Then and Now: Elizabeth Gillies and Graham Phillips Walk Down Memory Lane to Skid Row

Elizabeth Gillies remembers the first time she laid eyes on Graham Phillips. They were teenagers in a dusty old rehearsal room about to take on the project of their lives (to that point, anyway). Phillips was potentially masking his insecurity in a very memorable overcoat, and it stopped Gillies in her tracks.

The show they were working on was Jason Robert Brown, Dan Elish, and Robert Horn’s 13, which open and closed on Broadway in 105 performances 16 years ago. The run was brief, but teen Graham and teen Liz obviously hit it off. Now adults and longtime friends, Gillies suggested Phillips be the Seymour to her Audrey in off-Broadway’s Little Shop of Horrors, and following some initial jitters, he obviously said yes.

With around a month left in their run (Phillips recently joined up to replace Gillies’s original scene partner, Milo Manheim), they gathered over Zoom for a dizzying and delightful conversation about the past and present, with their love and respect for each other shining through.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Liz, were you the one that convinced Graham to join up?
Elizabeth Gillies: Yeah. They had asked Milo Manheim and I to extend a few times, and we did, once. Milo couldn’t extend again, and I wanted a break for my voice, but I wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye yet. And they said, if there’s anyone you’d love for Seymour, just tell us. Graham and Eamon Foley, who was also in 13 with us, we’re all good friends. Eamon was in my kitchen and he was like “Just say Graham?” So I was like “Graham Phillips.” And they were like “Approved. When would he start?” So that’s kind of how it happened.

I did not want to do it with somebody new. I didn’t want to have to learn a new person. Graham picks things up so quickly and he’s so talented, I knew it would be a breeze and a delight, and it has been. I’m thankful he said yes. But you’ve been having fun, right, Graham?

Graham Phillips: Yeah. Liz, I have a question.

Liz: Oh, you have a question for me? Sure.

Graham: So that day, when you were thinking about it, you looked at me and you were like “You can’t be Seymour,” and continued to brainstorm. I just believed you, because I wasn’t familiar with the show. I was like, “Well, obviously I can’t be Seymour. Liz knows the show and she says I can’t be Seymour.”

Liz: I wonder why I said that. I mean, I know that you can act, I know that you can sing the shit out of it, so certainly, you can be Seymour. I don’t know what I meant. What do you think I meant? What does your insecurity say?

Graham: My insecurity says that I’m too beautiful to be Seymour.

Liz: I don’t know if that’s insecurity or if that’s pompousness. But they’ve had a run of gorgeous Seymours. I don’t even think they intend to, but it does seem to happen that way.

Graham: I took it as, I couldn’t pull off the comedic, physical pretzel-ing.

Liz: Well, you’d seen Milo do it a few times, and he’s the ultimate pretzel. But no, you’re doing it. And you’re fantastic. I’m sorry that we’ve taken over this interview. I’m going to be quiet now

Honestly, this is way more fun for me. But I was going to ask, was 13 the first time that you two met?
Liz: Yes, that was the first time we met. He walked into our first rehearsal and he was wearing this fantastic coat. Like, it was as if you were in Paris, not wherever we were in Connecticut. I remember being astounded by the coat you were wearing and how well dressed you were, which has not stopped happening. I am still impressed by your style on the daily. But yeah, you were in an impressive outfit and I thought “This guy’s intense.”

Graham: I still have that coat.

Liz: Ok, the fact that you know the coat is so funny to me.

Graham: I just felt so much like an outsider. I mean, Eamon was on his fourth Broadway show, so who the fuck am I? My voice was changing. No one knew what I sounded like one week to the next. I think there was a part of me that was hiding behind that coat.

Was it your typical schoolyard boys vs. girls mentality backstage there, or did you call congregate together?
Liz: Oh, we were all dating. It was such a tender, delicate, formative time in our lives, but we had this very mature, difficult, intense job where we were very much treated like adults. I’ve been treated more like a child as a full 30-year-old than I was at 13.

Graham: Backstage at Little Shop, I’m fed water from the hand like I’m a baby bird or something.

Liz: It was like, “Get your own damn Manuka honey.” “Get your own pastilles, loser.” So, it was just us, carrying on these high-pressure adult jobs, but we were also 13 and 14 and 15 years old on Broadway, getting our little pay checks and running around and dating each other.

Liz, is this Little Shop experience what you hoped it would be when you suggested Graham for the part?
Liz: Can you imagine if I said no right now? I just totally shit on this poor kid right before he goes out again tonight? It’s been everything! Everything and more. Everyone’s like “Is it trippy to be back on stage together?” And oddly, it has not been that strange. It’s been kind of effortless and we work very well together.

Graham: The weirdest thing is how easy it’s been. I do think that we’re similar in how we work. There’s always a balance between keeping track of what works in a show and the surprise of keeping it alive moment to moment. Sometimes, we’ll be looking at each other and I’ll see her go “Oh, you’re doing that thing,” and I’ll be like “Yeah, I’m doing that thing.”

Liz: We have these little check-ins throughout the show, not totally breaking character, but that’s something you can only do with an old friend.

Graham, I’m a little surprised that you didn’t know Little Shop very well.
Graham: I know. This comes back to my insecurity about even being a theater person. And probably why I was wearing that overcoat. I’m disconnected from the encyclopedic knowledge that so many people who are diehards have. I think that’s kept me out of feeling like I was really a part of the theater world.

Liz: You’re being modest. I saw Graham play George in Sunday in the Park With George twice, and he was exceptional. I was so impressed because I hadn’t seen you do theater since 13, and that music is so complicated, and you did it with such ease. Not that there’s any through line between George and Seymour, but I was like “Certainly he could do this if he did this.”

Graham: I actually think the Chromolume kind of is the plant.

Liz: …Ok…

Graham: Yeah. This thing gets him all this validation and then he’s trapped by the sheer size of it. Everybody wants this thing, the Chromolume, the plant. And he’s like “But I’m not just that. I’m also this other person.” And people are like, “Fuck that. Give me the Plant. Give me the Chromolume.” And he can’t actually figure out what’s true anymore.

Liz: There you go.