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Sam Reid, star of The Newsreader and Interview With The Vampire, is returning to the Sydney stage after a 10-year absence.
Reid will step into the central role in Doubt: A Parable after fellow Australian actor Sam Worthington withdrew from the Sydney Theatre Company production, citing personal reasons.
Reid plays ambitious young priest Father Flynn in the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning play by US playwright John Patrick Shanley, joining a heavyweight cast that includes Pamela Rabe, Zindzi Okenyo and Shannen Alyce Quan.
Reid is both excited and “terrified” at the prospect.
“Fear is a huge driving force,” he says. “I studied acting to go on stage and that’s what I always wanted to do. My life didn’t always go that way but you should do things that terrify you. It’s going to help me develop and hopefully become a better actor.”
Reid’s last stage role was in the West End production of the Bob Dylan musical Girl From The North Country. Since then, his career has been consumed by screen work, notably as Dale Jennings in The Newsreader and the vampire Lestat in the hit TV adaptation of Anne Rice’s books.
In Doubt, Reid plays a charismatic priest suspected by Sister Aloysius, the rigid school principal played by Rabe, of inappropriate conduct with a student. The play is built not on certainty but on moral pressure, ambiguity and the corrosive force of suspicion, leaving the audience to grapple with ambiguity rather than being handed a verdict.
“It’s a fascinating place to investigate,” says Reid. “This character, Father Flynn, has an unknowable secret. It’ll be unknowable to me and unknowable to the audience. That’s a very enticing and intoxicating thing to try and pursue.”
When the first series of Interview With The Vampire was released in 2022, Reid was instantly propelled to the centre of a passionate fan universe. It’s a responsibility he takes seriously, while not forgetting the essential absurdity of his situation.
“My job is very silly but it means a lot to people,” he says. “I would be doing my job badly if I took that away from them. You kind of put your head down and do your work and put it out there but it’s astonishing that somebody might take that and turn it into a tattoo on their body or write you a beautiful letter or dress up as you and create this whole drag performance.
“I have a lot of respect for those people because they are incredibly artistic and inspired by the show but at the same time I’m constantly floored by it and, at times, a little terrified by it.”
Reid is not sure whether to expect fans of his TV work to turn up to see him on stage, but he’s open to the possibility.
“If it brings young people into the theatre then I feel that’s one of the best things I could do,” he says.
Doubt: A Parable opens on June 30.
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