The Art of the Actor
Luz Nicolás: The Faces of Elizabeth Arden
Nominated for a 2016 Helen Hayes Award for her portrayal of the title character in Yerma, Luz Nicolás returns to GALA Hispanic Theatre to play Elizabeth Arden in Señorita y Madame: The Secret War of Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein through February 28. Writer Jamilla Reddy caught up with Nicolás to learn about her creative process and explore her soulful approach to the The Art of the Actor.
Tell me your origin story. How did you become an actor?
I was born in Madrid. When I was a girl, I started dancing after school and I was in the conservatory doing classical ballet. I was always singing and acting all over the house to my family. When I was 15 years old I joined this theatre group for young people. It was such a beautiful experience that I thought, “I want to do this for a living.”
What do you enjoy the most about acting?
The way I see the world is that we are all one; we feel the same, we love the same, but we show ourselves in different ways. To perform a role is to bring someone else’s life into the world—to try and understand each other. All of that study that you have to do as an actor to be another type of person on stage makes you better. You have to get drawn into somebody’s soul and thoughts and fears and everything. It makes me more compassionate. The first part of that answer is really philosophical, but the other part is that it’s fun! I have a lot of fun when I’m performing.
What do you consider the most challenging thing about acting?
To forget about me. I’m like an instrument, and my job is to keep this instrument as empty or open as I can to let the character that I need to perform get inside me—to be generous enough to forget about yourself and walk to the character on the stage. For me, this is the most challenging thing—to open, to transform, to change myself enough to become another.
Tell us a little bit about this character you’re playing in Señorita y Madame at GALA, and what excites you about this role?
I’m playing Elizabeth Arden. I’ve been researching her, and there aren’t a lot of studies about her life; there’s just one documentary online. I was looking at this documentary to try and find out what happened to her because it’s been difficult for me to perform the character the way its written. It’s a comedy, but she says really tough things. The whole show is this fight between Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubenstein—this war they had between them. It’s like trying to show two faces: this public image of Elizabeth Arden being lovely and this wonderful business woman making a difference in the cosmetic world, but at the same time, she talks a lot about how she hates Helena Rubenstein and everything she says about her is horrible. It’s been difficult for me to show both of these sides: this wonderful person, and then, inside her, this horrible side. It’s hard to convey someone when they’re not nice, when the message is not beautiful.
What is “the art of the actor?”
The art of an actor is to be able to be this mirror of the human soul. The art, for me, is to be this instrument—human instrument—to show and to share humanity’s soul, what we are made of inside.
Congratulations on being nominated for a Helen Hayes Award! What would this award mean for you?
It’s a surprise. I came to the United States because I fell in love—my husband is an American man—and I fell in love and I married him. That was four years ago. I’d been used to performing in Spain all my life and when I came here I had to start again from zero. It was like, “Okay, what am I going to do here?” I was lucky enough to contact different people in Baltimore, where I live, who put me in contact with GALA Theatre. I got cast as Yerma in this show that I’ve been nominated for, and it’s one of the most beautiful jobs I’ve ever done in my life with the most beautiful company and people. Everything was so beautiful. You do that but you never expect to be awarded for that. I feel blessed. At the same time, and not in an ego way, something inside me is saying, “Okay Luz, you are doing fine.” It’s almost like somebody in the Universe telling you, “You are doing alright.”
Señorita y Madame: The Secret War of Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein runs through February 28th at GALA Hispanic Theatre.
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