Fiona Reid, star of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, tells The Globe and Mail how she’s spending her time at home.
Fiona Reid was contracted to act in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway until June.Tim Leyes/Supplied
When Broadway closed down, it was sudden. We heard on the 12th of March and I was contracted [to be in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child] until the end of June. I walked out of the apartment in New York thinking I’d be back in one or two months. I left 15 months of my life in that apartment and I’m not sure when I’ll be going back.
I came directly up to the Kawarthas and self-isolated not only from the citizenry of Ontario but also from my husband. We have gone through a great deal of hydrogen peroxide and paper towels, and there has been a lot of negotiating in our household.
Time and space are so thoroughly altered now. Every day of my life was tethered to being on a Broadway stage. It demanded I stay physically fit, that I cooked certain foods to keep my energy level up. It was all about preparedness. It was a very strict regimen and it was suddenly gone. I felt this sense of loss but then I’d think, “How dare you feel this way,” there is a global realignment going on.'
I just got an e-mail from a dear friend who seems to have been doing the equivalent of reading Proust forward and backward 10 times, writing a novella and sewing masks. It was exhausting to read and it made me question my entire existence. I’ve been listening to a lot of John Prine, doing Zoom workouts with colleagues from HPCC [Harry Potter and the Cursed Child] twice a week and digging up roots on the hill out back, which is very therapeutic for the head.
People are saying we’ll never be the same again. I hope that’s true. I hope we’re more fair, less greedy and less wantonly capitalist. All this has to yield some sense of a better world for the younger generation. It has to be different.
– As told to Gayle MacDonald
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