Ross William Wild is a very nice chap, maybe it’s because we’re both Scottish we get along so well, myself born in Dundee, he a little further north in Aberdeen. Maybe it’s because despite being a rock star, he considers himself first, and foremost, a writer, a creator of stories.
“Stories, and storytelling have been my passion since just about 4 years old,” he tells me, “From making up stories with my dad at bedtime, to writing my first little novella when I was about 7. Since then, I’ve always had that passion for stories, through the characters I inhabit, and the music I make; just any artform that tells a story, that shocks you, makes you fall in love, all those good (and bad) things.”
For an artist who’s enjoyed more than notable success, from touring the world as Elvis Pressley with the Tony nominated Million Dollar Quartet, to fronting the legendary Spandau Ballet for most of 2017, and a slew of headline parts Off West-End and around the UK in between, it’s somewhat reassuring to hear that his dad’s friends are still prone to ask, “so exactly what is it you do?”
His answer, “well, I say, tell you what, how about I tell you a story?”
Gatsby, the Musical
One story Ross was absolutely bursting at the seams to tell, was that of Gatsby: The Musical, a new production set to debut at the Southwark Playhouse, on the 8th of December. Ross plays the titular role of Jay Gatsby, eccentric and mysterious American gazillionaire of the roaring 20’s, and thrower of parties at his Long Island estate sufficient to shame the Met Gala. The object of his affections, socialite Daisy Buchanan, a mercurial character in her own right, is both an old flame, and long since married. First brought to the page by F. Scott Fitzgerald, in his 1925 classic novel, “The Great Gatsby,” these two most star-crossed have been courting tragedy on stage, and screen ever since.
“I don’t actually like “the musical” part of our title,” he confesses, “It’s a play with phenomenal songs. You’re going to love the songs!”
‘Broken wings,’ is my favourite number in the show, and it is just unbelievable. It’s as great as you will hear two females/women sing in a duet in musical theatre.”
Overall, the show is about half and half (story to song), if not a bit more play than musical theatre. It’s not like, ‘I’m talking to you, I’m talking to you, now I’m singing! See me singing at you?!’
Ross is firmly of the opinion that the somewhat ubiquitous appending of the word “musical” to productions is one clichéd practice we could do well without. (I agree!)
F. Scott Fitzgerald, but not as you know it
“Joe Evans (composer and lyricist) encapsulates moments. Linnie (Reedman), the script writer, is phenomenal! It’s stunning. Not just lifted and adapted, this is not an adaptation, this is an original script. There will be lots of recognisable moments for F. Scott Fitzgerald fans, so expect lots of little golden nuggets. It’s beautiful, inspiring, sad yes, but inspiring. I love the fact that it’s so feminine centric, the protagonist is definitely Daisy.”
About his co-star, Jodie Steele, who plays Daisy, Gatsby’s disarming femme fatale, Ross couldn’t be more fulsome in his praise.
“Jodie’s amazing at the part, gives it everything you’d want. She’s loveable, likeable, ditsy, but has a real sense of purpose. You can see why all these guys are obsessed with her! She’s a lot more complex than your average 1920’s girl, but again she doesn’t know what she wants.”
Ross and Jodie have previous experience playing opposite each other, “I played her first leading man on stage in Bare, and here we are, with people still talking about it now! That was 7 years ago, and full of raunchy sex scenes! Playing Gatsby is a world away from that, but having no boundaries with someone where there are now hella (sic) boundaries between the characters, man, the way we get to explore that is just amazing, and, she’s one of the best singers you’ll ever hear.”
Ross explains to me just how thrilling it’s been to be able to physically interact with his fellow performers, after the months and months of social distancing. “We’re going to be doing choreographies, really soon, Jodie and I have a beautiful waltz to perform at one point, and I just can’t wait to get started. It’s going to be brilliant.”
In the original book we watch Gatsby’s fall from grace through the eyes of young Nick Carraway, Gatsby’s newest neighbour. Gatsby, the Musical, it seems, is going to offer a fresh perspective on the Gatsby mythos.
A fresh perspective on the Gatsby myth
“Because” he tells me “It starts from Daisy’s perspective. Now you see, F. Scott Fitzgerald put his own wife, Zelda, in a sanitorium, so (in Gatsby, the Musical) it starts with Daisy just having left one. Then we have her flashbacks of the parties, we see all the fun and excess: the audience gets to be in the thick of the big flapping party environment. We also see the tragedy that Gatsby has left in his wake, the death of the American dream in a sense.”
Ross tells me he’s looking forward to subverting the audience’s expectations, “Oh the glitz and glamour is there, and the great music, actually the music is phenomenal, really, some of the best new songs I’ve ever heard. I’m not playing Leo DiCaprio’s Gatsby in the least (he helmed the Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 movie), my Gatsby is very much flawed, but still very much in control of his own image. It’s a question of balance, of presenting that doubt in his true nature. I know the truth about me, but no one else is getting to know.”
Ross makes it clear that setting, and context is going to be hugely relevant to Gatsby, the Musical, beyond the refined, confined, and rarefied world of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic.
“In the later scenes, we see how everything crumbles in the 1920’s, with the stark reality of the Wall Street Crash. Although they are rebuilding, and getting back towards normality, they’re about to be hit with the Second World War. It’s adding depth to the audience’s experience.”
An unforgettable experience in the making
Ross’s experience of bringing this new vision of Gatsby to stage is clearly leaving a big impression.
“We’re jumping in at the deep end,” he tells me, “There’s new people joining cast, in fact the majority (he and the creators put on streamed semi-staged performances during lockdown). For me, and Jodie, it’s still brand new, as we’ve only ever done this in that concert style. We would have liked to do more staging for the online show, but it was impossible due to Covid. So there’s still a lot of wiggle room in the creative process. Me and Jodie are continually discovering new things, new lines, new scenes, and brand-new energy for them. I hadn’t read the book back then,” he confesses, “but now I have, that and a lot more about F. Scott Fitzgerald, so I understand the man a bit more, and his character a bit more too. He’s (Gatsby) hard to get a grasp of, as he’s not extensively described in the book, so you have to pick and choose between different aspects of his character, as slimly as they’re described, as to which is true.”
“You see,” he tells me, “As the reader, where we’re 95% sure most of his alleged back story is not true, but how do you play that as an actor? Especially as I’m firmly convinced, maybe 90% of the time, Gatsby is fully convinced of his own tall tales. That’s been fascinating to play with because when you’ve got your colleagues in your face, not 2 metres distant, it’s a lot harder to reproduce all his claims with a straight face; and well, whether he’s crooked or not is another matter.”
Don’t got them lockdown blues
When it comes to lockdown, Ross found a brighter side upon which to look. “Having the luxury of lockdown, I’ve had a lot of time to think about the man, and the deeper side of the story. It’s been great, well apart from the money, of course! I don’t think there’s much to hide behind in this story, I think these characters are ultimately being confronted in the cold light of day. There’s the Gatsby franchise, if you will, the glitz, glamour, and excess, all of the good things, you know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll? But the reality is a lot sadder, and it touches on some real, key themes such as finding your place in the world and becoming the person you want to be. Reaching for the stars but finding everything falling away; the pursuit of excellence, and the tragedy that success often leaves in its wake.”
I ask him if he found any resonance between himself, and Gatsby, and Ross warms to theme.
“Massively” he says, “I was the naughty boy in school, well I was labelled that way – I’m diagnosed ADHD, and Tourette’s – I was constantly being made aware that my dream of being an actor and writer wasn’t going to happen. I never believed that, somehow, I always believed in myself. I always believed I had good reasons, not vain ones, I hated the idea of vain actors. Growing up in Aberdeen. it’s very much like, “keep your heid doon, dinnae show aff.” I don’t disagree, I just calmly get on with it. So, I guess I led a secret life in that sense.”
That paradigm has somewhat reversed as Ross’s career has evolved, “Now, whenever I’m on stage, and people are watching and applauding, I can’t escape feeling like I’m a fraud. Truth is, it’s always a struggle being an actor. When you’re not in work, you always talk about the jobs you’re just off, you just don’t show the struggle to your friends and family.”
Mental Health Matters
Ross often feels he is expected to be larger than life, particularly in group situations. “People expect it of you because you’re an actor. Thing is, I’ll be a hermit for three days after a night out, just getting up, going to the gym, eating, sleeping, repeat. I save myself for big doses in small amounts! I think that’s what Gatsby does, you only ever really see him at the centre of a show, at the centre of opulence. He’s constantly in fear that this façade is going to crash and burn in front of him, so everything has to be fireworks, champagne flutes and chandeliers: the man’s afraid of simplicity. Of course, that’s what he wants: just love.”
Ross finishes, “The reality of the man is much simpler than it appears. I resonate with the character immensely.”
I asked if he felt the themes of the Gatsby story were still relevant to the current day, and Ross was in doubt that they were.
Gatsby has never been more relevant
“Oh yeah, take social media as an example, you can’t get away from it: Influencers, fakery, hocus-pokery, it’s completely the same. We live in a world of our own making, of fantasy becoming our reality. There are more Gatsby’s now than there have ever been! There’s also some kind of fable in the Gatsby story. I guess you could sum it up as …watch what you wish for. I’ve experienced moderate fame, fronting Spandau Ballet, and some of it was brilliant, some was absolute shit, completely horrible. So, you know, that’s again going back to Gatsby, he experiences that, everyone does, that’s life!”
Ross drives his point home, pointing to the deadly tragedy seen at the recent Astroworld Festival in Houston, Texas. “Look at this Travis Scott! What an egomaniac! if that’s not a demonstration of the nuclear power, the destructive nuclear power that comes with the worship of celebrity, I don’t know what is. All these people rushing the gates for who? Some lanky bloke who sings with auto-tune?”
There are more Gatsby’s now than there have ever been!
Ross William Wild
I next discover that Ross’s opportunity to explore the toxic side of fame, almost didn’t happen. “I actually got the gig without auditioning, which is quite rare, no matter what you’ve done.” No one, you see, was more surprised that he, “I missed the first audition,” he says, “I got the date wrong, and the next one I just couldn’t make.”
Dreams do come true
All was not lost though, “The casting director comes to me after, saying they’ve seen my work, and they want me to play it. Honestly, I couldn’t be more grateful for them taking a chance on me. In a world of ten “no’s” and one “yes,” it was heart-warming. From the get to I just had to make the casting director proud, and thankfully from the first moment, I was blown away by it.”
Gatsby, the Musical, is clearly the show that just keeps on giving. Ross continues, “I did Million Dollar Quartet all over the world, and the last time I did it wasn’t for the heart, but the bank account, and creatively I was finished with in within a few minutes of the first run-through. This is totally different. The evolution of the production itself, the continuing creativity from both actors and producers have kept my hooked. I want to see where Gatsby lives no, I was to feel like I own a space instead of a stage.”
If you want to understand Ross’s continuing passion for the piece, then you first need to understand the man.
Ross William Wild, the actor
“I don’t know that I have the words to describe it, I’ve just always had a strong idea of concept. Being a writer myself (he’s currently working with a game development company on a future title), I really feel like I understand writers and what they’re trying to get across. I’m of David Mamet school of thought — practical aesthetics — I’m focussed on the writer’s intention, and fulfilling that as an actor. So, a piece like Gatsby, really, it’s such a solid piece of legendary literature, it actually presents the issue of being on some level easy to understand, but not easy to execute.”
Ross tells me that whilst he was glad of being part of the online, socially distanced streaming concert version of the show, “It was like back-flips in a cage! For personal reasons I really want to get into the space, inhabit it with the other actors, touch them, not always thinking about passing on a deadly pandemic – we’re thoroughly tested throughout every day!”
Looking ahead to the opening night of Gatsby, the Musical on the 8th of December, Ross’s excitement bubbles over. For him, it’s all about entertainment when the curtain comes up. “It’s time to really play, play being the operative word, play with the characters, to interact with the others, and to have fun! I firmly believe an actor’s job is not just to be believable, but to be fun. At the end of the day, this is entertainment, even when you’re portraying tragedy, it has to be engaging, you have to find the entertainment in it. The audience is the protagonist at the end of the day, you have to pull them into a vicarious experience. Everyday in rehearsals there’s more time to play, and to find that magic.”
“So, Ross,” I ask, “The million-dollar question,” why should an Edinburgh theatre fan make the trip to London to catch the show?”
Ross begins by extolling the virtues of London as a destination, particularly when its decked with Christmas wonderland splendour. “It marries really well with the glamour of Gatsby, and it leaves you with a gorgeous message. It’s one of those shows you’d want to see as a couple or a family. It’s PG-13, nothing obscene to see here. if you’ve seen one of the movies, it’s a chance to find out more about it. Though this is not a sequel, but it has a sequential element regarding Jodie’s character Daisy.
“A lot of people will have watched some version of Gatsby wondering what it’s all about,” he continues, telling me that it took him two viewings of the Baz Lurhmann rendition, to find the human story, behind the “Lana Del Rey whirling montage.”
“I think that’s what you get from the outset in our production. It focuses on the human story; we’re not a Hollywood blockbuster, we’re a very dedicated bunch of live performers and a great creative team. You’re going to be sucked deep into this world. You’re going to be entertained. You’re going to love the songs. It’s also funny, there are so many funny moments, bits that we’ve only found rehearsing this time.”
If the show is half as good as Ross William Wild’s passionate belief in the show warrants, the forecast looks sunny. I finish off by asking what’s next for Ross’s career.
“Well, I’ve just finished a 24 date UK tour, with my metal band Mercutio, it’s a massive focus of mine. We’re pitching to some really big bands to go on world tour next year. There’s the computer game, which we’ll be pushing soon, and I’m actually involved with shooting a little vampire film for YouTube, and working with some fabulous independent producers.
“But” he finishes, “when it comes to Gatsby, that’s all I’ll be thinking about. If it does go to the West End, it will most definitely have pride of my place in my schedule.”
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