Adrian Lester: "I do worry my nose is going to come off"
The actor on the unexpected challenges of playing Cyrano de Bergerac in the new West End play.
The actor on the unexpected challenges of playing Cyrano de Bergerac in the new West End play.
I grew up as ‘Anthony’ Lester on a council estate in Birmingham until I was eight and came across my birth certificate, which said my first name was Adrian! That name was alien to me, but when I saw it, I knew that was what I wanted to be called.
There was no one theatrical in our family. My dad Reginald worked as a cleaning manager and my mum Monica was a medical secretary. I have an older brother Scott [60, a computer consultant] and one younger sister Christine [41, a healthcare assistant].
I’ve no idea where the passion for performing came from. But from a young age, I was into everything. I loved dancing and singing and tried to copy James Brown and Michael Jackson. At nine, I auditioned for St Chad’s Cathedral Choir, where I sang for six years. At 14, I also joined the Birmingham Youth Theatre.
Even as a child I was confident singing on stage, but I was shy and needed something to hide behind… hence being an actor. At 18, I left home to go to RADA [The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art] and with nowhere to live, spent my first term sleeping on a friend’s sofa.
It’s because it’s the most romantic story of unrequited love ever. Cyrano, who is a poet with a very large nose, loves Roxane, and she loves Christian, who is hopeless with words and turns to Cyrano to write love letters pretending to be from him.
Whoever you fall in love with, there are times you are going to think you are not good enough for them. So being able to express that love for them through somebody else’s persona keeps you safe while at the same time allowing you to say everything you want to say.
I think everyone has their own version of a Cyrano nose.
We did it slowly. Started with a smaller one and went larger and larger until we got the right shape. We wanted it to look like a naturally big nose rather than a comedy Pinocchio-type pointed nose.
Also, because Cyrano felt he was ugly, they put little marks around the nose, so it looks like he has bad skin, which makes him feel even more ugly. I do worry my nose is going to come off on stage because I get very hot and sweat is the thing that will separate a prosthetic from your face.
You’ve played everything on stage, film and TV from Shakespearean characters to slick con men such as Mickey Stone in the long-running series Hustle. Do people still recognise you from that show?
All the time. People I meet on the street say: "Hey, it’s you! I’d better watch my wallet."
Adrian Lester is Cyrano de Bergerac, at the Noel Coward Theatre, London, from 13 June to 5 September, 2026.
(Hero image credit: Andrew Crowley/Camera Press)
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