Chris Lowell at 2023 Nova Ball; Chris Lowell with his daughter.Photo:Jamie McCarthy/Getty; Chris Lowell/Instagram
Jamie McCarthy/Getty; Chris Lowell/Instagram
Chris Lowellfound acting inspiration through fatherhood.
The actor, 40, welcomed his first child in 2021 with his wife Kerry Bishé. Now, amid his Broadway debut inCult of Love, which wraps performances Feb. 2 at Second Stage Theater in New York City – he is looking back on the surprising way becoming a father has inspired him in his career.
In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, Lowell says, “They always tell you about how much you’re going to love this person more than you’ve ever loved anything before, so I was prepared for that. But I don’t think I was prepared to receive love the way that I do from my daughter.”
TheHow I Met Your Fatherstar recalls an experience from “not too long ago” when it was his turn to comfort his daughter after she woke up in the middle of the night. “I remember throwing the sheets up [and] being so pissed off [over] having to go down there to deal with her,” he says.
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Chris Lowell.Michaelah Reynolds
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But his entire mood changed when he picked her up.
“All she wants is for me to hold her,” he says of his daughter. “Like, the idea that I can providethatfor someone. There’s just nothing like it.”
Lowell continues to say that being a father is also “a great gift as an actor” because it has opened him up to a world of new emotions.
“You think you’ve felt everything and then you have a kid and it just cracks you open,” he explains. “I think, for me, it makes accessing my emotions much easier.”
The actor reprised his role from the show’s 2024 run at Berkeley Repertory Theater in California, along with stage veteran Mare Winningham and Christopher Sears. The rest of the cast includesZachary Quinto,Shailene Woodley,Barbie Ferreira, Roberta Colindrez, Rebecca Henderson and David Rasche.
“To be working with this cast who I feel like is much more talented than I am, it feels like every day, we’re all trying to meet each other,” he says. “We’re all trying to rise to the occasion and the play demands that of its cast because it’s extremely complex and overwhelming to perform. It really bonded us fast because it has to.”
Emma McIntyre/Getty
Cult of Lovefollows four adult siblings as they return to their childhood home for the holiday season but things go awry when “old conflicts resurface, new issues battled, and dinner is taking absolutely forever to be served.”
The synopsis teases, “Will the love the Dahls have for each other be enough to get them through, or will this be their last Christmas together?”
Lowell feels proud to be part of such a moving show with “the world being in the state that it’s in.” He says, “To be able to have a place to put those feelings and to tell a story that is probably going to be especially relatable now is something that I’m very grateful to be able to do.”
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Chris Lowell and Shailene Woodley in ‘Cult of Love’ on Broadway.Joan Marcus
Joan Marcus
His career includes credits in popular television shows and movies likeVeronica Mars,GlowandThe Help,as well as aprevious turn in the 2014 Off-Broadway showJacuzzi.Therefore, he had plenty of fellow actors to turn to for advice when it came to his anticipated debut on Broadway.
“The piece of advice that I was given that I try and hold onto is it gets so difficult when you’re doing eight shows a week and two-show days and very quickly it can become a burden,” he says. “It is helpful to remember that when the moment it’s over, you miss it more than anything, and it’s only alive in those moments that you are on stage.”
He adds, “So I just try to remember that. To savor the flavor. To just enjoy the experience as it’s happening because it’s fleeting. That’s the beauty of theater.”
Tickets forCult of Loveare now on sale.
source: people.com
