The King is back – and Elvis can’t help falling in love

A beautiful new baby and larger than life gig – powerhouse duo Rob Mallett and Chloe Zuel are all shook up – and wouldn’t change a thing.

Rob Mallett isn’t sure which job is harder – the pressure of playing Elvis for fans obsessed with the king – or his greatest role yet – that of new dad.

“Like all new parents, we’re exhausted – but it’s the best and craziest thing to ever happen,” Mallett says of new son Tadhg Oisin with wife and fellow musical star Chloe Zuel, of Hamilton fame.

Pronounced Tige Osheen, the apple of their eye is now six months old and already showing how much he loves life on the stage. In fact, his proud mum Chloe – who played Alexander Hamilton’s wife Eliza in the hit show – went unto labour the night after seeing Rob open Elvis is Sydney for the first time last August. This weekend he opened the show again for a new season – this time with more music, bigger dance numbers, a tighter set and, of course, baby Tadhg cheering him on.

“God, (being Elvis) is a bit like parenting – thrilling and challenging and daunting. All of those things.

“Partly because he is ubiquitous and – pervasive is the wrong word because it sounds bad – but he’s everywhere. Everyone knows him, through every generation, worldwide.

Rob Mallett with wife Chloe Zuel and their baby Tadhg. Picture: Julian Andrews

“So the pressure of carrying his legacy is not lost on me. It’s a rare gift to play a role like this and to have such a huge character arc. We play him from sort of a late teenager, through his 20s and 30s up to the 1968 comeback special, so through those Hollywood years and the challenges of his relationship with Colonel Parker and Priscilla and joining the army. It’s this incredible arc that you get to explore through age and triumph and turmoil.

“I’m loving it.”

Rob Mallett in Elvis: A Musical Revolution. Picture: Supplied

Elvis: A Musical Revolution opened at the State Theatre on Friday night for a return Sydney season due to incredible demand before Mallett, who was awarded the iconic role from over 700 applicants, and co continue the national tour in Adelaide, Perth and the Gold Coast. It’s a gig not even the pressure can take the shine from.

“I haven’t let it affect me because this was a new show – so, going into it, the script was partially written really, and we knew there was a lot of work to be done in the rehearsal room in terms of getting a finished product on its feet,” he says.

“So that was actually quite thrilling for me to be working with something that wasn’t quite so prescriptive. The usual with these types of big touring shows is you’re dictated by some international creative – a bit of a paint by numbers process. We had a lot of autonomy and creative freedom, which is rare in Australia to get that privilege. We went back into rehearsals after the Sydney season before Melbourne, and continued working and changing and adding more songs. We’ve continued to refine it, and we’re excited to bring our new version back to Sydney.”

Tadhg loves it too. He’s even got his own little Elvis suit – although the little “milk guzzler” has already grown out of it, laughs Zuel, who has taken time away from the stage to be with their son, who made his arrival into the world as any natural performer would – with perfect timing.

Rob Mallett as Elvis. Picture: Richard Dobson

“On the opening night of Elvis, I’d never felt him move as much as he did that night – and it obviously got him moving so much that he moved all the way down and came out,” she laughs.

“The opening night was on the Saturday – Rob did two shows on the Sunday – and that night at 2am, I went into labour and he was born that Monday afternoon – and we were home from the hospital 24 hours later. Perfect timing.”

He started on solids last week and is loving mangoes, sweet potato and avocado. Zuel loves being there for all of those moments.

“I actually think that surprised me the most – I’ve always been really front footed and driven and really looking for the next thing and constantly training and hustling,” she says.

“I expected that when we had a baby, I would be just the same – but with a baby – which was so naive of me. And when we had him, it completely changed my perspective and my feelings on everything. I felt like I needed to slow down, I wanted to spend all my time with him.”

Rob Mallett and Chloe Zuel at the 2016 Helpmann Awards at the Sydney Lyric Theatre. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Because the shows are so demanding, it’s hard for both parents to be working when kids are so young, continues Mallett.

“It really requires one to be working and one to be the support, which has been the great divine timing of Elvis, as it’s allowed Chloe some time to ease into motherhood.”

He loves music – mum sings Somewhere over the Rainbow to lull the lucky tot to sleep and dad sings Amazing Grace – and, while being on the road is a great experience, it has its challenges, says Mallett.

“Not having a lot of family around has proved to be one of the challenges of touring. We really feel like we’ve joined the circus in a way, being on the road with the babies.”

But in Sydney they’re lucky to have Chloe’s family, where he is the first grandchild. Both sides are “obsessed with him, of course”.

Chloe Zuel in Hamilton. Picture: Daniel Boud

The musical couple met on the set of Les Miserables in 2014, and got married in 2019 before having Tadhg in August.

“In the first few months, we were so overwhelmed – the feeling of love is overwhelming in itself, let alone the monumental change in your life,” Zuel says. “When people asked ‘how’s it going’, we were like, ‘Oh, it’s full on’– and I think now we’re at a point where we can say, it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to us. It’s easy to compare yourself when you’re a mother. It’s easy to feel that pressure.”

And while Hamilton is also coming back to Sydney this year, she feels lucky to be able to enjoy it as a fan in the audience. Because, for her, it was the show that changed everything – for the better. Six months before it opened in Sydney in 2021, Zuel wrote a blog saying that every role she’d ever played was an “ethnically diverse” character.

“I’ve spent the majority of my career unable to fully celebrate my wins, always wondering if I only got my place because I was needed to tick a box,” she wrote at the time.

“Was I actually good or just good within a minority group? I have spent a long time trying to prove my worth, always hoping to be offered roles that don’t specify ethnicity, just to prove that I can get a job purely on talent.”

Looking back at that, she tells Insider that slowly but surely, things are changing.

“I saw the Little Mermaid recently, and I just sat there crying – I was so emotional about it. I think it just was so nice to not only see a black girl playing Ariel, but also have her singing in the way that she sings – she wasn’t trying to sound like a typical Disney princess. I wished that I had something like that growing up because, for a really long time, I was told that I didn’t sound right for things.

“I realised that I’ve changed the way that I sing to suit the work that I need to do. I possibly have lost a little bit of my own essence along the way. I think the industry is definitely changing and becoming more inclusive. Of course, there’s always more work to do. But not only is the work changing, the way we think about things in casting is changing – and Hamilton is a huge part of that. Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote the show knowing that it needed to be told by voices and people that weren’t white. It revolutionised the way we think about casting.”

“Case in point – who would have thought we would cast the founding fathers of America as black people, who would have thought we would cast a Disney Princess as a black woman?” adds Mallett.

“Of course now, it just makes total sense,” Zuel finishes. “Already I’m seeing a change in the way that it’s impacting me and my thoughts around it all.”

Elvis will play at the State Theatre for six weeks.

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