By Fabrizio O. Almeida
“Yeah, I was a real asshole,” declares actor Stephen Louis Grush. He’s looking out the office windows of the Steppenwolf Theatre, wearing black jeans, an inside-out black t-shirt, a grey hooded camouflage jacket and a black sports cap. “I used to joke that Stephen’s going to be a significant actor—if I can keep him alive long enough,” says Joel G. Fink, theater conservatory director at Roosevelt University, Grush’s alma mater, and someone who’s known Stephen for the past five years. “He gets into fights. I truly believe they’re never his fault. But sometimes I just want to smack him.” Grush’s left wrist sports some chain bracelets and a rubber band, and on the knuckle of his right-hand index finger there appears to be a minor scrape or cut.
Just 24, he’s starring in the Steppenwolf’s production of playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s “Good Boys and True.” In it, he plays Brandon Hardy, a well-off and privileged senior implicated in a sex scandal. “The world that Brandon has access to, that he was raised in, I know nothing about. I went to public school in Southern Louisiana, not a prep school in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. It’s a completely different planet,” Grush explains. “I ran with some little upstarts back home. I guess I always had it in my head that I could do my own thing and on my own terms, you know? Unfortunately, my parents didn’t really agree with that.” So less of a good boy and more of a true juvenile delinquent? “Well, you know, that’s what the courts called me,” he says after a pause and with a puckish grin. “But I disagree. No, I wouldn’t say ‘delinquent.’ I got into trouble. Everyone’s got a past, right?”
Whatever Grush’s past, professionally he’s moving forward. After distinguishing himself at Roosevelt, landing on the radar of Steppenwolf casting director Erica Daniels (“He reminds me of one of our guys,” she says very matter-of-factly) and graduating in 2005, he’s been seen at various theaters including the Goodman and Chicago Shakespeare (in “Cymbeline,” where he brought humor and heart to his portrayal of a violent wild child). Every Thursday night he performs improvisational sketch comedy with The Cool Table, and he’s the co-founder of Thirteen Pocket, an independent artistic collective where he is trying his hand at screenwriting and playwriting. “Chicago is a very working-class city, art included. You’re able to hustle here and make a career out of your abilities and work ethic. And it’s got an amazing history of the type of theater that I’m interested in…very dangerous theater.”
“He’s a dangerous actor because you never know where he’ll go in his work,” Fink says. He goes on to explain how Stephen’s early years at Roosevelt drew comparisons to the work of a young Marlon Brando, Gary Sinise or Terry Kinney. “I’m not saying I’m comparing Stephen to Brando, but I understand how someone could see that.”
For someone who’s getting this kind of attention, the single, somewhat guarded, and soft-spoken Grush doesn’t seem to be letting it get to his head. “To be performing with such a talented group of people—I wake up excited to come to work. How many people in this city can say they’re so pumped to come to work? But then you got to bring the goods at the end of the day, of course.”
Clearly, Grush is bringing home the goods, as well as the steady paychecks. (“My first paycheck here was actually spent at a record store. I’m still reeling from that. I said, ‘Look at all this money. I’m going to get some vinyl.’ I’m a big music fan. It’s a vice of mine.”) Still, he hasn’t forgotten his past. “You know, a year ago I was working down the street at this terrible job doing grunt work. And this pizza joint that I’m looking at right here…I remember spending literally my last dime on a slice and just being sick to my stomach because I had no idea how I was going to pay my rent. I didn’t know what was going to happen and here I am looking at that same pizza joint from a window on the fourth floor of the Steppenwolf.”
At least now, Grush can afford the whole pizza instead of just one slice. “And share it with some of my friends,” he’s quick to add. And perhaps some more vinyl? Grush laughs. “I can’t see what else I’d spend it on.”
“Good Boys and True” opens December 21 at Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 North Halsted, (312)335-1650.
Related Stories
Hamming For Hamilton: Chicago High School Students Invited to "The Room Where It Happens" By Mary Kroeck Oh to be a Chicago public high school student this year! Not only is there a possibility of the school year ending early—meaning kids might get an early summer break because of a CPS lawsuit against the state—but 20,000 students from across the city are also getting the opportunity to see the hottest show in town, “Hamilton,” as…
Hell or High Water: A Review of The Children at Steppenwolf Theatre Company Still steaming from sold-out runs in London and New York, Lucy Kirkwood's new play organically and gracefully bridges a generational gap.
Truth or Beauty: A Review of The School For Lies at The Artistic Home Outside The Artistic Home's theater, a flyer advertises courses in Meisner technique, which describes acting as “living truthfully under imaginary circumstances.” Mere feet beyond its storefront entrance awaits the blue and cream and curlicued salon of Celimene, where no one politely goes without a corset—the color’s up to you. Helping themselves liberally to the candy and booze are friend Philinte…
Solitude Brings Great Love RECOMMENDED The third in a trilogy of performances that began with 2010's "The Lonely Visitors," the opening of "A Place at the Edge of the World to Call Our Own" represents the culmination of half a decade's work for RE|dance company member Michael Estanich. A reflection on themes of love, forgiveness and the ravages of solitude, the production is simultaneously…
Taking Care of Our Own: Dance for Life Brings Chicago's Dancers Together for a Cause By Sharon Hoyer Back in 1991, a dancer with Joseph Holmes Dance Theatre named Keith Elliott was losing many of his friends to a terrifying disease. He wanted to do something about it and, as a performer with plentiful access to talent but little to money, he hatched a plan to put on a fundraiser concert for his friends and…
A High Price for a Low Life: A Review of Gloria at Goodman Theatre RECOMMENDED “Gloria” is a difficult play but not because of its graphic violence. Anyone with a television or an internet connection has already been exposed to an unprecedented degree of both real and fictitious violence. While the climactic scene of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' play may be disturbing in its jarring realism, it pales in comparison to the spiritual violence which surrounds…
