| CHARACTER SKETCH | ||
Six-year-old Skyler Hensley can. Her father, Marietta native Shuler Hensly, is a Tony Award-winning actor whose hulky 6-foot-3 physique and mighty baritone have made him a go-to character actor for stage and film directors in search of tortured misfits and shaggy beasts. Of late, Hensley had appeared in films with Hugh Jackman (Van Helsing) and Antonio Banderas (The Legend of Zorro). Now, to the delight of Skyler and 2-year-old Grayson, he's back on Broadway as Tarzan's ape-father, Kerchak, in the latest Disney spectacle, Tarzan. "They call me Kerchak, and Skyler has a fish named Kerchak," Hensley says of his children, with a mixture of eye-rolling embarrassment and paternal pride. "She tells everybody at school that 'Daddy's a gorilla.' That makes it. I'm a sucker for that." Though rock star Phil Collins' Tarzan score and lyrics have received poor to mixed notices, the design-heavy spectacle has become a high-grossing summer hit and family favorite. Here are some highlights of Hensley's character-specific career so far: Jud Fry (Oklahoma!) Hensley's breakout role, as the brutish farmhand in Trevor Nunn's revival of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic, earned him an Olivier Award, a Tony, and a sketch in the famous Broadway gallery at Sardi's restaurant. He gets killed at the end. Frankenstein's Monster (Van Helsing) Jackman played Curly in the London production of Oklahoma! but Hensley says it was purely coincidental that the two were cast together again in this critical bomb, in which Jackman played the lead. An AJC reviewer sniffed of the film: "There is but a single scene where but a single character - Hensley as Frankenstein's Monster - conveys any sort of honest emotion." His character gets killed at the end. Pike (The Legend of Zorro) Banderas starred, and Hensley was the Pinkerton detective who blackmails Zorro's wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones). "I got two big fight scenes with both of them, and I ended up getting killed again." Kerchak (Tarzan) A graduate of the Westminster Schools, Hensley says his all-time favorite concert was at the old Omni back in the '80s. It was Collins' band, Genesis. "When I found out he was writing a song for my character, I was like, 'I've got to do this.' " In that big number, "No Other Way," Kerchak reasons that Tarzan's presence will lead to disaster. Sure enough, Kerchak gets killed at the end. Norbert (The Great American Trailer Park Musical) "I was the romantic lead" in this off-Broadway show, Hensley says, rolling his "r" to emphasize the irony. Norbert, a pudge-ball redneck living in Starke, Fla. "was a tollbooth collector and his wife was an agoraphobic who would not come out of the trailer. So he ends up getting together with the stripper who lives in the trailer next door, and then all mayhem ensues." He does not, however, get killed at the end. |
