“I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around it, to be perfectly honest,” the actress said of making her New York City stage debut in ‘Mary Jane.
Rachel McAdams is making her Broadway debut this April in the new play Mary Jane. And while she’s “excited” to be stepping on the famed New York City stage for the first time, she admits she has some nerves about it.
“[I’m] terrified, absolutely terrified,” the Oscar nominee, 45, laughed to Paul Wontorek during an interview on The Broadway Show with Tamsen Fadal. “I was intimidated to take it on, so there was always something hold me back a little bit.”
The Mean Girls star said that her thought changed when she read Mary Jane. Written by Pulitzer Prize finalist Amy Herzog (4000 Miles), the drama follows a singer mother with an ailing son living in Jackson Heights, New York,
who adapts an unflagging optimism to face life’s insurmountable odds.
“It just got its hooks in me and I was like, ‘There’s something in the universe that’s telling me this is the one,’ ” McAdams said, noting it’s “hopefully not the last one” she’ll do on Broadway.
“The energy that this play follows moves in a lot of places, but it’s all relatable; it’s all is grounded still, even at its most heightened moments,” she explained. “This play is just so gorgeous, the writing is incredible. It’s heartwarming and it’s heart-wrenching and it’s surprising and it’s funny. And it’s a testament to the human spirit. It certainly is a play that has changed me.”
Her fears about doing Broadway have been squashed a bit since she’s gone through the rehearsal process, McAdams said. The show has only had a few performances so far, having began previews on April 2 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre ahead of an opening night on April 23.
“We’ve gotten up on our feet,” McAdams noted on The Broadway Show, opening up her experience of working with director Anne Kauffman (The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window). “I’ve gotten to ask a million questions, still have a million more. … [But] I can feel it, you know, the nerves subsiding a little bit as we just, you know, find it.”
It’s hard to kind of wrap — I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around it, to be perfectly honest,” she gushed. “I pinch myself every day and the little theater nerd in me is freaking out.”
That doesn’t mean McAdams is saying goodbye to film and television anytime soon. “I find I’m endlessly challenged by film and television still — like I’m not bored there,” said the actress, who most recently had roles in the TV series Dave and in the films Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret and Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, all in 2023.