Consider Whitehead's career: In nine years in Seattle, he has gone only three weeks without working on a show, and he has never been hired by the Rep, Intiman, ACT, or the Empty Space. Nevertheless, Whitehead is a well-known local success. He is easily one of Seattle's best comic actors and his current lead in Theater Schmeater's The Mystery of Attraction shows that he, like others who understand deep comedy, can also master drama.
"I'm very scientific and I love the details of a character," he said. "It's not so much what shirt he has on, but what button he forgot to button. It's not that he has a watch on, but how tight the band is. It's the little things that make or break it. And comedy has got to be just as honest as drama. You have to be absolutely truthful about the characters you build. That's what makes them funny."
So far, Whitehead has resisted the familiar temptation to make the trip to New York or Los Angeles. "I was thinking about this interview and all I wanted to talk about was the great, talented people I've been able to work with in Seattle: Ian Bell, Rob West, Wayne Rawley--boy howdy am I lucky to know him. He's my favorite writer, period. But I might move away eventually: Shit or get off the pot, as my mom says. I've been working on a very big dump for nine years and I'll go release it in L.A."
Like many actors, Whitehead's family initiated him into the pleasure of working a crowd. "My whole family is a bunch of comedians," he said. "Everybody clamors for the microphone to see who can be the funniest. I wound up playing the straight man at family gatherings to my grandfather, who was a funny, funny man. He would say, 'Brandon, I just got a new hearing aid, the best money can buy.' I would always say, 'That's great Grandpa, what kind of hearing aid is it?' He'd look at his watch and say, 'Four thirty!'" In all honesty, I should add that he had to tell me the joke four times before I got it, which is why Brandon is the actor and Brendan is the critic.
Whitehead came to Seattle after graduating from Amherst. "I always knew I wanted to move to a city," he said. "I ran into a college friend who said he was moving to Seattle in two weeks--on my birthday, May 22nd--and asked if I wanted to come. Because I was young I thought it was kismet, so I said yes. I had $600, a plane ticket, and a bag full of clothes. When I came in on I-5 and saw the skyline, I cried. I thought, 'I've got nothing, nobody loves me, nobody is going to cast me.'"
He was, of course, wrong. His first show was the second episode of Wayne Rawley's Money and Run. After that, he began his nine-year run in a series of shows with A Theatre Under the Influence, sketch comedy groups, Open Circle Theater, and Theater Schmeater.
"I just keep bumping around," he said. "And I wouldn't want to do anything else. I was in Poona the Fuckdog over at Open Circle, where I played a six-foot penis, and at one point I had to crawl under the stage to get to my entrance. So one night I was worming along and I decided right then and there to stop and take stock of my life. I had just talked to some friends at home and they had kids and jobs and there I was, 26 years old in a giant phallus costume crawling under a stage to get to my entrance for a 50-seat house. And you know what? I had a big old smile on my face."
