(W Magazine) With his moody pout, cascading curls and buttery diction, Hugh Dancy has played his share of literate hunks and dashing princes—from Prince Charmant in Ella Enchanted to the handsome science fiction fan in The Jane Austen Book Club. But the British actor has also taken on darker dramatic roles, among them the WWI soldier in the 2007 Broadway revival of the play Journey’s End and a young engineer with Asperberger’s syndrome in the 2009 film, Adam. The son of a philosophy professor and a mother who worked in academic publishing, Dancy, who married Claire Danes last year, studied English literature at Oxford before turning to acting. Tonight, Dancy returns to the New York stage in the American premiere of Alexi Kaye Campbell’s The Pride at MCC Theater, starring opposite Ben Whishaw and Andrea Riseborough. Dancy plays two Londoners named Philip, one in 1958 who refuses to acknowledge his homosexuality, the other in 2008 who is openly gay and longing for a committed relationship. Dancy chatted with W just before opening night.

What drew you to The Pride?
The eloquence of the writing was just gripping—and I thought the structure was incredibly intelligent. It dramatizes a point—that the assumptions of a culture 50 years ago can still permeate and affect our culture now. To put it bluntly, I don’t often sit down and read dialogue between two characters that I think feels real and rich and heightened without being unnatural. So I was just sitting at home reading this stuff to myself and having a wale of a time. I love investigating a character who can not only lie to other people about who he is, but really, truly lie to himself about who he is.

Having worked here and in Britain, do you think Americans make much more of an issue of the fact that a character is gay than the Brits do? Especially when played by a straight actor?
I think probably it is more of an issue here. The tabloid press in the UK is as bad as it gets in terms of many things, but it seems to me that here in the States, there’s a particular fascination in terms of unearthing the idea that somebody might be gay. It’s not something I understand. It’s a strange form of paranoia.

You’ve played a number of literate heroes. Any roles that you’d love to play that are against type? Any dream roles that you’d love to tackle?
I think that I’m always interested in what I haven’t done. I see great variety in the roles I’ve played whereas some could say, “Well they’re all bookish hero types.” Wouldn’t everyone love to play a villain?

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NY1’s review (which is favorable, and contains clips from the play) and an old video from the rehearsal period:

MCC Theater’s “The Pride” featurette, which features a few more and the same clips from the play, as well as interviews.

Here is a small sampling of what the critics are saying about Hugh. Click the links for the full reviews.

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Village Voice – The acting, by all three principals as well as Adam James in a series of small roles, is first-class, with Dancy, subtly differentiating his two roles, casting the most intense magnetic field.

San Francisco Chronicle – Dancy is equally fine, particularly as the buttoned-up Philip of 1958, an anguished individual who even considers aversion therapy to “cure” himself from an attraction to men.

New Jersey Newsroom – Dancy naturally depicts a tightly-repressed gentleman of then and a well-adjusted fellow of today.

The Faster Times – Hugh Dancy has to my mind the more difficult role of the conflicted Philip, and if some may see the coldness that frames his intensity as the actor’s discomfort in such an explicit role, I see it as a choice to show the damage (self)inflicted on a man in denial.

Backstage – Dancy’s mightily repressed 1958 English alpha male, whose inherent masculinity is undermined by his desires, confidently embraces that same masculinity as part of his modern-day gay identity.

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