(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?

(more…)

(New York Magazine) Ben Whishaw and Hugh Dancy are two boyish British actors (the latter married to Claire Danes) cast as lovers in The Pride, Alexi Kaye Campbell’s play, which opens February 16 at the MCC Theater. The story takes place in two very different cultural moments for male-male relationships. In the first scene, set in 1958 London, Whishaw is a writer who becomes entangled with Hugh Dancy’s character, a married man. Then, in 2008 London, he portrays an unfaithful lover and Dancy his monogamy-seeking ex-boyfriend. During the show, doe-eyed Whishaw professes a predilection for acts including (but not limited to) Nazi role-play and simulated rape. Mike Vilensky talked with them about all that—plus Qigong massage.

Did you have any hesitations about taking explicit gay roles?
Hugh Dancy: No.
Ben Whishaw: I think of it as a very hopeful play. It’s all about people wanting to know themselves better.

Still, Ben, your character says he’s into bondage, rubber, chains.
BW: Sure, I have thought about my mom seeing it. [To Dancy] Has that thought crossed your mind?
HD: Oh, God, yes. But people seem convinced that after I agreed to do the play, all my agents begged me not to. It’s just not true—not really.

(more…)

The dashing British actor thinks pink in The Pride.
By Adam Feldman

(Time Out New York) For an actor frequently described as “dreamy,” Hugh Dancy seems surprisingly well-grounded. In the past few years, Dancy’s star has been rising both in his native England and in the U.S.—an ascent that has not been impeded by the sharpness of his cheekbones or the softness of his sea-gray eyes. But it is his sensitive turns in such plays as 2008’s Journey’s End and such films as 2009’s Adam and that have really sealed the deal. This month, Dancy—who married fellow actor Claire Danes in September—opens in the American premiere of Alexi Kaye Campbell’s The Pride, directed by Joe Mantello for MCC Theater.

Did your agent raise any concerns about your taking three months off to do an Off Broadway play on gay themes?
If those thoughts ever arose, I’m grateful that they weren’t expressed to me. I was sent the play by MCC in June, and I thought it was one of the best new pieces of writing I’d read or seen onstage in a long time. January through March is a relatively short commitment. And theater is something I enjoy; it’s something you come away from a little richer, in every sense other than the literal.

Your father, Jonathan Dancy, is a well-known moral philosopher. Was there ever any pressure to go into the family business?
No, not at all. I don’t think—I’m trying to think of a polite way to put it—I don’t think he would have considered the effort worthwhile.

How do you think that growing up with a philosopher shaped you?
My dad encouraged us to ask questions of ourselves and our assumptions. One of the things I enjoy about theater is the experience you get in rehearsal: to sit with a play and beat it until the blood comes out of it, and figure out what the hell it’s about. You have to have that curiosity, and I guess in some ways that was instilled by my parents. Unfortunately, in film that’s not a given. You film everything out of order, and you haven’t often had a chance to bounce your ideas off other people. We’re none of us so good that in solitude we figure everything out.

(more…)