“It’s always been my goal to play as many different characters as I can and to challenge myself,” says actor Nicholas Christopher. It’s a dream plenty of actors in the theater certainly share — but few get to realize it as completely as Christopher has in his still-evolving career.
Since making his Broadway debut in 2013 in the ensemble of Motown: The Musical (he was later promoted to playing Smokey Robinson in the show’s national tour), Christopher’s roles have ranged from the comic to the ultra-dramatic, straddling vocal parts and eras of musical theater.
Now, Christopher is taking on his biggest starring role on Broadway yet, as the tormented Russian competitor Anatoly in Chess, which just earned him his first Tony Award nomination, for best actor in a musical. Playing such an internal character in the musical written by Tim Rice and ABBA’s Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus — albeit one who sings the beloved, immense showpieces “Where I Want to Be” and “Anthem” — was a challenge for Christopher.
“I have to trust that what I’m feeling on the inside will be felt by the audience, until it bursts in Act 2,” he says of Anatoly, who portrays an outward stoicism even as he’s torn apart inside by the political pressure his country exerts on him, his sense of obligation to a wife and children he’s left behind, and the pull of a new romantic relationship.
But for Christopher, it’s a role that many others over the years have prepared him for. “I feel like I’ve lived a lot of lives — whether it was growing up in Bermuda and then moving to Boston, playing sports, being biracial,” he says. “There are so many different parts of myself I want to explore. I look forward to both surprising myself and surprising audience members with what I do next.”
He spoke to Billboard about what he learned through the major roles he’s played on the road to becoming Anatoly.
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