The first thing you’ll notice when you see Nicholas Christopher isn’t his tall figure or his immaculate bald head: It’s his wide smile. Sure, he may be giving a star turn as morose chess champion Anatoly Sergievsky in the hit Broadway revival of Chess, but off the stage, Christopher knows how to have fun. In his off hours, he’s usually playing make-believe with his two children (they like to dress him up).
“I don't take what we do seriously, but I take how I do it seriously,” he muses, leaning back against the chair, relaxed. “It's goofy, what we do—we put on other people's clothes, we say other people's words, and somebody tells us where to stand. We obviously have our input. And when we all collaborate in the right way, then theatre and the arts can change the world.” He then adds, lightly: “But that doesn't necessarily mean that I take myself seriously in that because I don't.”
There’s a refreshing lack of pretension when Christopher discusses his take on Anatoly—his first time originating a lead role on Broadway after years of being one of the most talented, and sought after, replacement actors (he’s done Aaron Burr in Hamilton, Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors, and understudied the title role in the Sweeney Todd revival). In fact, Christopher was cast in Chess after director Michael Mayer saw him in Sweeney Todd (where he played Italian barber Pirelli and went on several times as Sweeney).
Jokes Christopher: “Michael saw Sweeney and was like, ‘Oh, maybe this guy could handle a Russian dialect.’” Then again, it’s no wonder he’s a wiz with accent work, and at playing a range of different characters—from verbose and comedic, to stoic and tortured. Acting is something of a family business for him. Christopher’s older brother, Jonathan, is also an actor. And so is his dad. Christopher was born in a town in Bermuda called Hamilton, where his father acted, sang, and was the town crier—reading proclamations in a tricorne hat.
“I have very vivid memories of my childhood,” recalls Christopher. “So Bermuda always symbolizes home in my childhood: I remember being in diapers. I remember the different houses that we lived in. I remember going to see my dad in shows…I was, like, two or three years old when those shows happened.”
When Christopher was seven, his mom (who is originally from Massachusetts) moved him and his two older siblings to the U.S.—somewhere they could have more opportunities that were not just working in tourism. That meant the family was split apart; his mom raised them while his dad stayed behind in Bermuda to make money.
Christopher, his light demeanor now turned serious, recalls those challenging first few years: “Boston is, like, insanely racist. Mrs. Walsh, my second grade teacher, was horrific to me, horrific. I was seven years old with an accent, and she would mock me in front of the class, the way I would say things.”
The bullying broke Christopher down, to the point where he mentally checked out of school, failing his classes in the process. To try and give her kids some kind of creative outlet, his mother placed the siblings in an after-school theatre program at North Shore Music Theatre. There, Christopher thrived. “My dad did it, and I think in order to feel close to my dad, I wanted to do what he did,” he explains, while noting, with a degree of melancholy: “I did South Pacific when I was 10 years old, and that started the bug. But we couldn't afford it, so then my mom literally would wash the floors of the studio.”
The turning point for Christopher was meeting educator Marty Johnson, then the head of the youth theatre company North Shore; Johnson referred Christopher to Stage Door Manor, and encouraged him to attend performance arts high school Walnut Hill. His path was then set, and acting became a means of self-expression. As he muses: “Doing theatre [initially] was to be like my dad. And then all of a sudden it was like, ‘Oh, this is really a part of me. I want to be like myself.’ I don’t know when that transition happened.”
For college, Christopher attended Boston Conservatory before transferring to Juilliard; he dropped out when he booked the U.S. national tour of In the Heights in 2010. He’s been steadily working ever since, making a slow and steady rise up the performance ladder, from an ensemble role in Motown: The Musical on Broadway to now, his face on the marquee of the Imperial Theatre for Chess. And though he’s acting opposite more well-known Broadway favorites Lea Michele and Aaron Tveit, his process is still the same: approach the character with a mix of seriousness for the craft and playfulness behind-the-scenes.
As Christopher colorfully explains it: “I didn't want him to be a Ken doll. I wanted him to have some balls…Yeah, he might be quiet. Yeah, he might bottle some things up. Yeah, he's trying to find his agency. But he's still a chess master, and he's still competitive,” he adds, impishly, “he might have some dark humor in there.”
Christopher has been able to imbue the stoic Russian not only with immense vocal talent (his “Endgame” regularly garners standing ovations) but also depth, using his own life story as a foundation to tell the story of a man trying to find agency, in a society determined to force him into a predetermined role. In “Anthem,” when Anatoly sings of loving his country but also needing to leave, Christopher understands that dichotomy deeply.
“I’m singing a song that's about, 'I have love for my country, even if my country doesn't have love for me,’” says Christopher. “For a kid from Bermuda, who grew up in Boston, now playing a Russian chess master, it's just funny to me. It seems ludicrous! ... At seven years old, being in a new country and not feeling heard. I think Anatoly is told when to sleep, when to eat, when to play chess, who he's going to marry, how many kids he's going to have, how to walk, how to talk. He doesn't feel heard. And I imagine that's what was ignited inside of me.”
In other words, Chess has given this talented performer a vehicle to really showcase what he’s made of—especially to his family. Christopher notes, smiling happily, that his parents have seen Chess multiple times: “They love it. They are so proud. They sacrificed their relationship. They did 30 years of long distance. They really sacrificed a lot for us kids … This is a tangible thing to say, 'You guys sacrificed, and it wasn't for nothing.'”
It’s also helped Christopher understand his own parents better, especially now that he has two young kids with dancer Jennifer Locke—to be a performer and a parent, it’s a constant negotiation of time and energy. Christopher credits his wife as the reason he’s able to perform eight shows a week. “When I go to the theatre, I can't dilly dally, I gotta get to work. I gotta make this time worth it, because I'm away from my kids.”
But whether he’s playing dress-up with his girls, or dressing up on the stage, Christopher is committed to staying grounded. When asked if this high-profile turn in Chess feels different than the other roles he's played, he shakes his head: “It still feels like I'm dressing up as Indiana Jones and watching the Indiana Jones movie every day. This is the exact same thing—nothing's different other than the budget. So I want to do my job, because I love it. I love what we do. Watching a group of people come together with one goal,” he sighs happily, before marveling, “There's something about the goal of becoming somebody else but finding out more about yourself in the meantime. It’s a weird thing. It's like I'm trying to be somebody else, but actually, I have more of an understanding of myself.”
Nicholas Christopher
Nicholas Christopher
Nicholas Christopher
Nicholas Christopher
Nicholas Christopher
Nicholas Christopher
Nicholas Christopher
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