A new interview with Broadway legend Patti LuPone was published in the Guardian Thursday. It’s an entertaining piece, covering the very colorful life and experiences of the singer and actor as she rehearses in London for a new production of Stephen Sondheim’s Company. One of Patti’s most endearing qualities is her unfettered honesty about her feelings and thoughts. The theater is not a place for diplomacy; it’s a place for truth in art—when it’s done right.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, LuPone insists she’s ready to slow down. She has an Italian passport (“which means I belong to 28 countries!” she says, sticking the Brexit knife into me) and she dreams of traveling “this beautiful Earth” with her husband. “I want the quiet life,” she sighs longingly, then immediately goes into a furious rant about how “the Christian right in America is no different from al-Qaida. Print that, because someone needs to say it out loud!”
Here’s another reminder of how many fucks Patti LuPone does not give. In an 2017 exchange on the tony Awards red carpet with a reporter from Variety, this interaction took place:
Variety: Why should President Trump come see your show?
LuPone: Well, I hope he doesn't because I won't perform if he does.
Variety: Really?
LuPone: Really.
Variety: Tell me why.
LuPone: Because I hate the motherfucker, how's that?
During an interview on the Broadway Channel, LuPone used the F-word and the A-word and the M-word—and virtually every word my mother tells me not to use when I write—when describing her feelings about Trump.