One of the changes that came when Matthew Lopez adapted the 1910 novel Howards End into a two-part contemporary play about gay men, The Inheritance, was turning its lunch debates into — what else? — brunch. But at the play’s opening-night party, John Benjamin Hickey, who plays the conservative real-estate tycoon Henry Wilcox, revealed a secret to Vulture. “I’ve lived in New York 37 years; I don’t think I’ve ever been to brunch,” he said. “Not once.” Gasp! “It’s just not something I ever did. I don’t know what brunch is,” Hickey explained. “Maybe because I was working on Sundays in the theater? I don’t get it.”
So much for Method acting, right? Not to mention that the revelation came from an icon of gay theater, who won a Tony in the 2011 revival of The Normal Heart. We had to know: What about just a simple, no-frills breakfast? “I like breakfast, yeah, but brunch is a thing with mimosas,” he said. “I like some eggs and bacon, and then I like to go.” Hickey seems to have his food priorities in order otherwise: Asked how he makes it through the play’s two-part, nearly seven-hour performances, he said, “carb-loading, you know, lots of pasta.” And something stronger afterward, he shared, telling Vulture, “I can’t wait to drink” as he finished our chat. Cheers to you, John Benjamin Hickey, and we promise we’re not toasting mimosas.
