With a Tony nomination in his pocket and years of experience in theater, you’d think Broadway veteran Christian Borle would have all the tools to star in NBC’s musical drama “Smash.”
Borle is missing one thing on his resume that his character, composer Tom Levitt, isn’t: Borle can’t play the piano.
“If those keys weren’t muted, people would be horrified by the sounds,” he told me during a chat on the “Smash” set at Eagle Street Stages in Brooklyn earlier this month.
Borle took piano lessons while growing up in Pittsburgh, but he didn’t stick with it. Between filming the “Smash” pilot and starting to film the series, he took lessons again but admits, “I realized it’s wasn’t going to happen.”
So he fakes it. Yes, his piano-playing scenes are a bit of TV magic. The show’s real music composer and co-lyricist, Marc Shaiman, sometimes will play off camera and watch Borle’s hands while he plays. Borle wears an earpiece so he can follow along to the music. “We’ll play kind of together, which is really fun dance,” Borle said.
If Shaiman’s not on set, Borle “plays” to a prerecorded track and later, Shaiman actually might change the song to approximate what Borle did on film. “It’s kind of a ‘Which came first, the chicken or the egg?’ thing sometimes,” Borle joked.
Borle’s trickiest piano scene takes place in “The Cost of Art,” airing at 9 p.m. Feb. 27. At a loft party thrown for guest star Nick Joans’s character, Tom accompanies several of the characters as they sing one of the numbers from the “Marilyn” musical being written by the characters played by Borle and co-star Debra Messing. That took a little more work, Borle said.
“I’m kind of Jerry Lee Lewis-ing out on the piano,” he said. “They really, really wanted that to be pretty accurate. So I had a big coaching session and practice, practice, practice.”
Borle, who was nominated for a Tony for originating the character Emmett Forrest in “Legally Blonde,” and I talked more about his co-stars, living in New York City (he’s lived there since 1995) and his return to Broadway during the “Smash” hiatus. Watch the short video interview above and read more below in the Q & A.
Are we going to get to hear you sing?
Yes. I think they’ve figured out a very fun and clever way to do it while staying true to the rules that they’ve made. I think the rules are going to bend over the course of 15 episodes, but it’s good.
So it won’t be at a karaoke bar?
No, it will not.
And are you happy about that?
I am, yes. And it makes sense. Tom is a composer and I think an extrovert as well, and proud and he probably used to be a performer. On the set they asked me for old photographs of me growing up. I gave them a picture of me in “A Chorus Line” before I got my equity card in West Virginia, and I was playing Mark and I’ve got the hat and everything. I figure at some point Tom was a performer, so it makes sense.
So that photo will show up on your piano or your desk?
I think if you squint it’s somewhere way, way in the background.
How did you come to the role?
Really just having an incredibly, wonderful agent and friend who just wore them down, because I think they had been looking for a very long time and were looking for Tom to be a little older. My agent just wore them down and I got in that room and then luck prevailed.
I can’t imagine him being older after having seen you do it.
Yeah and there are a lot of really young composers out there right now. A lot of my friends are composers on Broadway, so I have a lot to draw from in terms of all that, but these are really young guys who just happen to be brilliant in the head.
So you can use them, and of course your own theater experiences.
It’s not necessarily even something that is conscious. Luckily, coming from this world we just know the terms. Like Megan [Hilty, who plays Ivy] and I, who come from the theater. There’s a comfort level. Do you know what I mean? You know what a rehearsal room feels like when you’re doing a vocal rehearsal. Just the basic dynamics. So it’s just kind of in the bones now, but yes, I copy Marc Shaiman’s piano playing style, the crossing my right foot over my knee, which actually seems to be counterproductive because it’s the peddling foot, but he doesn’t seem to care.
Right foot over the knee.
Yeah, right foot over left knee.
How is it working with Debra Messing?
She’s unbelievable. When I tested, which was my second audition, she was there and obviously I knew of her and was a little bit intimidated just because I had never done television before and she immediately put me at ease.
We had done the scene a couple of times and I said, “Is there anything you need from me?” And she said, “It’s your test. What do you need from me?” Which I thought was the most generous, lovely thing to do. So instead of me trying to fit with her she was trying to see if there was anything there.
We just laugh our asses off all day long and take care of each other. She is amazing and a technician, having worked in television for over a decade she just knows it in her bones. So I took the opportunity to watch her and figure it out based on what she was doing and I think she’s doing stuff on the show that people are not going to believe. They think they know her. There is a depth and a seriousness to her with all of that humor and beauty, unbelievable. Yeah, she is astonishing.
And are you able to coach her in the Broadway aspects of anything?
Well she has a love of Broadway musicals, a love of shows. She started off in one of the original versions of “Angels in America Part 2.”
You said this is your first TV show.
It is. It’s unbelievable. It’s like a dream come true. I really I enjoy visiting Los Angeles. I am one of those kind of snobby theater people who like Los Angeles isn’t for me. It’s beautiful out there, but I also think it’s just kind of a community that revolves around the entertainment industry. It’s inescapable and I think it’s ultimately not as well rounded as New York City is. Everyone there is either on their way up or on their way down and clawing and angling. The car thing is so antisocial to me. I feel like here we’re like in amongst each other.
Do you still take transit here?
Yeah. I do love the subway.
Are Tom and the “Marilyn” show’s director, Derek [Jack Davenport], ever going to make up?
[Laughs.]
I think they just need to have sex and get it over with.
I’m sure there is a wide swath of viewers who will think the same thing. [Laughs.] We do ultimately find out what the big issue is between them and we kind of have it out. I think once we kind of do that, I think it’s around Episode 8, they start to kind of find common ground in a way that I think will be surprising.
Those moments are so funny.
With the two of us just going at each other?
Even when they’re not even in the same room, when they are just talking about each other. I love it.
Good. But I adore [Jack Davenport]. That’s what is so nice about it. He is the nicest guy and we have a really, really good time with that relationship. It’s satisfying. It’s good. I think they continue to write that dynamic really, really well and even today the first scene that was shot we’re just screaming at each other and everyone is outside of the door, so I guess we haven’t found that much common ground. [Laughs.]
Is Tom ever going to get wise to his assistant, Ellis [Jaime Cepero], do you think?
I don’t get wise to Ellis. Ellis is kind of playing his own game, so he’s threading his way through the entire community in an interesting way. No, I can’t say anything.
But that’s another fun thing is watching him scheme.
Yes, that scene between the two of them when he gives her back her notebook is so great. She just hates seeing him every single time he pops up. It’s good.
What episode are you working on now?
We’re almost done. This is the last day of Episode 12, so we have 13, 14, 15 left to do. We just read 14 and so we don’t know yet what 15 is going to be.
Does Tom come to the realization that maybe Karen is as good as Ivy?
I think Tom is kind of the most sensible person; it’s not personal. It’s not about Karen at all. It’s just like, “Are you kidding, she’s never done anything. You can’t hang a musical on her.” I think he recognizes that.
I’m talking about my character in the third person. It’s come to this.
She’s obviously talented and that beautiful number when it’s one of the first times that we get to sit down and just watch them do their thing. She is unbelievable, so it’s easy to be impressed by her.
I hear there are Team Ivy and Team Karen shirts. Which will you get?
My character is Team Ivy.
And you?
I’m going to be as diplomatic as you could possibly imagine, yes. I’m going to the T-shirt that has Team Ivy on the front and Team Karen on the back.
Yours will be Team Tom.
That’s right.
Are you happy that you’re doing the show, that there is the show that you sort of get to promote Broadway, to the masses?
Yes. I feel like a proud representative, no doubt. You see the talent in this crew and team of people who are watching somebody like Megan come in and do her number like 10, 15, 20 times in a row crushing it every single time. You can’t help but be in awe. You’re very proud and it’s become like the new “Law and Order.” It’s hiring all kinds of actors from New York City, particularly theater and musical theater actors. It’s great. So even yesterday I saw the call sheet and I saw that Tony Yazbeck was coming in, who I did “On the Town” and “Encores” with. It’s great. I love it. It’s exciting.
Can you relate to Ivy and Karen’s struggle?
Yeah, but I think it’s always different. It’s different for men and women always, particularly in musical theater. But yeah, everything seemed so important. It still does. The wins are huge and the losses are devastating and we do it all because we love it. We drive each other crazy.
I think what they do really, really well that will resonate with theater people is being in a relationship with somebody who is not in the business and trying to balance that, trying to find a way to accommodate somebody who doesn’t even understand what it is that you do when you go off to work and then when you go out of town. There are some moments in the out-of-town episode that are just like right out of life. You’re pouring your heart into the show. You’re out of town. You’re with these people. It’s like camp and all of the sudden your significant other comes along and there is like no place for them to fit in and it’s not anything personal. It’s just this crazy world that we have devoted our lives to.
Do you find most of the stuff that happens pretty accurate except a sort of just sped up?
Actually the only thing that is kind of sped up was that pilot, getting to the idea that you would be casting a workshop. That happened so fast in the pilot, but they just wanted to get to it. But I think the rest of it is pretty spot on, and we’re all of course kind of keeping our eyes peeled for anything that might not ring true to our friends watching at home.
You all can bust each other for anything pretty much.
That’s right. That’s true. In kind of talking about the show and promoting the show and doing interviews I’ve really started to kind of realize that what makes the show unique is that theater people are unique. There has not been a show about theater people really. “Slings and Arrows” was great, but that was playing in a different size pond. The stakes are higher on the Broadway scene and theater people are just—I don’t think anyone has seen anything like it.
