Lyndon Watts, the Geelong boy taking on a star role in Hamilton
The star of the mega hit stage show Hamilton, has revealed his deeply personal journey, from feeling alone in country Victoria to being centre stage.
Entertainment
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Theres is a pivotal line in Hamilton where the aspiring, yet taciturn Aaron Burr strongly advises against showing true colours.
“Talk less, smile more,” Burr tells the equally ambitious Alexander Hamilton. “Don’t let them know what you’re against, or what you’re for.”
For Lyndon Watts, the Geelong-raised actor who plays Burr, but struggled in real life with being queer and mixed race, those sentiments cut deep.
“There’s a mask that Aaron presents in his life ... a certain face in different rooms, like, ‘What does this room need me to be?’ ‘What do these people need from me?’” Watts told V Weekend.
“That’s something I clocked about the character early on, and it’s something I have experienced as well; being able to adapt to whatever the space needs you to be, and that feeling coming from a need for love.
“These men had tremendous ambition, and their lives were riddled with tragedy and turmoil. But it all comes back to this need for love, a need for affection, and for belonging.
“That’s very human,” Watts says. “There’s me, there’s Burr, and there’s this overlapping, gorgeous place in the middle where I have found similarities.
“I resonate very strongly with Burr. At first glance, he’s a dark, secretive, hidden person.”
The global hit Hamilton, based on a 2004 biography by Ron Chernow about America’s founding father, was written by Lin Manuel-Mirandaand as a Broadway piece, it broke new ground by casting non-white actors as the historical figures.
Explaining the casting decision, Miranda said Hamilton was about “America then, as told by America now.”
The show has won 11 Tony Awards, including best musical, and seven Olivier Awards, including best musical.
Lyndon Watts, 28, was born to a father from Trinidad and Tobago, and an Australian mum.
His dad played cricket for the West Indies and won a sports scholarship to train in London, where he met Lyndon’s mother, a hairdresser.
In Australia, Watts’ father worked many jobs, and later became a chef, helming a Caribbean restaurant in Fitzroy.
“From a young age, I was very competitive, but in a very internal way,” Watts says.
“It wasn’t sports, it was drive, a fire to succeed. My dad is an immigrant, so achieving success was very important, and drilled into me.
“Thankfully, it wasn’t, ‘This is what success looks like’,” Watts says, intimating substance, not superficiality, are the end game.
“My dad was incredibly supportive and pushed me to find success, whatever it looked like.”
His family moved between Melbourne, Colac and Geelong, but Watts, in his early teens, felt disconnected wherever they settled.
“There were so many things that made me different. I was brown, and gay, into theatre, a bit odd and strange, and not socially amazing. There was, like, a lot going on,” he says.
“I don’t think at that age I had the wherewithal to pin it to a specific part of my identity that was making me feel distanced from everyone else.
“I knew I wasn’t the same as everyone growing up, but as kid, there’s a longing to fit in. As a young person I literally tried to blend in and disappear into the throng of everybody else.”
Watts knew he was gay in high school.
“I wasn’t noticing the same things other people were noticing,” he says, laughing.
“I was out to all of my friends. To everyone else, I sort of slid out. I grew up in a time where people just knew, and it didn’t necessarily need to be said. But I hope it’s getting easier for young people to embrace their queerness and to step into it.”
Still, Watts longed to belong.
A natural athlete, with a strong, wiry physique suited to football and basketball, Watts tried to assimilate, but soon discovered, “Sports isn’t really a safe space for queer people. I didn’t really last long. It’s just the tone of it. Toxic masculinity starts young. I was never comfortable.
“But the moment I found dance and performance,” he says, excitedly.
“I also found my safe space. I found the place I belonged.”
His formal training, as an actor and dancer, happened at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, whose alumni includes Hugh Jackman, Lisa McCune, Eddie Perfect and Tim Minchin.
However, Watts says his time in high school at Geelong, and the city’s theatre scene, were formative years.
“The quality of theatre, and a standard of excellence that people hold themselves to, is another level. I stepped up my game when I moved to Geelong,” he says.
“It was so crucial for my growth as an artist.”
WAAPA upped the ante again.
“There, I saw a visceral showing of what hard work can achieve; investing in yourself, believing in yourself, following through, and being ready for opportunities,” Watts says.
“If you go to institutions like WAAPA, you get out of it what you put in. Yes, you can go there, chill and fluff around. But I worked like a dog for three years.”
Watts’ theatre credits included Singin’ in the Rain, Aladdin and West Side Story.
But after seeing Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton on Broadway, Watts knew the game was shifting beyond traditional theatre parameters to something revolutionary.
Hamilton is the story of American founding father Alexander Hamilton told through a diverse cast and trailblazing score that blends hip hop, jazz, and rhythm and blues.
Watts auditioned for the role by filming his scenes on an iPad stuck to a hat stand in his bedroom during lockdown.
“I had no tripod,” he laughs. “It was wild. Complex texts, duct tape, the bedroom wall as a backdrop. An actor has to make it work, and I did.”
Miranda hand-picked the cast of the Australian production of Hamilton, including Jason Arrow in the lead role, Watts as Burr, and Chloe Zuel as Eliza Hamilton.
The show’s associate director Patrick Vassel told V Weekend: “Lyndon brings a dignity, grace, and power to Hamilton that are entirely his own.
“His integrity and his commitment to the complexities of the story and how many things can be true at the same time make each performance unique and thrilling to watch.”
Watts says Hamilton, which averages 144 words per minute, with 20,520 total words, is a monumental task.
“It takes everything to play Burr, every skill and trick in the bag,” he says.
“It asks a lot of an actor. You have to sing, rap, dance, and narrate. Then there’s all the work I have to do offstage, like health and wellness, to be ready for the show, at optimum level, eight times a week.
He adds: “In rehearsals, I realised the job was vastly larger than what I anticipated. It just kept going, and the depth kept dropping out underneath me. I’d set myself goals — like ‘I want to be on top of music today’ or ‘I want to push myself to be present with my scene partners.’ — to break it down into smaller steps that felt achievable.
“And, yeah, among all of it, you need to find forgiveness. You aim for a perfect show, but if you fall short, you need forgiveness and compassion for yourself, and your fellow actors,” Watts says.
Lyndon Watts, a leading man in a history-making musical, has also found peace with the past.
“For the vast majority of my adolescence, I used to think I was undesirable, unattractive and unwanted. And not because I was any of those things,” he says.
“I had low self-esteem and no confidence. That comes from being different.”
“Right now,” Watts says, smiling brightly, “I’m trying to be my authentic self. I feel good and I’m excited to pursue other parts of myself that have been locked away for fear of what other people might think.
“I have the utmost love for myself, and acceptance of my blackness, queerness, and things I resented. Those things have blossomed and pushed me into places that are the best parts of my life right now.”
Hamilton is playing at Her Majesty’s Theatre. Tickets: hamiltonmusical.com.au
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