Early on in Bradley Cooper’s upcoming Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro, there’s a moment when we meet the future music legend as a fresh-faced 25-year-old, recently appointed assistant conductor at the New York Philharmonic, who is called up one fateful morning in 1943 and asked to step in at the very last minute for a guest conductor who has been taken ill. He does so, making a Carnegie Hall debut that would be remembered as one of the most pivotal milestones in his career. Though it may seem wild to most, it’s a common story in show business—and something similar occurred last Thursday night at Vogue World: London.
Just hours before British Vogue’s illustrious guests began filing into Theatre Royal Drury Lane for the exuberant celebration of London’s arts, culture, and fashion scene, which was scheduled to kick off at 7:45pm, there was a sudden change to the line-up: the up-and-coming actor who had been cast to play Juliet opposite Tom Sturridge’s Romeo in act four’s tribute to romance and new romantic fashion was no longer able to go on, triggering a frantic search for a replacement. “That’s when I got the call, at 4:30pm,” laughs Helena Wilson, when I speak to her on the phone a few days later.
It was quite a moment for the 28-year-old Cambridge-born actor. She was signed to an agent while reading English at Oxford University by “someone who saw me in a student production of Sweeney Todd where I was playing Mrs. Lovett” and has been working as a theater actor since, in productions at the Donmar Warehouse, The Old Vic, the Bridge Theatre, and the National Theatre (in the comedic romp Jack Absolute Flies Again, where she first appeared on my radar). Although she was accustomed to high-pressure situations, Vogue World: London was a slightly different beast.
Before she became involved, had she been aware that the event was happening at all? “I absolutely was,” she replies, adding that this was because of Emily Burns, who had directed her in Jack Absolute and was also the show director of Vogue World: London. “As Emily had been putting it together, I’d been hearing snippets about the things she was working on—the stuff she was allowed to tell me—and, to be honest, I was trying to swing myself an invite. Emily saw right through me, though. She was like, ‘Sorry, I can’t get you in.’”
But then, she could—and she did. That afternoon, Helena happened to be just a few minutes away from the theater, in Holborn finishing a workshop rehearsal day for an upcoming West End project, when she got a text from Emily. It was a screenshot of an extract from Shakespeare’s Romeo Juliet, the scene where Juliet proclaims, “O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?” from a balcony. The message read: “Could you do this?” Helena said yes, and before she knew it, she was on the phone with Emily and on her way to Theatre Royal Drury Lane.
“Lots of aspiring actors learn that scene, obviously,” Helena says, when I ask if she felt comfortable performing it at such short notice. “But I had actually played Juliet before, while I was at Oxford—funnily enough, opposite Emma D’Arcy’s Romeo!” This, however, wasn’t quite the same: In the Vogue World: London sequence, she and Tom Sturridge would have to act out part of that scene, he from the theater stalls and she from an opera box that would act as her balcony, before rushing down to the stage to join dancers in a raucous club scene. Then, Juliet would emerge and receive declarations of love from three other Romeos: Everybody’s Talking About Jamie’s Max Harwood; Red, White Royal Blue’s Taylor Zakhar Perez; and model and activist Kai Isaiah Jamal.
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“Trying to explain to friends what happened next was tricky,” continues Helena, of entering the theater while rehearsals were already in full swing. “It was like walking into a Baz Luhrmann party montage—and it’s funny because Baz was, of course, a creative advisor on Vogue World: London. So, I met Baz, and he introduced me to Tom Sturridge, who was just standing there with Cara Delevingne. We did a walkthrough and then I had my dress fitted, and it fit perfectly, thank God. The tailors on hand were thrilled.” After she’d slipped on that white Alberta Ferretti gown and bronze wings by Loewe, a direct reference to Claire Danes’s angelic costume in Luhrmann’s 1996 Romeo + Juliet, she was straight into a dress rehearsal. “Baz came to find me after that, and gave me some notes, and I told him I was a fan. He held my hand and said, ‘This is the best way to meet.’ But then we had to get out of the way because Leonardo DiCaprio was coming past.”
Then, it was time for hair and makeup, and Tom Sturridge came to find Helena backstage to run lines as she got ready. “He was so generous and kind,” she adds. “And Max Harwood sent me a lovely note afterwards to say congratulations. I didn’t get to talk to the other Romeos properly because there was so little time, but all of it had that classic theater energy of everyone just pulling together. It was a complete dream and then, suddenly, it was 7:30pm. I couldn’t quite believe it.”
Was she nervous when the spotlight turned on her? “You know what, I don’t think I was nervous until I got up to that box,” Helena says, thoughtfully. “But then, I was sitting there with all of these amazing guests and chatting about what had just happened before I started the scene and their reactions to the situation reminded me how mad it all was. There were so many actors in the audience that I admire. You just have to sort of try and keep a cool head and stay present.”
She needn’t have worried—the segment went exactly to plan, and soon, she was back in the box to watch the rest of the show. “It was extraordinary,” she says. “Annie Lennox is such a magician, and then, at the end, to see those supermodels—Naomi, Linda, Christy, and Cindy—reunited on stage was so special. I’d seen it in the rehearsals, but to see the audience reaction to it was just incredible.”
I’d imagined that Helena ended her night at Vogue World: London’s star-studded after-party, but not so. “When the show ended, I went backstage and got my wings taken off, and then headed out into the auditorium,” she explains. “I’d seen a row of theater directors I knew, and also my friend Nicola Coughlan—we did a play at the Donmar together. I went to say hi, and then I said goodnight to Baz, and then I got a night bus home with full hair and make-up! When I got in, I just had a cup of tea and fell asleep in the clothes I was wearing.”
It’s quite the Cinderella ending, I tell her. As for what’s next? She’s currently preparing for a part in a high-profile West End play due to hit the stage next year, she tells me, though she “can’t say much more about it yet.” All we know is, this won’t be the last you’ll see of Helena Wilson.
