Chicago, so the Cubs, going to Cubs games.
And so baseball was a huge part of my life and life lessons,
all those kind of cliché you know,
metaphors were taught to me.
So it was a big part of my existence.
So that's a big part of my connection to the character.
-So, was your dad a coach? -He coached us, yeah.
-Was he a good coach?
How was his -- I had a dad coached me, as well,
and it maybe sounds like it might be a little different.
-Well, so, I kind of hated it then,
but you appreciate it later.
He was very intense, and everything was a lesson.
Everything was a life lesson. Everything was a challenge.
I would be 6 years old -- Even just getting to practice,
I'd be like, "Dad, when's practice?"
He's like, "You don't know? Find out. Call your coach."
It's like, "I'm 6."
"Nope. Call him, find out.
You don't depend on anybody for any information ever."
"Okay. Let me just finish my Cap'n Crunch,
and then I'll go talk to this adult man
and figure out my scheduling."
Yeah, everything was pretty intense.
-My dad dovetailed very nicely, because he was
the kind of baseball coach -- also very intense.
And then I think someone, some of the other dads
took him aside and they go,
"You seem like you should be an umpire."
And then my dad was an umpire for years and years.
-To get him away from the children.
-They were like, "There's a place where
it's okay to scream at them."
-Right, right, right, right, right.
Not while you're handing out orange slices.
-Yeah, exactly. -Yeah, yeah, yeah.
-There's a good place where you can scream after every pitch.
-Right? Exactly. -Yeah.
And, yeah, he found a very nice home there.
-That's funny. -And your parents are teachers?
-They are. Yeah, they were. My mom just retired.
-Alright. -They both were teachers.
Yeah, I was a teacher,
partly because of them, certainly.
They didn't start teaching until I was in college.
-Okay.
-So they had many other jobs before then.
But, yeah, my mom just retired,
and my dad just finished up a couple years ago, as well.
-What did you teach?
-I taught high school, primarily, in Philadelphia,
where I went to college.
I went to Temple University.
I primarily taught humanities, American studies,
African-American studies, and continental African history.
-Were you a good teacher? -I was a damn good teacher.
-Really? -Yeah, I really was.
I loved it.
It was my favorite job ever, still.
I love my job now, but that was incredibly rewarding.
And I felt --
-Did you feel there was a common skill as far as
a performer, being both an actor and a teacher?
-I learned it later, that there is a commonality.
You know, you're hosting a room full of people,
a space full of people that don't necessarily want
to be there.
You gotta keep their attention. You got to keep them engaged.
You got to be spontaneous.
You got to be able to improv and ad-lib
and keep things alive and make it interesting
while also, you know, putting some sugar in the medicine
or medicine in the sugar, keeping --
-In the most -- I think that age in particular
is the most intimidating age of people to be in front of.
-Yeah. Yeah.
High schoolers will run you to the ground, yeah, yeah.
-I'd rather do a show in a prison than in a high school.
-High school is terrifying.
-Yeah. -It's brutal.
Because they're also funny as hell.
They'll rip on you.
I remember this kid ripped on my boots.
I was poor. I didn't have any money.
And I had the same winter --
You know, it's Philadelphia winters.
I had the same boots for like seven years.
They were all, like, shredded. -Yeah.
-And this kid -- he was so funny.
He was like -- He looked down at my boots
and he's like, "Damn, Mr. Williams.
I didn't know you had a dog."
And it was brilliant.
I couldn't even be mad. It was hilarious.
And my shoes looked like they had been chewed on by a dog.
It was good.
So shout-out to you. I forget his name now.
-Yeah. Well, if you remembered his name,
I would hope you'd show up at his house now
and show him your nice boots.
-Yeah, exactly, exactly.
-Things worked out pretty well for Mr. Williams.
-Who's laughing now?
-Your kids are 6 and 8. -Yeah.
-And they've come out to New York
since you started doing this.
I would imagine the play you're currently in is not for them.
-It's not for them, but I did -- You know, you work around it.
It's their first time really exploring New York City,
so they're watching people.
Watching your kids discover New York,
and the awesome power of it is spectacular.
So, you take them around. We saw "Lion King."
We saw "Harry Potter," which we're reading together.
And I took them to the theater, our theater,
just to see our vocal warm-ups.
Like, but they can't see the play,
but they can see the really silly vocal warm-ups.
And for those of you that don't have
theater or musical-theater people in your life,
we look ridiculous.
-Yeah. -It's hilarious.
Yeah, 15, you know, grown men onstage
jumping around like monkeys and making all types of
animal sounds and doing stretching
and banging on their chest and...
It looks ridiculous. So they thought that was great.
They thought, "Daddy's an idiot."
And it's really fun. They watched that.
And then I sent them on to go do something.
-Okay. How is -- Our 6-year-old is our oldest,
and he just -- He went to "Lion King."
That was his first show.
We just went a couple of months ago.
Did they love it? -They loved it.
-Yeah. -They were just in awe.
And by the very end, they were kind of getting a little --
It's long.
-Yeah. -But it's spectacular.
It's really awesome, in the true sense of the word.
-An interesting thing happened to my 6-year-old,
who has a very early bedtime, which is,
he went to "Lion King" and then, like,
drove through Times Square at night to go home, you know,
with with my wife in the Uber.
And, so, he got home, and by the time he got home,
like, Times Square was cooler than "Lion King."
He's like, "You cannot believe what's going on in this city."
-Right. It's the most recent stimulus is the best.
-I'm like, "Tell me more about 'The Lion King.'"
He's like, "Dad, there are screens
that are just changing constantly."
-"Have you heard of Samsung?" -Yeah.
"I need to tell you about Samsung.
Their product line..."
-Their new rollout...
-Well, congratulations on a Broadway debut.
It's really nice having you here in New York City,
and thanks for being with us tonight.
-Please come out and check out the show.
We're having a great time.
-Alright, you guys. That's Jesse Williams.
-Thank you. [ Cheers and applause ]
-"Take Me Out" is currently playing at the Hayes Theater.