Gabby Beans has experienced a whirlwind few months. Delivering standout performances as both Mercutio and the Friar in Sam Gold’s critically acclaimed Romeo + Juliet – where she shared the stage with HERO 32 cover star Kit Connor – Beans found herself adjusting to a newfound level of stardom, one that has even led to her face being featured on bootleg merch and baked goods. Having recently wrapped filming on Ethan Coen’s highly anticipated Honey Don’t! – the spiritual follow-up to Drive-Away Dolls – Gabby plays the partner to Margaret Qualley’s private investigator probing a Californian cult.

Barry Pierce: Romeo + Juliet is closing in a couple weeks but I’d love to go back to the very beginning and hear about the audition process.
Gabby Beans: I had been lightly engaged to do a different show in the fall of last year, but I got an email asking if I’d like to audition for both Mercutio and the Friar in Sam Gold’s Romeo + Juliet. When I saw that I was being asked to audition for both, I was like, ‘Hmm, this seems interesting!’ I went to LAMDA [London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art] and our last production was Romeo and Juliet. I played Lady Capulet, but I was always like, ‘Man, wouldn’t it be a trip to get a shot at Mercutio?’ I auditioned with Sam twice, and I was really excited about it because he’s someone whose aesthetic and directorial vision I find to be incredibly fearless, exploratory, and undeniably specific. And so I knew that it was going to be interesting. When I got the call, I was so excited because like I said, I went to LAMDA and studied classical acting. I’d never had the opportunity to do [Romeo and Juliet] before in a professional setting, really. So, it felt like a very sweet, full-circle moment.

BP: Romeo and Juliet is a play that you were already familiar with but what has the experience been like saying those lines over and over again, night after night? Do you still find new things in the text?
GB: Absolutely. As an actor, the thing that I most crave is the opportunity to serve brilliant writing. And it’s hard to find writing that’s more brilliant and deep than the poetry we get to say eight times a week. I often have revelations on stage where I hear myself saying something, or I hear someone else saying something, and it’s like I’m hearing it for the first time. It shifts how you think about a moment, or even the arc of the piece.

BP: For many actors, playing one Shakespearean character can be an intense challenge. You, and many other actors in the production, play more than one character. What’s that like?
GB: It is intimidating, like objectively. But I think the framing device that Sam used for those of us who are doubled in this show is that it’s less about trying to play two different people and more about one person who’s chosen to explore different sides of themselves. So, even though I am playing two characters, the overall journey is one of exploring two different aspects of myself.

“Theatre made me fall in love with acting and want to learn how to do it…”

BP: The production has been hugely successful. I see so much about it online, via Instagram and TikTok. How do you deal with the pressure of being in such a – for want of a better word – viral production?
GB: You know, I am a really sensitive person, so I have rigorously maintained my ignorance around the online world of this show, mostly so that I can focus on my work. Maybe this seems silly, but I’m not fully aware of what the cultural impact is. However, I will say this is the first show I’ve been in where people are making, like, bootleg merch. [laughs] So, I get little glimpses of what the larger cultural impact is in really strange ways. At the stage door recently, I got a cookie that was decorated as me – like, I got a cookie of my own face. When I saw that, I was like, ‘This is really different.’

BP: Did you eat cookie you?
GB: I couldn’t do it. It felt wrong. [laughs]

BP: What draws you to stage acting?
GB: The simple answer is that theatre made me fall in love with acting and want to learn how to do it. In high school, I had an incredible drama teacher who, looking back, was so cool and smart. I went to high school in Germany, and we were lucky enough to go to London to see shows for our theatre class. I remember going to the National Theatre as a kid, and the show that really made me want to be an actor was seeing Fiona Shaw do Mother Courage. I didn’t fully understand the play – [Bertolt] Brecht is a bit obtuse – but I remember thinking, ‘She is the most powerful person I’ve ever seen.’ If I could do anything close to that, I’d be pretty psyched.

“…when you’re working with people who have such a singular vision and such a distinctive understanding of comedic timing, it just makes everything so easeful…”

BP: Is there a particular moment in your acting career when you felt that acting could be a viable path for you, something you could truly pursue as a career?
GB: The job that really made it feel like I could do this as a career was probably my first off-Broadway show. I did a show called Marys Seacole that was written by Jackie Sibblies Drury, an incredible Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, and Lileana Blain-Cruz, who is my favourite director of all time and someone I’ve worked with a bunch. But working with them and doing that show was the first time I really met working actors in New York. It was a cast of all women, and I was the youngest one. All of them had lives, had worked, and some of them had families. Seeing that was what really gave me the courage to continue.

BP: I know that you’ve wrapped filming on Honey Don’t!, the new film directed by Ethan Coen. What can you tell me about it?
GB: I think what I can say is that it’s a comedic detective story. I play Margaret Qualley’s assistant, essentially, and working with Ethan and Tricia Cooke, who is the co-writer and director of the movie – was a life highlight. I remember the first day on set. I’d never been so nervous in my life, and I could not get a line out, I kept messing up. Then Ethan said, “Well, Gabby fucked it up,” and I was like, “Wow, this is a nightmare.” But it was great because they were giving me permission to be nervous and acknowledging it in this really dry, sweet way. So, I went back to my room, got myself together, and when we went back to shoot, everything felt better. That’s what I would say about working with them – when you’re working with people who have such a singular vision and such a distinctive understanding of comedic timing, it just makes everything so easeful.

Interview originally published in Heroine 22.

fashion editor SAM KNOLL;
make-up OLIVIA BARAD;
fashion assistants DAVIEL CASTAÑEDA and CHLOÉ BELL