Russell is very visible on stage as Elton, but off stage he keeps somewhat to himself. This interview was probably the first real conversation he and I have ever had, so it was a pleasant surprise to me to find out how interesting he is personally.

NR: Where did you grow up?

RG: I grew up in San Diego.

NR: Did you always want to perform?

RG: Oh yeah!

NR: You never wanted to do anything else?

RG: Actually, no. I knew it at a very young age.

NR: Were you a big ham as a little kid?

RG: Not really. I was shy. I wasn't a ham. I didn't perform. I didn't do theater or any kind of performing as a kid. I just always knew when I was young that I would grow up and be an actor. It was just something I always knew. It's nothing that I vocalized or told anybody. I just knew that that was what was going to happen.

NR: Did you start by dancing?

RG: No. I didn't do any dancing until the very end of high school when I was going into college. I only did it because people cast me in shows where I had to dance. I basically learned by doing.

NR: Really?

RG: Well, people have a certain aptitude for things and you don't know that you have it until you have an opportunity to explore it. I would never have known that I could dance except that I was given the opportunity to learn simply by doing it. Then I found out, "Oh, I can do this." I went into the business professionally as a dancer because that's what people hired me to do.

NR: Is there anybody in particular who inspired you, or who you modeled yourself after?

RG: I wouldn't say I modeled myself after anyone but there are people that I've admired my whole life. Probably as an actor, the one person I would say is Jimmy Stewart. I think he was IT. He really was.

NR: And he didn't dance or sing.

RG: No. He was just an amazing actor and a great person. As his career went on, he showed so many sides of what he could do. It was never about just being a pleasant leading man. He did comedy and drama and then as he got older, he did much darker work, and he was never afraid to show the dark side of his personality. It's a great lesson in how to keep your career going by keeping it interesting.

NR: Have you gotten a chance to do a role like that? You're in a pretty fluffy role now with Elton.

RG: Oh, yeah. I've done all kinds of stuff.

NR: What's your favorite before this show?

RG: Favorite? I don't know if I have a favorite role. There were a lot of things that were fun, and a lot of things that were fluffy. Dramatically, the most satisfying thing I ever did was a production of Bent which was here in New York. It was about five years ago. That's very heavy and I played one of the two characters that are the central characters in the second act where they interact in the concentration camp. That, to me, is much more interesting than doing this, just because there's more meat to it, there's more to play.

NR: It must be totally draining by the end of the show.

RG: It seems that way but I would finish and I would be so up, because even though it was heavy and I died at the end, I would leave the theater thinking, "That was great." Because, as an actor, that's what you want to do. You want to have those experiences where you get to explore all those different things. If you can do that within one evening and navigate through tons of different emotions and situations and feelings, that's very satisfying.

NR: Tom Zemon told me that when he was doing Les Miz, it was a very heavy show and that would carry over to backstage too.

RG: Well, that doesn't necessarily have to happen. I think that's just the dynamic of the group. There are happy shows on Broadway, and you would think by watching them that they must have a great time and that they're probably a really tight group, and then you hear stories that they're not. You hear that they're not close, they don't hang out with each other. It doesn't go hand in hand.

NR: It's more the cast than the material then?

RG: Yeah. It's just the group of people that you have and the dynamic that group has which dictates...you can be working on something that's terribly dark and heavy but you don't have to live it. It's a little more interesting not to live it.

NR: (laughs) Don't bring it home.

RG: (laughs) Yeah. Don't bring it home, don't bring it backstage. Just do it on stage and leave it. I'm one of those people who definitely does not believe in living your role or living the thing you're working on. That's exhausting.

NR: It must be, especially if you're working on a really intense character, or a really nasty character.

RG: I think that's just a little extreme. I know a lot of people feel they have to do that to bring it to life, but I don't think it's necessary to bring it home.

NR: When you came here, you came at the end of SP1, and you were about to start rehearsals for SP2. That must have been crazy.

RG: It was a little crazy. I came with the express knowledge that I was being hired to fill in for the last six weeks of the run of Version 1 and that I would immediately begin rehearsing Version 2. And I did. My first weekend, I did four shows starting on Friday and that Monday I was in pre-production with the director and the other creative people starting to work on the next version.

NR: So, you were basically learning two shows at the same time.

RG: I had learned the first show, but I had only just started doing it, so yes, at night I was still trying to find my way in a situation where everyone else had been there for awhile. It was still very new to me even though I knew it. The first version was not difficult to learn. It was very loose, to put it in a word. It was not specific. Basically there were whole scenes and numbers where I was told, "Just be there and they'll look out for you." So, you don't go on in one night and say, "I've got this down" because it was ever changing. There were scenes where people changed their blocking every night so you had to stay on your toes because you never knew who was going to end up where.

NR: I'm trying to picture you learning the new "Creation of Man" while doing the old "Creation of Man," which was totally different.

RG: But that's the easy stuff. Because they're so totally different, you can't confuse them. The first version was so much about the Bounders singing individual lines and interacting with the Prince of Wales. You can't confuse that with this version because it's so completely different. The stuff that got confusing was the stuff that was similar but not the same. Doug Sills had to bear the brunt of that because there were so many scenes or lyrics where he was doing something that was so similar to what he was doing at night, but they were just a little different. That's the hard stuff.

NR: Elton changed a little bit each time. He's kind of evolved all this time.

RG: I guess he has.

NR: I think he got bigger.

RG: It just seems that way.

NR: It seemed to me in SP2 that Elton had more of a defined personality than most of the other Bounders.

RG: I've heard that from other people and they don't feel that way in this version. I think it's simply because there are fewer Bounders and they're more sharply defined this time, which is much better for the show. We had more bodies on stage but we had characters that basically didn't say anything or contribute anything to give them a distinct personality because the text didn't allow for it. Basically there were bodies that served the piece in having a certain number of people on stage, but the audience didn't get to know them. They didn't get the opportunity to find out anything about them. There was only a handful of characters that had enough of something to offer that the audience could go, "Oh, yeah, that one. Or Dewhurst - the friend." or me, I was the "butterfly guy." Nobody could remember my character name, but they could always remember that I was the "butterfly guy." Everybody has something now because now there are fewer, and you can see these more specific personalities.

NR: Have all these changes made it more interesting, since you've been here for a year and a half now? Has it gotten boring?

RG: No, it hasn't. I don't get bored doing the show. Actually, the changes do serve to make it more interesting. I've done long runs before. The last job I had before this was the Hal Prince version of Showboat. I was out on tour with that and about halfway through my tour we also did a downsizing. It wasn't as drastic. It was a huge production. We started out with 71 people on stage and I think we lost eight or ten people. Now, in a cast that size, no one would know, but you still have to make adjustments. I thought it was fascinating. I got new things to do and new things to work on, so it made it much more interesting for me a year and a half into the job. I loved that. I don't necessarily crave ever rehearsing this show again. I've now rehearsed this show three times in a year and a half. And yes, it's always a little different, and that makes it interesting, but I wish it would just stay one way now.

NR: Who came up with all the little bits that you do, like hanging over the side of the boat? Was that you, was that Bobby (Longbottom), or a collaboration?

RG: A lot of that's me. That's usually me and then Bobby will come see it and say, "Oh, I like that. Make sure you do that every night." Or he'll say, "I don't think that's appropriate. That's going a little too far." He's real good about that with me. We've worked together many times over the years. I trust him implicitly as a director. I will ask him if it's too much or too little. He'll always let me know.

NR: What do you do as dance captain?

RG: The general umbrella description is that I have to maintain the dance aspects of the show. I help at understudy rehearsals with the stage managers. I am basically responsible for teaching and maintaining anything that is set to music. In this show, since we have so much underscoring, or there is certain staging in the solos, duets, and trios, I'm basically responsible for knowing all of that movement, and teaching the new people and the understudies. The actors will get their blocking from the stage managers, but I will teach them everything else. Then I have to watch as much as I can given my situation. I have to give notes and maintain the vision that Bobby has as the director and choreographer, to keep things as best as I can remember and as best as I've notated. I have to keep them the way that they were set in rehearsal. Over the course of a long run, things change without people necessarily knowing that they've changed. They start doing something different without realizing that it's different. I'll go to them and say, "It's not meant to be like that. It's actually this." The standard response to that is, "Oh, but I've always done it that way." I'll say, "Please don't ever, ever say those words to me." Those are the words that no dance captain or anyone else in my position would want to hear.

NR: Peter (Flynn) told me you sat out recently to see it.

RG: In the year and a half that I've been dance captain, I've only sat out twice.

NR: The rest of the time you do this from the stage? Really?

RG: Yeah, and it's hard. It's not a good situation. The dance captain should never be in a role like mine. The only reason it's that way is because that's the way it was originally set up. When I came into the show, the spot I was replacing was the dance captain. It was Adam Pelty, who was also the choreographer. He remained in the show and was the dance captain. With him leaving the show, that spot became available and it was the whole package that was being offered.

NR: When you're in something like "The Gavotte," how can you watch what others are doing?

RG: It's hard.

NR: What about when you're changing your clothes? There has to be something going on while you're getting changed.

RG: It's hard. I have to rely on other eyes at times. I have to rely on the stage managers. I have to rely on other people in the company coming to me with things that they see or things that have become problems. That happens anyway. People will come up to me and say, "I'm having a problem here. Someone's in my way and it didn't used to be this way." That's easy enough to deal with. There are times when I'm on stage, and there's something going on behind me and I can't see it. People know I can't see it so they'll tell me about it. Then I'll just try to find out what the problem is or how we can fix it. But it's not a great situation because it doesn't really allow me to sit and watch the whole picture. I hope you never notice this, but there are many times on stage when I'm on with everyone, that I am watching exactly what everyone is doing as much as I can. I try to make it not look like I'm scanning or trying to take notes. It's a terrible situation because then my mind goes into that mindset, and I'm not taking care of my show, and that's when it becomes a real problem. That's the part of it that I dislike more than anything. I have to have both heads on at the same time, and it's not really fair. I feel like one will always suffer. A lot of times the dance captain will suffer because I would rather concentrate on the scenes and my role and where I fit into that. Sometimes I will see something, and think, "I have to tell so and so about that." That will take me away from the scene and then when the scene is over, I will have forgotten. I do the best I can but it's not good.

NR: Tell me about the summer tour. Were the audiences different than they are here?

RG: They were wildly enthusiastic. They loved the show, especially in Dallas. Dallas ate the show up. Houston was a little more reserved, but they still enjoyed it a lot. Atlanta was a very effusive response. They really did like it. What was great was we got really large audiences. They were subscription-based summer musical seasons in each of those cities so they sort of had a built-in audience, which was great for us. They were coming to see whatever the latest thing was and we were it. The response was so great. Here in New York, the response is often great, but it varies here. It can be terrific one night and it can be much more sedate the next. In a long run, it can be much more so in the beginning and then it starts to peter out as the run goes on. You get more tourists and more foreign visitors and maybe they don't get certain references. It does change over time. At the Minskoff last winter, we had plenty of shows when the audience would sit on their hands, and the next night they would love it. Certainly when there's more people in the audience, people are less self-conscious about laughing. Chances are if you have a big audience it will be a nice response.

NR: That feeds on itself. I've seen bad audiences and I've seen the cast work harder, and it just spirals downward.

RG: That's the worst thing you can do - work harder.

NR: I've seen that happen. I've also seen the opposite where the audience is so good that the cast gets better and better and it spirals upward.

RG: The worst thing you can do is push harder when you think the audience doesn't like you. I've seen people self-destruct on stage. You just have to back off. It's a natural thing. If you're doing something where you're used to getting a comedic response...they've been laughing and all of a sudden, they don't laugh, you immediately, as an actor, think, "Oops, I blew it" or "Oops, I did something wrong." Or, what's actually much more common is for the actor to say, "Oh, it's that audience." They will always blame the audience first before they will blame themselves.

NR: Really?

RG: Oh, yeah. Trust me on this. I've seen it in any number of shows and I've seen it in this show. The audience will not be terribly responsive and everyone will blame the audience. I'll think, "Maybe it's not them. Maybe it's us. Maybe we're tired or we're not focused." I have a few lines in the show that usually get a nice response, and if they don't, I do not blame the audience. The first thing I think is, "What did I do? Was it not set up well? Did I not deliver it the way it should have been?" I don't want to blame them.

NR: Sometimes you're not getting a lot of response, but they're smiling and they're enjoying it. They're just not vocal. There are times when I'm sitting in the house and it's very quiet around me, but I'll go downstairs at intermission and hear people saying, "That was wonderful. I loved it."

RG: Both of those times that I sat out and watched the show, it was mid-week. There were very small audiences that were vocally unresponsive. I remember going back stage at intermission and the cast would come up to me and say, "This is awful. They hate us" and I'll say, "No, they actually don't. They're just quiet." In the audience I would hear gasps and in the prison scene they would say, "Wow, he's really being mean to her" and in the sword fight, they would say, "Get him!" I would hear all these things that we don't hear on stage. I would tell people this and they wouldn't believe me.

NR: Do you know if you're going to do the tour yet?

RG: I haven't decided.

NR: If you don't, what would you like to do?

RG: Just do something new. After a year and a half, you definitely crave something new. I haven't decided if I want to go on the tour. There's a good chance I will, but I don't want to make that commitment just yet. I'm sort of entertaining the idea of staying and seeing what happens. A couple of smaller things in town have arisen as possibilities. They're basically non-paying jobs but they're chances to be creative in a different way. As an actor unfortunately, you can't always make a living by acting. It's nice, and I've been real lucky that I've gone through periods where I have, but there are always going to be periods where you don't make a living by doing your craft. You have to do other things, or you work on your craft and you just don't make any money out of it. No one makes any money doing Off Off-Broadway or little shows in town, but it's great for your soul. It's great for your being to stretch, to create, to try different stuff.

NR: A lot of people are hoping you'll do the tour. I received lots of email about that. They told me you're their favorite Bounder.

RG: Awww. Well, I like to hear that. It's very possible. I have to make a decision pretty quickly. What I do know is that I will not be the dance captain on the tour. I have already expressed to them that I have no interest in that responsibility and they have gone to someone else for that. That is a big burden off my mind, because I thought if they were going to be sticky about having that as a part of my responsibilities, then I really wouldn't have gone. I just didn't have any interest in it. I've been out on the road in those situations and I just didn't want to have to worry about that. When you're going out on the road you're already leaving your home, you're leaving your friends, you're uprooting yourself. If I go out on the road, I want it to be as pleasant an experience as possible, and for me that would mean buying a new car, bringing along things that will make me happy, not having to rehearse in the theater except when I need to as an actor in the show. I want to just come in and do the job, enjoy the cities I'm in, catch up with people I know in other cities. Whatever it will take to make it pleasant because it can be really hard. It can be a lot of fun, but it can also be hard.

NR: Is this going to be SP4?

RG: No. The changes to SP3 came because we had to make adjustments. We will not be making major changes to the show. Nobody has any interest in that and there's no need for it. The only change that I know about that I think they will try is tweaking "Madame Guillotine" and putting a different spin on that, just because we don't have enough bodies on stage. Now it's more of a number about the soldiers, and we just have so few soldiers, it isn't terribly impressive.

NR: Where do you see yourself in five years? What would you like to be doing?

RG: Oh, gosh. Still doing this - not necessarily this show but still doing the work.

NR: Is there any specific role? Do you want to go into directing or doing choreography?

RG: I actually would like to dip my toe back in the pool of creativity, in the sense of choreography and direction. I was studying direction in school, and back in San Diego I used to choreograph, once I learned that I could actually dance. I was good at it at times and bad at it at times as well. I was so young and I had so little experience. I was good at coming up with ideas for a number and conceptualizing a number and not necessarily coming up with great steps. I hadn't been doing it that long so I didn't have a big vocabulary of dance knowledge. I'm getting the bug to do that again because I've basically been an actor for the last twenty years. Now I'm thinking I want to try that again and see what that would be like at this point in my life with the knowledge that I've acquired over those years, with people I've worked with and things that I've learned.

NR: Well, good luck with whatever you decide. Thank you so much.

RG: You're welcome.

As I write this, I still don't know if Russell is going to do the tour. Whatever he decides, I wish him the best of luck. He's given me countless hours of laughter in his delightful portrayal of Elton, and he was even the inspiration for my screen saver at work, which says, "I'd rather be off netting butterflies." Of course my co-workers look at me strangely, but I know what it means and it never fails to make me smile.

Questions suggested by:

Jan Combopiano, Susan Cassidy, Leona Hoegsberg, Susan Luchey, Bettina Pagalilauan, Jody Uyanik, Stephanie Henkin, Lauren Teweles, Lois and Elizabeth Colpo, Jennifer Ahlborn, Pat Wafer, Laura Cutler, Colleen Rosati