In ‘Amadeus,’ Will Sharpe Plays a Mozart in Several Registers

Fashion: What attracted you to this project?

Will Sharp: Worked with Joe [Barton, writer of Amadeus] exist [the 2019 BBC-Netflix miniseries] Giri/HajiI’m curious what he did with it. And since the story spans five hours, there’s more room to view it from different angles than a drama or movie. Mozart is portrayed as a man whose music was like pie in the sky to him, and I’m curious to see what other people think of him. What does that person actually look like in everyday life? He can write this extraordinary music but doesn’t really seem to understand social norms and communicates in a very unusual way – which often ends up offending people on the show and he doesn’t understand why.

Are there any aspects of Mozart that feel unexpectedly modern to you?

He has a punk style. In those days, a composer would be viewed as a servant of the court, and by all accounts, he didn’t like being viewed that way, so he tried to have more agency in his position and his music. The Marriage of Figaro is based on forbidden texts, so he is not afraid to challenge authority. Musically too, you’ll start to notice popular chord progressions in his music. You can really feel his influence on various genres today.

You were probably the first Asian actor to play Mozart, certainly for an English-speaking audience. What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you imagine yourself as him? What are your overall thoughts on different castings and period projects?

This story is notoriously fictional – the biographies of the characters we play are inaccurate. Even if this is the case, there will be a reason. I’ve always believed that things like this should be treated on a case-by-case basis. The bottom line is, like I do with any character, I just want to see what’s on the page and try to find a way into him that makes him feel as human as possible. But one thing that’s very unusual is that I do have a vast source of his music, which I find really helpful, especially because the diversity of the music, like the script, reflects who he is as a person. Sometimes he’s so goofy and flighty and mischievous, but at other times, and increasingly throughout the series, he has this grander, darker, operatic side to him. Trying to fit it all into one person, music really helps because it all comes from real people. This isn’t a tool you normally have, so I found it to be a very useful way to meditate on the character.