Michael Urie: 'I'm emotional we get to put Oh, Mary! on film'

“You can play this role, but don’t play another gay role.”

That’s what Michael Urie was told after he rose to mainstream fame as the iconic Marc St James in Ugly Betty.

Luckily, he didn’t listen. Now, the two-time Emmy nominee is bringing his take on Mary’s Teacher in Cole Escola‘s hit comedy Oh, Mary!, to the screen, with the West End production being filmed live.

He is proud that it all started with Ugly Betty: “If this business is a series of breaks, that was my biggest and first.”

Not only did it open doors for him in the business, but it allowed him to get a car on finance (after convincing the salesman to search the show on the internet), quit his day job, and meet his dear friend Vanessa Williams (who is performing just down the road in The Devil Wears Prada).

“[Marc] was such a specific and detailed role. There was so much about him that was unique… I never wanted to cheat on Marc St James by playing that guy again.”

Shortly after the show finished, he returned to the stage in The Temperamentals: “I’d been wanting to do more and more theatre and that play was very serious,” he says. In the drama, he took on the role of Rudi Gernreich, who, coincidentally, was also “a gay guy working in fashion but not at all like Marc.”

It was then, he says, he truly realised: “There are so many kinds of gay people, why would I not play more than one? We are people.”

But, early on in his career, Urie recalls being told: “Don’t come out of the closet.” It was 20 years ago, and he recalls, “no actors were out… or very few were.”

Growing up, Urie recalls watching television, films and theatre and recognising: “There was no one like me,” and if there were, they were unhappy.

“The shows with queer people when I was a kid were very adult, and there was a lot of trauma. I didn’t even know they could have a good time.”

It was Will and Grace, which first aired while he was in high school, that started to change things. Then, for another generation, Ugly Betty became that show, I point out.

With Shrinking currently filming its new season – Urie is once again nominated for an Emmy for his portrayal of the narcissistic but hilarious Brian navigating fatherhood with his husband – and with Oh, Mary! being filmed, he hopes the cycle of seeing unapologetically queer characters presented with humour and joy will continue.

The Olivier and Tony Award-winning play, which is playing consecutively on Broadway and in the West End, is from the brilliant mind of Escola, who was the first out nonbinary performer to win an acting Tony for a play.

Urie says: “I’m emotional that we get to put this on film.”

“I think of people all over the world who can’t get to the theatre or aren’t given that opportunity, and they might get to see Oh, Mary! and see what is possible for queer actors.”

For those unfamiliar, the show puts Mary Todd Lincoln in the spotlight as a would-be cabaret star. “It takes you on an adventure,” Urie laughs, “It’s camp and can hold a lot; some beautiful pathos with some insane physical comedy.”

“The play is so well crafted that all you really need to know is that this is a woman who wants to drink and sing cabaret and her husband is the president.”

Politely described as historically dubious, the show is a fast-paced farce; “an idea based on a moment in history.” For the recording, Escola once more is donning the bratty curls, with Giles Terera returning to his Olivier Award-nominated role as Mary’s Husband, Urie as her teacher, and original Broadway stars Bianca Leigh and Tony Macht as Mary’s Chaperone and Mary’s Husband’s Assistant, respectively.

There’s a long lineage of Oh, Mary! alumni, including recent Broadway Mary, Maya Rudolph, Jinkx Monsoon (who will take to the West End stage later this summer), WhatsOnStage Award nominee Mason Alexander Park (who originated the role in London), Catherine Tate (the first British Mary) and more. All are fiercely loyal to Escola’s play and everything it has come to represent in queer-forward art. “When you’re out there, the audience is like a drug. It’s such a life force.”

After joining the show on Broadway, Urie had just three days of rehearsals – he almost didn’t do the show originally because he had a family cruise booked (though he assures me he would have cancelled it if it came to it). For him, it has been a joy to spend proper time in the studio with Tony Award-winning director Sam Pinkleton, who will also be in the director’s chair for the film, and to play opposite the “endlessly inventive” Escola: “They’re both still so curious, invested, generous.”

“I laugh constantly at what Cole is doing,” Urie says, sharing that at the show the night before he was watching the monitor laughing, “The sound mixer gave me such a dirty look. I was like ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry!'”

If you hear any stray laughter in the Oh, Mary! film, just know it was Urie, having the time of his life.