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[0:07] Gordon Cox: Welcome to Stagecraft, the variety's theater podcast, bringing you backstage and behind the scenes with the stars and creators of the hottest shows on Broadway, off Broadway, and beyond.

[0:18] Gordon Cox: I'm your host, Gordon Cox.

[0:20] Gordon Cox: On this episode of Stagecraft, I'm talking to the actor and producer Nnamdi Asomugha, now making his Broadway debut in the Roundabout Theatre Company's revival of A Soldier's Play. Asomugha is already making his mark on show business after a career switch in 2013, when he finished off more than a decade as a pro football player for teams including the Oakland Raiders, the Philadelphia Eagles, and the San Francisco 49ers.

[0:44] Gordon Cox: Since his retirement from the NFL, he's produced and acted in the acclaimed film Crown Heights, appeared off Broadway in the play Good Grief, and acted in a new movie, Sylvie's Love, premiering this month at the Sundance Film Festival.

[0:44] Gordon Cox: As A Soldier's Play gears up for its January 21st opening, Asomugha is in the studio with me to talk Friday Night Lights, how The Color Purple turned him on to theater, and the moment he discovered that sometimes acting can be just like football.

[1:10] Gordon Cox: Hi Nnamdi, thanks for being here.

[1:13] Nnamdi Asomugha: Um I wanted to start off talking about your career transition, because as I feel I learned from every high school movie I've ever seen, the jocks don't hang out with the theater nerds. And so how did that even happen?

[1:29] Nnamdi Asomugha: Yeah, I'd say that is a misconception. I think very much, you know, athletes would love to be in the arts. They may not say it because of this age-old sort of, you know, the jocks don't hang out with the theater folks, but you know, it's a misconception. I did, I know when I was playing, I was in an episode of Friday Night Lights. You know, and I'll never forget going back into the locker room. And you know, the thought is, oh, the guys are gonna get on you because you, right. But everybody was like, how do I get in Friday Night Lights? You know, what can I do to get an episode in there? So it's, you know, it's a misconception.

[2:07] Gordon Cox: And so when did you, because I imagine every pro athlete has to realize that being a pro player is not a lifelong career, and so you must have anticipated changing in some way what you did for a living. When did you start to think it might be acting for you?

[2:24] Nnamdi Asomugha: Oh, not until like very late in my eleven-year career. I think of my second year in the NFL was the moment where I knew, oh, you need to start looking for something else to do once this ends.

[2:39] Gordon Cox: Had something happened in that second year?

[2:42] Nnamdi Asomugha: Yeah, there were, you know, you see guys all the time have devastating injuries, and then that's the end of their career, and you know, the average, they tell you the average as much as they can that the average amount of years that someone plays in the NFL is, you know, it's two years.

[2:58] Gordon Cox: And so you get to that...

[2:59] Nnamdi Asomugha: I didn't know that.

[3:01] Gordon Cox: It's that short.

[3:01] Nnamdi Asomugha: Wow. That's it. And so you get to that second year, and then all of this stuff starts to play in your mind. And a buddy of mine actually was trying to make the team, and you know, I think his brother, I believe, was getting married, and it was the off-season when you kind of didn't have to be there, but it was voluntary to be there, you know, in quotes. You know, one of the coaches told him, you know, if you leave for any portion of the week, then that means that you don't care about the team, you know, and instilled that level of fear in him. Missed his brother's wedding because of the voluntary workouts, and then it was like three months later that he got cut from the team anyway.

[3:46] Gordon Cox: Right.

[3:47] Nnamdi Asomugha: And so I was like, oh, you know, they don't play around here. So then, you know, I started thinking at that point, right? You know, I better figure something out. But it wasn't acting.

[3:58] Gordon Cox: Sometime around 2009, you were in an episode of Friday Night Lights. How did that happen if you weren't yet thinking about pursuing acting full time by that point?

[4:08] Nnamdi Asomugha: Well, I had done a Nike commercial, and the director of the Nike commercial, after we did the shoot, he came to my trailer and he said, look, I think you have a lot of talent. You know, I'm with athletes just about every week, and there's something very natural about what you displayed on camera, and I think when you're done playing, you should really look into being an actor or going into this field, and I was like, okay, cool, and kind of just left it at that. And then a couple months later, he reached out again and he said, look, I want to put you in my show, and it's called Friday Night Lights, and I'd love for you to have an episode on there. And I was, and yeah, this director turned out to be Peter Berg.

[5:01] Nnamdi Asomugha: But the moment I said his name to people, everyone started going crazy, like, you gotta do it, you know. So I ended up doing it and it was a wonderful experience. It's actually the episode that introduces Michael B. Jordan onto the show.

[5:19] Nnamdi Asomugha: Yeah, I play his parole officer. So every time I see him, I keep saying, yeah, I put you in that show, you know what I mean? So it's been great.

[5:28] Gordon Cox: Oh, I sort of assumed that you actually, because I haven't seen that episode, I assumed you played a football player, obviously, but I guess not.

[5:33] Nnamdi Asomugha: You would have been not high school age.

[5:35] Gordon Cox: Yeah, that's right.

[5:36] Nnamdi Asomugha: That's right. So I was not one of the football players. I actually am not interested in playing a football player. You know what I mean? It's I've done it for so long.

[5:45] Gordon Cox: And so you made the decision to pursue acting and producing. And then how did you go about that? How does one make that transition? And how hard is it to get people on the entertainment industry side to take you seriously?

[6:02] Nnamdi Asomugha: Well, the second part of that question is a huge question. I think I had a lot of difficulty early on, still face a lot of difficulty with just people taking football out of their minds when I come into act just because, you know, we have a reputation as athletes that we're, you know, but there's a layer that you can't break through as an actor because, you know, a lot of times you finish a game and you really want to tell the press what's really going on in your mind, but you know, I think the standard response is, well, you know, we're gonna go back and look at the film and we'll get better for the next game. Or you know, you'll say something like that, when in reality you want to start going crazy.

And so there is that thought that there is a barrier there that you can't break through. So a lot of times that wouldn't even get me in the door. You know, it was just like, oh, and football, or it would be a role that was like the guy that runs into the wall, you know, to meet or something like that. I'm just like not interested in that. So that's been difficult.

[7:15] Nnamdi Asomugha: And there was a period where I just reached out to like hundreds of directors and writers just trying to see if they had anything that I could work on with them, even if it was a small role. And you know, many of the directors and writers that you know a lot that you don't know. And I got like two or three responses and that was it. I kind of gave up at that point. And then it might have been a month later that the script for Crown Heights came around and that was the next film that I did.

[7:54] Gordon Cox: And even before that, you very fairly soon after you sort of retired from being a pro ball player for good, you were a producer on Beast of No Nation, the Netflix film. What, how did you think, did you think that producing was gonna be your thing if it wasn't gonna be acting? How do you think of producing and acting sort of going together in terms of what you want to do?

[8:16] Nnamdi Asomugha: Well, I never thought of producing. You know, I was never in the, I didn't even think, but my mind just never went there. It was always about, oh, let me be in front of the camera, not behind the camera. And then Beast of No Nation, I mean that script came around, it must have been two months after I retired, and I said I wanted to come on board and help produce it and help get it done. And then I was off to Ghana, you know, within months of retiring, and I was just in a world of sort of amazement and wonder that you could put a film together in this sort of way, and I just fell in love with it. Fell in love with the idea really of just, you know, seeing people flourish and sort of helping to make their dreams come true with their projects and, you know, doing whatever I can to support it.

And so just where I think the producing bug came in, and I've completely fallen in love with producing, which I don't think people understand how difficult producing is. You know, it's one of the more difficult things that you can do in this business if you want to get it right.

[9:29] Nnamdi Asomugha: You know, I think it's a very difficult one. And then producing and acting in the same project is also even more difficult, I'd say.

[9:38] Gordon Cox: Well, I was gonna say because you were producer on Crown Heights, but you also appeared in it, and you're producer on your new movie, which is about to premiere at Sundance, Sylvie's Love. How do those two things fit together on the same project?

[9:46] Nnamdi Asomugha: It's tough, you know. I'm a big advocate for people creating their own work and not, I always say if you're not creating, you're waiting, and I keep telling people create your own work, try to get your own stuff out there. But I also tell them it is extremely difficult, you know, and especially if you want it to be any good. We did Crown Heights, we ended up going to the Sundance Film Festival and winning the Sundance Film Festival, which is such a big deal. You know, they get thousands of people that want their films in, and they only take about sixteen. And then we ended up going and winning, and it was a gratifying moment, especially looking back at all the work that went into making it.

[10:43] Nnamdi Asomugha: Um you know you're producing so you're you're acting in it so like you'll finish your scene and you know director will say cut and then ten seconds later you're on the phone with like the casting director trying to cast an actor and then you've got to go right back on to shoot your scene and see you know it's it's difficult. You know it it's uh it's difficult but I learn well in the fire so I think I've I've started to develop those muscles a lot better.

[11:09] Gordon Cox: And at what point did you s start to think to yourself that you were interested in exploring theater? Your first stage gig was a couple years ago at the Vineyard in a play called Good Grief. Um and you know now this is your this is soldiers play is your second um w what made you interested in it and what are you getting from it?

[11:27] Nnamdi Asomugha: Um that's another good question. I just think that there's so much life in theater life. I'm I'm very much into uh things being in the moment and things being real um and authentic and I think the theater has that in ways that I never thought uh were possible. I didn't think that you know obviously theater was not something that I looked at before. I think I told you the story about the color purple and and um and wicked and those sorts of things and just being amazed that people could just like an athlete start at uh at one point and go all the way through no redoos, no no no chance to do it over and make something magical happen. So I don't know, theater for me, I I know there was a moment after I retired, I w I went to I w I was being honored at a a game up in Oakland and I was talking to one of my uh old former teammates who was still playing and I said, you know, I'm trying to find the next thing and nothing's really giving me uh the same feeling that you have in football, you know, coming out and going through the tunnel and onto the field and, you know, a hundred thousand people screaming or booing or whatever they're doing.

You know, it's just the energy that you just really feed off of. And he said, you know, I don't think you're ever gonna find it. I think what you need to do is um try to get as close to it as possible uh and see what that does for you. And then I no joke, I think it was six weeks later I was doing a reading of a play at the um Circle in the Square Theater out here in New York. And I don't know if you've ever been uh at that theater but or backstage at that theater but there was a a holding room where we were getting ready to come out and it it had an interesting sense of like oh it's almost time you know so there was a build. Then we all left that and we were walking through this thing that's sort of like a tunnel before you get onto the stage and then right before we got onto the stage it was a reading so we're all gonna enter at the same time.

So they announced us and we kind of we we were held up right before we went out then they announced us then the audience started cheering and we all sort of like ran onto the stage and did the work and I'm telling you it was such a it was such an eerie feeling, you know, how close it was to what my life had been uh for the last couple decades that I was like, oh, I think there's something in theater for me. You know, I think there's something in this world that I can I can really be attracted to.

[14:20] Gordon Cox: Let's talk a little bit about your current gig in theater, uh uh Soldier's Play. It um it is directed by Kenny Leon, who we should say, I don't know if we've mentioned yet that uh your wife is Carrie Washington, who worked with Kenny on American Sun, both uh on Broadway and on the Netflix adaptation. Um is that how you got connected to that production?

[14:40] Nnamdi Asomugha: Yeah, I mean, uh apparently, and you'd you'd probably have to ask Kenny just to be completely on it, but you know, what I'm told is that it was when Kenny and the casting director for uh Soldier's Play came to see Good Grief. Uh uh that they were like, you know, we we we want him to be in our play if we get it going, you know, at some point, you know, hopefully somebody does the play. Um uh but you'd have to ask him. So I think that's where the whole connection came from. And um, and yeah, it's been great actually working with Kenny. Just his he's just a very open director and a and a very uh he's a player friendly coach, if I could say it in that sort of way. Um he lets you bring your ideas to the table and then just starts to shape it in whatever way he can.

You know, he doesn't overpower uh or or try to take too much control um away from the actor. He says theater is the actor's medium, which I think I I'm sure that's a that's a quote that everyone says, but you know, it's all new to me. But you know, and I and I appreciate that. I've learned actually a lot of things in theater. Like I we were doing Good Grief and I was on the stage, I think we were in a tech rehearsal, and I was talking to some of the folks, and I was like, hey, what's that scene in Macbeth when the guy and everybody's like, no? And I was like, what happened? They see you can't say that. Everybody like ran off the stage and started saying the Hail Mary's and different things. And I was just like, what is that?

You know, so there I'm learning, you know, some of the some of the traits. I think you can't whistle, but you know all sorts of things. Yeah, they're really important things that I'm I'm starting to learn. It's great. The thing that I love is just being able to start at something from ground zero and and humble yourself and become a student and just really learn and try to grow at it. You know, I I don't think I'm uh I don't think I'm a fast learner by any means, but I think I'm I think if anything, there is a lot of patience in there, and I think when I eventually get a thing, I think, you know, it it can turn out to be good. It could take two weeks, it could take two years, it could take twenty years, but you know, I I really do stay in it and and try to make it work out.

[17:17] Gordon Cox: I'll have more with Nnamdi right after the break.

[17:27] Gordon Cox: And we're back talking to the actor and producer, Nnamdi Asomugha. Soldier's Play is one of those plays that I feel like a lot of theater people have heard of, but don't really get the opportunity to see very often. It was written in 1981, uh in one of the lot won a lot of awards off Broadway in a production that starred Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson, apparently. I I looked that up. Uh and but it's not a play that gets done very often anymore. I happen to have seen it in its last New York major New York production, which I think was 2005. I mean, that was it was a long time ago. Um so tell us about Soldier's Play and who you play in it.

[18:03] Nnamdi Asomugha: Yeah, also Adolf Caesar and you know, I think David Alan Greer uh came in with that first run at a certain point. Um there's so many wonderful actors that were in it. Um Jim Pickens from Gray's Anatomy, you know, it's just that the the list is pretty insane when you start to look at it. Um but yeah, it's uh so Soldier's Play, it's uh it's such a complex story. You know, it takes place takes place in 1944, an army barracks, um sergeant was murdered, and it's essentially a who-done it play. Um uh an African American captain is brought in to investigate the murder and find out, you know, who who killed the sergeant. And so you go through from the top of the play to the end with some flashbacks, trying to figure out what happened and why it happened and and who was responsible.

And I think in the middle of that you start dealing with some very universal issues, such as um uh fear and power and control and and race and class, and uh I think interracial issues and intra-racial issues uh at the same time. So it's a really complex play, but it's it's actually also pretty exciting.

[19:24] Gordon Cox: Do you find it was written in the early 80s and is set in the 40s? What in particular kind of speaks to what's happening today in your mind?

[19:41] Nnamdi Asomugha: But but those same issues are as universal as they come. You know, you you can look at someone else that's you know maybe these things aren't spoken out loud as much, but you know, there is discrimination within your own race, within your own culture, within your own family. You know, there may be someone in your family that's that's uh darker than the others, or someone in your family that's that might not have as much education as the others, and certain people will look at them in in different ways. And it's like, how do you handle those dynamics when you are a unit um of people working together for a common purpose? You know, I it's uh there's a lot of that and and so much more, I think, in this play that just speaks to today and speaks to you know any time in history.

[20:33] Gordon Cox: And who do you play in Soldier's Play and what do you connect with in him?

[20:38] Nnamdi Asomugha: Uh so I play private first class Melvin Peterson. Um he uh a lot of the guys in the barracks are privates, so he's just a step ahead of them, and that's just because he's been in the army a little bit longer than them, maybe just a matter of months. Uh but in this specific uh company, he's the new guy on the block. Um these guys have been there for I don't know, nine, ten months, and he's been there for about three weeks. So he's trying to find his footing, um, trying to build relationships, but also comes from a place where things are very strict and you know, this is the army.

[21:17] Nnamdi Asomugha: There's a certain way that you have to do things, there's a certain way you move, a certain way you speak, and to watch how relaxed everyone is, I think is very strange for him. So he's trying to figure it out along the way, and I think that speaks to me completely. I mean, this entire cast has I mean, individually, they've probably done fifty plays apiece, you know, at a minimum. And this being my second, I'm still trying to find my footing, trying to, you know, find my way around the barracks, so to speak, and understand what this world is like. Um and yeah, so that's a there are but there are a lot of similarities and there are a lot of differences between me and Peterson as well.

[22:04] Gordon Cox: What are you finding what's what strikes you as sort of the biggest challenge of this role for you as you're as you're going at it?

[22:12] Nnamdi Asomugha: Um I d I think the biggest challenge is probably more of an overall thing versus like a specific thing to Peterson and it's just being on stage in general is a challenge in itself, especially when you don't have a lot of experience doing it. Um getting out of your head, you know, not questioning what happens next or not trying to get ahead of the play in any sort of way. I mean, all of those things for me are just things that I'm trying to buckle down on. So I go through challenges every single day in rehearsals, just trying to be as real and authentic and in the moment as possible.

[22:59] Gordon Cox: I'm talking to you, you're still in rehearsals. You haven't quite begun performances yet for Soldier's Play. So far does working on a Broadway show feel any different to the process of working on off Broadway on something like Good Grief?

[23:13] Nnamdi Asomugha: Um not I mean it uh I mean the plays are completely different. So I think that's the first thing. I think the idea of community is still the same. Um the idea of people working together trying to bring you know the best possible outcome to a project is exactly the same. But I think because the plays are so different and the directors are so different it just makes for a different experience altogether.

[23:35] Gordon Cox: Does a cast feel at all like a sport, but like being on a sports team to you?

[23:35] Nnamdi Asomugha: Yeah I think without a doubt I think it's just that thing that I was speaking of to like you know you you don't really know the people before you come into a project before you go on to a team but you do know that there's a common purpose you do know that you have to put or the good ones put self on the back burner and they work together for you know the betterment of the team for the project. Um there's all those similarities it's it's uh it's not about race it's not about politics it's not about religion, it's just about we are family, and we have to work together to find a way to make this work out. You know, so I think those similarities are really huge. Um, football being what I think the ultimate team sport, um, I think kind of kind of um trains you in that way to understand that it's not about you, uh it's about the whole, you know, it's about the family, so to speak.

[25:02] Gordon Cox: Is there any other carryover between the skills you built as a pro football player and an actor? Is there any sort of do they do they overlap at all?

[25:14] Nnamdi Asomugha: Um I think so. I mean, I played a specific position. I played cornerback, um, and I played for many years in a scheme called man to man. So in that it's the most difficult way to play the position in the NFL. And basically what you do is you're face to face with someone else. You have no clue what their next move is, and you have to just react, you know, and be impulsive, and it's all about reading body language and sort of anticipating. Um and I think that very much that's a lot of acting, you know, that reactionary sort of thing of just let me understand this person's body language, where they're going. Is this turning into an argument? Oh, is this actually turning into the opposite of an argument?

You know, is the what where is this going and then let me go along with that? You know, it's not let me get ahead of it, it's let me react to it. So I think I think I was lucky to that that was my position and that scheme was the scheme that I was in for so long in my career that it's helped with this transition because I think reading body language is something that I've just learned over time.

[26:34] Gordon Cox: Do you and you when you talked about sort of the early the shows that you started to see that really piqued your interest in theater, the original production of Color Purple and Wicked, those are musicals. Do you sing? Do you want to be in a musical?

[26:47] Nnamdi Asomugha: Um I actually never thought of that, that those were musicals until you just said it. But they they are. Um The Color Purple. I it was it was just a great experience, you know. And I my sister was like, I want to see this. So I went with her. I didn't think I was gonna be into it. I was completely into it. And then she's and then she said she wanted to see Wicked, but we were in LA and she and Wicked was at the Pantages Theater in LA, and she said, I want to see this show called Wicked. Do you want to come? I said, sure, I'll go with and I was like, wait, what is this about? And she's like, it's the Wizard of Oz, but it's different. And then I was like, oh, that's actually very clever, you know, very creative. And so I just fell in love with it. I d I actually never thought about the fact that those were musicals. That's very interesting. But have you thought about being in a musical yourself?

[27:38] Nnamdi Asomugha: Absolutely not. No, I I I have not, and and I will I uh geez, I don't think that I would ever be in a musical. I mean, I think you have to be able to like really sing and really that's a different level of acting that I I don't know that I'm gonna go down that road.

[27:56] Gordon Cox: What is your favorite musical?

[27:59] Nnamdi Asomugha: Mine.

[28:00] Gordon Cox: Yes.

[28:00] Nnamdi Asomugha: Uh I love a number of musicals. I my short answer is cabaret. I really love cabaret.

[28:07] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[28:07] Nnamdi Asomugha: What's yours?

[28:08] Gordon Cox: Um I also love a lot of music. I'm gonna be upset that I answer this 'cause there will be 10 more that pop into my head. But the I think when we were kids, my parents would play um the sound of music a lot in our home and so we started to learn and we started to uh to watch that so much that I think it just became a part of our experience growing up. So I would say the sound of music probably, probably, but I've got a few others. I don't know. But did you as a kid were you a performer at all as a kid before you started getting into acting as an adult? Did you, you know, do stuff in school plays or anything like that?

[28:47] Nnamdi Asomugha: Um I did one play. So this is actually technically my third play that I've ever done. Thank you. Um in the fifth grade I did a Midsummer Night's Dream. Um and I was Oberon in that. Yeah, the king. And uh that was it. That was the extent of it. I mean we had to I say we had to. Like my our parents put us in, you know, we played all the instruments that you could possibly play and you know, you do the recitals and uh you know, they just would make us perform for people uh just to show off that we could do something, you know what I mean? But it was never something that was interesting for me or that I actually wanted to do.

[29:32] Gordon Cox: And so now as you look ahead at your professional your career, what how do you see theater fitting into the other stuff you're doing? Uh you know, particularly the film stuff.

[29:43] Nnamdi Asomugha: Well uh theater just I think has, you know, w it's like, what's the goal? Oh, to become a stronger actor. Theater completely makes that happen. You know, you're just put in situations that you aren't put in in film and in television. Um, where you just have to be on it and there is no time to go backwards and you know, and you're breathing the same air as the audience and all that type of stuff. So it just I think it makes you a stronger actor. Uh I think it fits in as you know just as well as film and television. But again, this is early for me. I think, you know, as I continue to do it, there will be more reasons why. Um I think theater is such a such an important medium, but for now I think it just brings life to everything that you're doing, and I think it makes you a stronger performer.

[30:41] Gordon Cox: And is there a play or a role that you really want to do on stage sometime?

[30:47] Nnamdi Asomugha: Uh no, not in particular. There isn't one that I've I've thought of where I said I I have to do this. You know, I'm I'm like stuck in oh, I'm doing my first Broadway play. Let me sort of get through that moment and then figure out what's next. But no, I uh I don't think so. No.

[31:05] Gordon Cox: Well, we look forward to seeing you in your first Broadway play and then in your next one after that.

[31:10] Nnamdi Asomugha: Thank you.

[31:10] Gordon Cox: Thank you, Nnamdi. Thanks for being here. Appreciate it.

[31:16] Gordon Cox: That was Nnamdi Asomugha, now appearing in the Broadway revival of A Soldier's Play at the American Airlines Theater. He's also in the film Sylvie's Love, premiering this month at Sundance. If you like what you're hearing on this and other episodes of Stagecraft, I'd be very grateful if you took the time to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, or tell a friend about us. On next week's episode, I'm talking to Emmy Winner and Broadway regular Laura Linney. Until then, see you at the theater.