Anthony Warlow: ‘I’ve never seen Hamilton. I’m not interested’

After 40 years of treading the boards, Anthony Warlow is a man who knows what he likes. And, what he doesn’t...

Anthony Warlow. Picture: John Appleyard

Watching you in Annie rehearsals got me thinking: how did growing up as a gifted young performer in a tough steel town like Wollongong create the man you are today? I’m very much in touch with my male alpha and my female alpha. For instance, I have a theatrical mind, and I love beauty, design and decoration. You could easily say, “Well, you’re a big queen.” You might think that, but I’m not. I love those moments.

What’s your earliest memory of performing? I started loving to sing when I was about four years old. We had a little laundry which had a sliding door, and I was very shy – I still am a classic introvert, practically a recluse these days – but this laundry was great because I could close the door to sing: “I’ve been working on the railroad...!”

How did you learn to overcome shyness? Mostly with humour. But when I’m in a group of people, I still find it hard to open the door to get in and have a conversation.

This will be the fourth time you’ve portrayed Daddy Warbucks onstage, including a stint in the role on Broadway. Why do you keep coming back to the role? Warbucks is the heart of this show, along with Annie. You see him change from a rough, busy, capitalist businessman because this little girl breaks in and chinks his armour. I first did Annie back in 2001 and I was probably miscast as far as age was concerned – I was only 40!

In rehearsal I watched as your character sat perched behind his big desk, barking down the phone line. I wonder, do you think Warbucks has any real-life contemporary? We saw those images of Elon Musk with his little boy in the Oval Office, with Trump sitting at the desk. That’s kind of a grotesque version of what happens in Annie, where Warbucks, the Musk of his day, brings this little girl into the White House and she stands on the desk. There is an impudence to that scene, but at the same time, Warbucks is becoming a father.

After more than 40 years performing in opera and musical theatre, do you still get nervous? I do. There’s a wonderful quote from Katharine Hepburn – “It’s OK to have butterflies, but just teach them to fly in formation”, and it’s what I try to do. I’m also very critical of myself, and of other things; extremely critical. I walked out of a play on Broadway recently – Jez Butterworth’s The Hills of California, directed by Sam Mendes. I thought it was rubbish. I don’t know how the thing finished, and I don’t care.

New musicals are having a cultural moment. Do roles in new works interest you? I can emulate certain styles, but my world is Rodgers and Hammerstein, Gershwin, Lerner and Loewe – the big, broad sound – and you don’t hear that sound on stage anymore.

Whether it’s because there are so many people going through music theatre school that they’re just churning them out, and they’re not concentrating on absolute vocal technique? I’m not sure. Give me My Fair Lady, give me The Secret Garden, give me Phantom – they’re difficult to do, but that’s the challenge I love.

You’re old school, then? Well, I’ve never seen Hamilton. I’m not interested. Rap doesn’t interest me and that’s OK. I was offered to take over the King George role on Broadway, and I looked at it and thought, I could do it, but am I going to be happy in that production? No.

What music do you like to listen to around the house? My song list is full of everything from Miles Davis through to America and Bread and Melody Gardot. Some days it depends on the, dare I say, “theatrical” mood of my day and I’ll do the housework to Glenn Gould playing Bach and it just tempers my mind. I’ll try everything.

Annie opens on April 3 at the Capitol Theatre in Sydney before moving to Melbourne in July