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Philip Quast, who is currently giving a powerhouse performance as Perón in Michael Grandage's production of Evita in the West End, is a substantial actor in every sense. When he played the braggart warrior Miles Gloriosus in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum two years ago at the National, composer Stephen Sondheim (at an onstage platform interview in front of a packed Olivier Theatre) said that his favourite moment in the production was Quast's entrance. "You hear him offstage saying, in a booming, stentorian voice, 'Watch out there, I take large steps!'" Sondheim recalled. "And he does. It's really inventive and funny." Quast takes large steps as an actor, too. After Forum, he went on to appear in the National's world premiere production of David Hare's Stuff Happens. He also recently played Lopakhin in a production of The Cherry Orchard at the Sydney Theatre Company in his native Australia.
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