Finn Jones Is Ready For 2:22 A GHOST STORY To Scare Audiences Into the Present

Spooky season is in full swing, and Marvel’s Finn Jones is ready to take on his New York City Stage Debut in 2:22 A Ghost Story at the Lucille Lortel Theatre.

I caught up with Jones while he was camping upstate before rehearsals about how he’s feeling taking on a stage role after many years on screen, whether he believes in ghosts, and how he hopes a shared scary story can forge community downtown.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Tell me how you got involved with this project, how it came into your life. 

My manager was in town with a theatrical agent of mine, well, it wasn't my theater agent at the time. They were just having a discussion. I think they share like a mutual client, and Kevin — the theatrical agent — just asked my manager, Brad, “Hey, do you think Finn would ever really be into doing theatre at all?” And Brad was like, “yeah, I think he would be into doing it.” So then Kevin went away and kind of tried to see what was going on and what was happening. It just so happened that they were casting 2:22 — and it's a British play set in New York and I live in New York. I've lived here for 10 years, so it just was one of those things where everything just kind of lined up quite easily. I read the play, I met with the director, and I loved it from the get-go. I really, really enjoyed the style of writing. It just seemed like a really fun character to play part of a production that's been successful and tried and tested. I've never worked on a play, I studied at drama school 15 years ago, and I'm curious about what that experience is like as an actor to be on every night and understand what that ritual is and give myself to a performance in a very different way to what I'm used to. I like challenges, I like pushing myself, so it just lined up and felt like an amazing experience to be a part of. 

Totally. In preparing for this interview, I went back to your resume and saw all that you did at the university level in all the theatre shows. Obviously you spent a good majority of the last decade or so in the film and TV world. What are you most excited about in terms of now working on the stage, and what are you more apprehensive about or nervous? 

That's a great question because there's equal excitement and apprehension. Actually the closer that the day comes the apprehension gets a lot less and then the excitement and the curiosity is stronger. I guess my curiosity, rather than apprehension, at this point is just like “what does it feel like to commit yourself to the stage for two hours?” You know, I'm on stage the whole time. In television you're so used to doing the scene basically one time and then you move on and so I'm really interested to see what it's like to live inside a performance night after night and really refine it and find it fresh. I think the ritual aspect of it as well, like every night, knowing what you're going to do and turning up and giving yourself over to it, I think is, I don't know, there's something really appealing about it to me. Working with a small cast is really interesting as well. It's a great cast too. What I found to be really enjoyable is that it's a real social experience. I've told so many friends, “I'm gonna be doing a play in New York,” and they're all like, “oh wow, yeah, I'll come and see that.” Usually if I'm working, I kind of go off and shoot it kind of in private and then I never get to feel or see the audience reaction to it, so this is a very present experience of sharing my craft with friends, with an audience and kind of being there in real time and the present moment. There’s something quite freeing about it as a performer, just having to live in the present of the performance that night, and that's it. And then you do it all over again. 

My biggest apprehension is just the shift. Working on television sets is extremely intense. You're often there for 12 hours a day, Monday to Friday, you've got night shoots; there's a level of stamina that you need for it. I guess maybe the repetition, I think, I'm curious to see what that's going to feel like and how do I find something new? 

You've been a part of such exciting franchises and met very, very different types of roles over the years. I'm curious, are you a fan of the scary horror thriller genre? And if so, or if not, what do you think attracts audiences to these types of stories? 

As a performer, the genre isn't necessarily important to me. That’s a window dressing on the story. I'm interested in character development and the other creative partners within the production — who the writer is, the director is, who the other cast are, where it's being filmed. That’s what draws me to a project as a performer. As an audience member, I like a lot of true crime. I'm a true crime junkie, and I like things that have a psychological component to them. What really drew me to this is I think of it more as a kind of psychological thriller. It's very complex with its themes. It's quite philosophical. It had those components that actually allowed me to think a lot deeper about the meaning of the play and what I can bring to it. 

I’m very drawn to why people are interested in spooky things. I think the supernatural is very interesting to a lot of us because it is a part of the psyche that we're never really allowed to explore. In a kind of rational material world, we're not really allowed to explore anything that goes beyond the realms of reason, and I think there is this intrinsic desire to touch it. It’s spooky to us because we don't know it. I also think people just like to have a bit of an adrenaline rush. They like to feel scared. They like to scratch that itch. I also think there is something interesting about going to a collective event and feeling a mutual emotional response in the room, right? And joy is fun, entertainment is great. But also going into a dark theatre and having a little bit of spooky supernatural, that's an experience I don't think a lot of people get because that isn't really present in our plays. We often go to plays to laugh or to cry or to experience joy, never really to be put on the edge of your seat. 

What are you excited about diving into this character? 

I think there's an intrinsic nature of just like fun and lightness to him on the surface, but then deeper down, he’s someone who is unwilling to let go of control. It's almost like only reason he is able to exist in his world is to rationalize and explain everything as a way to control a deeper fear. I’m writing my backstory, and I’ve got little things about my version of Sam. Why he's built up this complex, because it's essentially a complex, like he keeps the world known and explained so he can survive. That’s his mechanism, but why is he doing that? Why is he so adamant to not let not even allow entertain the idea of the supernatural? I think it's essentially about him not willing to let go, not willing to not be in control. Throughout the play it's him slowly being chipped away at, slowly losing control again and again. It's an interesting character trajectory — how do you take a man who thinks he has it all figured out and is in control and is the life and soul of the party and then in real time slowly dismantle that? 

Do you believe in ghosts in real life? I've never seen a ghost. 

I've had a lot of friends that have experienced ghosts. They've told me their stories. I always find them deeply interesting. Do I believe in ghosts? I don't know. I'm not sure. I've never seen one. I never had an experience, so I can't say if it's a belief of mine or not. Do I entertain and take people seriously that have had those experiences? Yeah, definitely. Now, is it something that is physical? Or is something that is more just psychological? We really don't know. 

Switching gears a little, you will be down at the iconic Lucille Lortel Theater in the heart of the West Village. What excites you about being down and just working at this very iconic theatre? 

I love it, man. I was down there, I went to see Broad Strokes, the Cat Cohen play last week. It's a brilliant show, and it's an amazing theater. I love the area. It's so nice to not be in Times Square, and just have really great restaurants and coffee shops and bars nearby. It feels cool. It genuinely feels like an underground, cool, part of New York's theatre spirit. I started in the theater when I was 15 or 16, and I went to a place in London called the Croydon Warehouse Theater, which was a small independent theater. It's where I actually found my love for performing. I would do Saturday classes there, and we'd put on plays there, and I did that for about three or four years. And it's very similar to the Lucille Lortel, in terms of its characteristics and I like the fact that it has a lot of history and it has a lot of character. It definitely feels personally meaningful for me to be in that space because it takes me back to 20 years ago when I first started this. 

We created Theatrely for the next generation of theater lovers. When young folks come and see the show who have never seen it before, what do you hope young people take away from it? 

Hopefully how accessible the theatre can be, and how enjoyable it can be, and how important the live experience of theatre is to our culture. So much these days is us scrolling through various algorithms of doom, and it's how so much of us get fed our entertainment. More and more we're becoming isolated and less connected to the present creative experience. And hopefully the kids that come and see this play realize that this is where it's at. This is where life happens, it's where art happens, it's where entertainment should live: in the live experience with other people, watching live performance, everyone coming together for a unique present moment to create something. Because the audience are always our participants in the creative experience. When they are viewing something, it's like a living orb that just happens once and it's a very special thing. Hopefully they just realize how cool it is and just continue to keep theatres alive.