John Benjamin Hickey recently starred as Frank Winter in the critically acclaimed WGN America series Manhattan. John's film credits include Truth, Big Stone Gap, Get on Up, Pitch Perfect, Flags of Our Fathers, The Anniversary Party, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and The Taking of Pelham 123. John can currently be seen in the Netflix-released film Tallulah, which premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. Most recently, he wrapped on Black Bear Pictures' Barry, a Barack Obama biopic that premiered at TIFF; Scott Cooper's Hostiles, starring Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike, Jesse Plemons, and Ben Foster; and George Wolfe's HBO feature The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. On television, he received an Emmy Award nomination for his work on the Showtime series "The Big C," playing Laura Linney's brother, Sean. He also recurred on the hit CBS television series "The Good Wife" playing Internet billionaire Neil Gross. Other television credits include "Pitch Perfect," "Manh(a)ttan," "Modern Family," "Hannibal," "The New Normal," "Sex and the City," and "Law & Order." On Broadway, John won the 2011 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play and a Drama Desk Award for his performance in The Normal Heart. His other credits include Mary Stuart, The Crucible, Cabaret, and Love! Valour! Compassion! for which he won an Obie Award. Earlier this year, John was back on stage in Peter Parnell's Dada Woof Papa Hot at Lincoln Center for director Scott Ellis.

JOHN BENJAMIN HICKEY

I can say one with the utmost confidence about what I've done in my career is that I've certainly had the great fortune of working with amazing directors with Stephen Daldry, Sam Mendes, Joe Mantello, Richard Eyre, Philida Lloyd, Scott Ellis. My list is long. I can brag about anything, boy, I really got lucky with directors and I've been most of those people at really extraordinary moments in their careers. Sam Mendes in his production of Cabaret along with Rob Marshall in New York in '98 with Natasha Richardson and Alan Cumming and Joe Mantello in Love, Valor, Compassion which was the beginning of Joe's extraordinary career as a director. I never sat and watched those people thinking, Oh, I'm going to do what they do someday. Never. It never, ever occurred to me, but I do, hopefully, as an artist your greatest asset is being a sponge. I think the thing that keeps you going is to be as sponge-like as possible and to just try to absorb what's amazing about a fellow artist, even when they do that's different than what you do. So, I have been, if not literally taking notes, I've certainly unconsciously been taking notes for many, many, many years. So, I guess it's just a fancy way of saying I've been stealing from the best for a long time and have thought about those people as I made this directorial nascent journey. I feel like they're on my shoulder.

On Directing Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick in Plaza Suite

I had known them both for over 20 years and have known them through the course of their long and wonderful marriage and always admired them professionally so much. And I was on Sex and the City, but I had nothing to do with Sarah on the show. I never saw her on set. It's not like the three of us were looking for something to do. I kind of put this reading together and it went so well that we all three looked at each other afterward and said, "We should do this. We should do this together." It was a bigger leap for me to do it with them than for them to do it because this is my first Broadway directorial effort. My Broadway directorial debut, and it's only the second play I've directed, so I had a very steep learning curve, but I've enjoyed every minute of it. Yes, the longer you stick around in this business, the smaller and smaller the world gets.

On Acting

If you are thinking about too much, you're probably not doing it right. Some nights you do it and you're just like, that just felt like it was ten minutes long and I just was on cloud nine. What was I doing? A great, great American actor George C. Scott, who was in the original cast of Plaza Suite had a great quote once, he said, "Every actor worth their salt has one good show a week and spends those other seven shows wondering what they did that made them so good that night." And nobody knows. If you could figure that out and if you could bottle that then, of course, everybody could do it.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

And then also speaking of some of the great actors and actresses you've worked with as well. And some that you've worked with many times, what you love about the collaborative process.

HICKEY

Again I've been so fortunate to work with such great actors over the years. Joe Mantello and the entire company of The Normal Heart, Nathan Lane, who I consider one of my great educators. He was a real mentor to me. I mean there's not a big age difference between us, but he was such a professional and he was so devoted to the character and worked tirelessly to make the character in the show as good as it could possibly be. Nathan was always the first one there in the morning. Nathan was always the last one to leave. Nathan never ever did it sitting down. He's always full steam ahead and there was a great lesson in that for me to watch somebody's work ethic. It taught me my work ethic. Laura Linney is a great friend and artistic collaborator who I went to Juilliard with many, many years ago. We were classmates. I've done The Crucible on Broadway with her and then, of course, I did four or five years of that television show The Big C with her. Watching her work is an extraordinary thing. Very educational because she doesn't waste her energy. She really knows how to marshall her energy on a television show and then in a theater in rehearsal for a play. Again, the thing where you steal from great directors, you steal from great actors. You watch that. Oh, I see how she does that. Or I see how he does that. I want to figure out my way of doing it, you know? You learn from the best.

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this podcast was Josie Meloy. Digital Media Coordinator is Hannah Story Brown.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process.