Josh Radnor and Noah Galvin talk HIT MACHINE | the stage and screen stars on their UK theatre debut (INTERVIEW)

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Oh my God.

Mickey Jo (Interviewer)

Hey it's Mickey Jo and I'm here at the Soho Theatre in London where the Hit Machine is getting ready to begin its sold out preview performances. Stars of stage and screen Noah Galvin and Josh Radnor star together in this brand new play and I am here today to meet them and find out a little bit more about it. According to the blurb of this show, one of you is playing a hit making powerhouse and the other is playing a flailing musician and I'm very curious to find out which is which.

Josh Radnor

Can you guess which is which.

Mickey Jo (Interviewer)

I don't wish to be so presumptuous. You're gonna have to tell me I'm

Noah Galvin

the hitmaker and I'm the ne' er do.

Mickey Jo (Interviewer)

Well what else can you tell me then about this brand new story being brought to the stage?

Noah Galvin

Hit Machine is about two brothers

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who

Noah Galvin

have an age gap, not a big one, who grew up in the same household, experienced the same traumas, but have developed very different coping mechanisms and ways of armoring themselves and arming themselves and. And different ways of going through the world. I think both are still, I think, pretty entrenched in their trauma and are both trying to navigate that trauma and maybe push it to the side a little bit. But it takes them being in the same space, in a moment of crisis and transition for those things to come to the fore, to come to the surface and force them to deal with their intense upbringing and deal with it together and face it together.

Josh Radnor

Yeah. And I think they both use music in different ways. My character produces and uplifts artists, but he's success and money and all the trappings of that are kind of what build his both literal and metaphorical fortress in the world. He's got this enormous house where the play takes place. And then Noah's character is much more interested in authentic artistic expression. He's suspicious of the mainstream, that it might be corrupting of his voice. And so there's an interesting thing of. It's not just about the trauma. You know, you could make the argument that. Or at least from my perspective, my character's perspective, that Noah's character is really kind of stuck in the past. And I'm like, just barrel ahead, just move forward, stop looking backwards. I've got this kind of almost stoic way of just crowding out the. But of course, you know, you can only crowd that out for so long before it comes back to haunt you.

Noah Galvin

Yeah, it's sort of this. I felt this way about the pandemic, but I'm. I'm currently in family therapy with my siblings and my mother.

Josh Radnor

And it's true. I mean, we've heard a lot about

Noah Galvin

it, but sort of like doing this play about brothers and mid childhood and how it shapes you. I'm like, very much going through the same exact thing in my real life and rehashing all of these things. We're like, you know, I'll tell a story, and then my brother and sister will each tell their versions of the same story. And you wouldn't know it was the same story. But in these spaces with people that knew you at your messiest, I think you can't. You sort of like, can't help but be yourself and be your most raw, most vulnerable, most fucked up self. And I think it's, you know, it's a safe space because you've probably gotten ugly with these people before, but it

Josh Radnor

can also be the most volatile space at the same time. Yeah. I think. I think Wes, the character I play, it's like the mask I wear in the world. Like, he doesn't buy it, so I can't really wear it around him, which I find both frustrating and probably liberating, but more like annoying that he. He doesn't. He's not impressed with my life. He's not. I mean, he is on some level, I think, but he's not. He's suspicious.

Noah Galvin

I wouldn't mind a couple more cars.

Josh Radnor

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you ever. You can edit this out if you want to, but it's so funny. Did you ever listen to the podcast Heavyweight? Have either of you heard it? It's an incredible podcast, Jonathan. Yes, yes, of course.

Noah Galvin

Love it.

Josh Radnor

But Rob Cordry is the featured, you know, from the Daily Show. He's a great, funny actor, and he has this super strong memory of this year. He broke his arm, and he was in a cast, and he talks to his family, and his family's like, that wasn't you who broke your arm. That was your brother. But it's like it was this formative event in his life when his arm is broken and no one from his family remembers it. And so the podcast host helps him solve this mystery. But it's so funny that even an event like that can have so many different narrators of, like, what happened, what didn't happen. And a lot of it is about almost like. Yeah. Like, everyone's accusing each. We're each accusing each other of reaching erroneous conclusions about what these. This event, this central event. But many events in our childhood meant.

Noah Galvin

Yeah.

Josh Radnor

And who our parents are and where we came from and, you know, how we got stuck or unstuck and.

Noah Galvin

Yeah. How you let it sort of, like, shape you emotionally.

Josh Radnor

Yeah, yeah.

Mickey Jo (Interviewer)

And music, obviously, is a big part of this story as well, for each of these characters. And there is original music as part of the play as well.

Noah Galvin

Yeah, yeah.

Mickey Jo (Interviewer)

It's cool.

Noah Galvin

We have Ben Harper, who has written some music, as well as C.J. harper, his son, which I think is very cool and sort of mirrors the sort of dynamic of the play. Yeah. In a very cool way. And Khalil, who is the third actor in the play, also is designing the sound for the play and has done some music writing, and he plays a musician in the show. And so it all feels.

Josh Radnor

And we've done a tiny bit of our own. Yeah. We have a collab. Yeah, yeah, we've done some. So everyone's. It's it's interesting because it's like the play is about collaboration. Yeah. It's one of the themes. And everyone's musical fingerprints are kind of on this.

Noah Galvin

Yeah. In some ways, you know, in a really special way.

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Noah Galvin

We all have had sort of a. A hand in the creation of this thing. It's what I love about Cedar most is that you're just a group of people in a room sort of making something as good as it possibly could be. And when everybody's game and when everybody's on board for that. So satisfying.

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Mickey Jo (Interviewer)

Yeah. Now, you've both worked on screen and on some pretty major stages. I'm curious about how this project at this theatre doing a cool little summer run in London, reached both of you and how this happened. I mean, your husband is doing a new musical also sort of off West End, and that could be an amazing coincidence or something.

Noah Galvin

It literally is.

Skyrizi Patient (Alternate)

Wow.

Mickey Jo (Interviewer)

Okay.

Noah Galvin

I had met John through my sister because they share a nanny, their kids, Sharon nanny. And my sister was just constantly leaving things at John's house. So I was going over there to, like, pick up the purple headphones and, you know, had met John in passing a couple times. Somebody dropped out of a very last minute reading of a new rewrite he had done in this play. I got a text from my sister that was like, john doesn't have your number. Would you be down to just do a reading of this play? And I was like, sure. I was planning on just being husband in London this summer and just, you

Josh Radnor

know, which is not a terrible gig.

Noah Galvin

No, I was very, very happy to be doing just that. But then this sort of fell into my lap and I did the reading. I ran up to John and asked what his plan for this play was, and he was like, we're going to London. And I was like, I'm cheap. Hire me.

Josh Radnor

I. John and I knew each other, but not. We had never met, strangely. He was a writer on a TV show I did for NBC years ago called Rise, which was also about great shot musicals. Did you watch that?

Noah Galvin

Obviously auditioned for it too.

Josh Radnor

Was a guest great on that show.

Noah Galvin

Thank you.

Josh Radnor

And I mean, I'm sure that I know that show is very special because he met his wife, Megan. They were both in the writers room together. And he asked me, via a friend, to do a reading a while back. So I did. I think maybe the first reading of this play, I didn't do the one Noah did. But then once we were both on board for the London production, we did a reading at Noah's place and it felt great and we're here. I mean, it was just. I don't know. There's certain things in an actor's life where you're like, do you want to do an original new cool play in London? And it's like, the answer is yes, of course you do. Widely, yeah.

Mickey Jo (Interviewer)

One of the themes that is talked about in the play is the cost of turning pain into art. And I'm curious what that means for each of you.

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Noah Galvin

I think there's this sort of like moment right now, this sort of voyeuristic moment where music and other, you know, forms of media are so deeply rooted in somebody's real life experience and even more so another level of the virality of that thing is like letting us be in on the secret like Sabrina Carpenter writing a song about Barry or whatever that may look like. We get to be in on the table in some way and utilizing your own life as this means of selling the content and building the content and I think it's like a, it can, it can be a dangerous slippery slope. But I think there's a happy medium. Good art is honest and authentic and so there's an element of you need to tap into the darkness or whatever you need to tap into in Order to make something that feels organic and something that's going to be, you know, specificity begets universality. It's something that's so specific that anybody can sort of see themselves in or, or, or attach themselves to in some way.

Josh Radnor

But I would say also that pain is just one aspect of, like, being alive. And like, there's also anger, there's also joy, there's also gratitude, frustration. I don't know, there's a. You know, we could list all the adjectives, but there's like. Are those nouns? I think those are nouns.

Noah Galvin

Those are nice.

Josh Radnor

Yeah. But so I, you know, there are artists that, you know, I used to have a friend. I mean, I still have a friend who's a great songwriter, and she was like, I need to. I need to have a breakup so I can write my next album, you know, And I've never been. I actually create more fluidly from when I feel a little more up. Like when I'm down, I don't. I might get an idea, but I'm not that creatively inspired when I'm down. And I'm grateful for that because I don't feel like I need to be in some despairing place to make something. But I think, I like to think that I'm drawing on more than just pain when I'm making stuff. And I, I like, I like art that attempts to, like, swallow the world rather than just one aspect of what it means to be alive. But like, it's, it's like all of it, you know, I think this play does a good job of that. It's not just trauma, you know, it's like as Noah's been. Has reminded someone else. Like, it's actually, it's really funny, you know, when you see like two brothers, trauma, shared, past conflict.

Mickey Jo (Interviewer)

Like, it's a very edgy poster for

Noah Galvin

both of you, but it's also a 70 minute comedy.

Josh Radnor

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I have seen people, you know, we. People see the poster and say, you look pretty angry, you know, And I was like. And yeah, but. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mickey Jo (Interviewer)

Now, on the subject of authenticity in storytelling, you are both musicians as well as actors. I have a couple of song questions here, the answer to which can be a song. Is there a song that reminds you. It doesn't have to encompass the entire thing, but a song that immediately reminds you of childhood.

Noah Galvin

Well, I would say songs that remind me of childhood are like. I mean, there's like a range, you know, there's like songs that like my parents introduced me to. Like, you Know, like Simon and Garfunkel, but also like Flo Rida. You know, like, literally was my childhood. And the cast recording of Fairly Modern Millie is my childhood. You know, I think all of those things. Like Josh said, there's joy, there's pain, there's whatever. And I think I probably have, like, an attachment for a lot of different emotions, a lot of different nouns that I have connected to musical moments or things that were shared with me or songs that stuck, you know?

Mickey Jo (Interviewer)

Yeah. Yeah.

Josh Radnor

My mom was a big John Denver fan, so whenever I hear John Denver, I think about childhood, I think about her. I also. In my freshman year English class, my teacher, Mrs. Lamuth, brought in a turntable and played Carole King's Tapestry for us, which is just a crusher of an album. It's still one of my favorite records. Do you know that it was just. It was the demo, and then they did a full production on the album and everyone agreed, including her. They're like, the demo's better, and that's what they released. I could be spreading misinformation. You can factor.

Noah Galvin

I don't care. I love it. I'm taking that to the grave.

Josh Radnor

I think that's what it is. But we sat and analyzed Tapestry as, like, a poem, you know, it, like, went line by line with the imagery, and I.

Noah Galvin

This is the mood I love.

Josh Radnor

I know she was such a good teacher, but I remember that as one of my favorite days of high school. Just like, listening. I'd never heard it before, you know, so that. That one lingers for me.

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Mickey Jo (Interviewer)

If decades from now you are walking up to a stage, being applauded, receiving a lifetime achievement award. It's. I don't know if it's.

Josh Radnor

Can I present it to Noah, whatever it may be?

Mickey Jo (Interviewer)

What is the song that they're playing? Like a moving orchestral musician.

Noah Galvin

Oh. Oh, like the walk up music.

Mickey Jo (Interviewer)

Yeah.

Noah Galvin

Oh, that's so hard. I don't know.

Josh Radnor

Has it been written? It hasn't been written.

Noah Galvin

Yeah, that's exactly right.

Mickey Jo (Interviewer)

I mean, that's a good answer, you

Noah Galvin

know, deep and interesting, but I wouldn't be surprised. It was sort of like an orchestral version of Carly Rae Jepsen's Run Away With Me. Run.

Josh Radnor

One of Us is a huge Carly Rae Jepsen fan, and I have to

Noah Galvin

tell you, there is a disparaging comment I make in this play about Carly Rae Jepsen, and I don't believe it. I don't believe it. It's not me.

Mickey Jo (Interviewer)

Imagine she comes to watch.

Josh Radnor

Oh, no.

Noah Galvin

Cor.

Josh Radnor

I think she'd be happy in certain ways. She features. She looms large as an artist in this play.

Noah Galvin

Deeply. I mean, in my everyday.

Mickey Jo (Interviewer)

Yeah, I have one more of these, which is the hardest song you've ever had to perform on stage.

Noah Galvin

The hardest song I've ever had to perform on stage. I mean, I, I did Evan Hansen. You're sort of like, by the end of that show, you're screaming and you're crying.

Mickey Jo (Interviewer)

What's the hardest song of that score, though?

Noah Galvin

Words fail. It's just like the piece of emotion. You're like screaming, you're crying, you are. You know, the whole end of the rehearsal process is Michael Greif just being like, harder, more, harder, more.

Mickey Jo (Interviewer)

Blame the guy that did it originally.

Noah Galvin

Yeah, I deeply do. I deeply, deeply do. And I make him pay the price every day.

Josh Radnor

I did a one night benefit on Broadway of She Loves Me, which is like one of the greatest musicals ever.

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Yeah.

Josh Radnor

With Kelly o' Hara and Jane Kratkowski and Gavin Creel and Victor Garber. It was just an incredible thing. But there's that song where it's kind of a patter song about, you know, I'm going off to meet her tonight. Yeah, yeah, that, that one. Once I got over that song, I always felt great because it's just lyrically it's, it's one of those, like when your character's highly anxious and the music and lyrics just match that thing. It's kind of like a, like a male version of Getting married today or something.

Noah Galvin

You know, hard to not fall into the freneticism.

Josh Radnor

Yeah. And it's a little bit like if you, if you get tripped up, it's like, how do you, how are you going to find your way back? So you just got to. So I always found that one to be a high stress song. Even though it's a great song.

Mickey Jo (Interviewer)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Finally then it's an original story. It's got music in it, it's emotional, it's meaningful, it's funny. It's 70 minutes long. What is it that you are most excited for audiences to take away from the Hit Machine this summer?

Josh Radnor

I like it when something can be both moving and funny. Like, I think that's a, that's a really like a sweet spot of like tragicomic kind of. Or like. I think that there's. There's stuff that's really heartbreaking in this play and there's also stuff that is so deeply funny and enjoyable to watch, I think. Like watching, watching brothers, watching people who have such deep familiarity with each other. There's a lot of pleasure to be had there. But I hope it's just like a speedy, fun, totally enjoyable evening in the theater, which I think is like one of life's great pleasures, you know.

Noah Galvin

Amen. I think this play manages to do just that, what Josh said. I think it manages to make you feel uplifted and at times sad and you will laugh, you will cry. And I think on stage what's happening is this sort of very, very messy conversation between two people who love each other very much. And I think it has the capacity to open the door for our audiences to have other messy conversations with people they love.

Josh Radnor

I wouldn't be surprised if a couple audience left and said, I'm going to call my brother.

Noah Galvin

Yeah, exactly, exactly. There are some things I need to hash out.

Josh Radnor

Yeah, you know, maybe family therapy.

Noah Galvin

That's right.

Mickey Jo (Interviewer)

I can't wait to come and see if I have that experience. Thank you so much for telling me more about the play.

Josh Radnor

Thank you. Thanks for talking.

Mickey Jo (Interviewer)

Thank you so much for listening to this interview. Don't forget to book your tickets to see the Hit Machine at the Soho Theatre in London before they completely sell out. And stay tuned for a review coming from me very soon. I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a safe stagey day for ten more seconds. I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day.

Josh Radnor

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As a fitness coach, my active psoriatic arthritis can slow me down. With Skyrizi Risen Kizumab Rza, I'm treating my skin and joint symptoms so I can keep moving. Skyrizi, a prescription only injection for adults, helps me move with less joint pain, stiffness, swelling and fatigue. And for those who have plaque psoriasis, 90% clearer skin is possible with Skyrizi. There's no daily dosing. It's just four doses a year. After two starter doses.

Skyrizi Safety Information Narrator

Don't use if allergic to Skyrizi. Serious allergic reactions, increased infections or lower ability to fight that may occur before treatment. Get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor about any flu like symptoms or vaccines.

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