Theatre
Interview
Backstage Pass: The Shark is Broken – Ashley Margolis
The Shark is Broken - the untold story behind Jaws, follows the real drama off screen in the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin until Saturday 17 May 2025.
It’s 1974, filming is delayed yet again due to a faulty mechanical shark and bad weather. Alcohol flows and tensions rise as lead actors, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider are stuck together on a tiny boat. (Yes, they needed a bigger boat.)
Written by and starring Ian Shaw as his father, Robert Shaw, the West End and Broadway smash hit celebrates movie history and peeks at the choppy waters behind Hollywood’s first blockbuster.
We caught up with actor Ashley Margolis to talk the challenges of playing Richard Dreyfuss, stage versus screen and of course, Jaws.
How would you describe The Shark is Broken to people who don’t know anything about it?
Okay, so the play is about the three actors, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw and Roy Scheider, whilst they were filming Jaws. The play looks at the three actors when they were waiting to film. So it’s basically like a fly on the wall look at when the three actors were sat in their, essentially their green room, which is the boat, whilst they were waiting to film all the stuff at sea, and they couldn’t film because the shark was broken.
So our play examines the three actors’ characters and upbringings. And obviously, through their boredom, they talk about monotonous things like the weather all the way to depths about how they are the people that they are today. So it’s quite an exciting look during the nine weeks where they were stuck together in this very small space.
Do you remember when you watched Jaws for the first time? What do you remember about it?
The first time I ever watched Jaws, I remember being quite scared. So I think I was probably young. I think my first look at Spielberg movies were like Jurassic Park and ET whereas I always just remember Jaws being incredibly scary. But then I watched it before we started rehearsals again. It’s a fascinating film, amazing cinematography. Just for its time, it’s really iconic and the performances are great. So yeah, it was, it was fun to to look at it as an adult instead of being a kind of scared little seven or eight year old.
Is it a challenge to play Richard Dreyfuss rather than the character of Hooper? How do you research that role and in a sense separate the art from the artist?
It’s really interesting playing a character that’s based on a real person, like normally, when you’re devising a character, you kind of start from anywhere, and kind of create and what was interesting about this was having so much to look at. I think the way I approached it was to just watch a lot of interviews of Richard Dreyfuss from around 1974, when they were filming Jaws, and anything post that wasn’t really important and neither was his performance in Jaws. It was more just about him as a person.
I watched everything before that he’d done as well, just to get an essence of him. And I think it’s nice to then be able to just kind of pick slight little quirks or mannerisms that you want without it just feeling like an impression. So it’s been really interesting to kind of explore that way, and also like growing the facial hair and dying my hair. So it’s been an exciting process. And hopefully it does Dreyfuss justice in a way.
Other than Hooper, if you could tackle another Richard Dreyfuss role what would it be and why?
Hmm, that’s an interesting question. Do you know, I think The Goodbye Girl is an amazing performance. I mean, he’s so funny, and his style is so good, I just don’t know whether I’d be able to do any part that he played as well as he’d played it, you know. My my only attempt is of himself. And also he won an Oscar for The Goodbye Girl. So yeah, that one, then I’d win a Best Actor Oscar.
What was the rehearsal process like?
The rehearsal process was really interesting for this. We only had three weeks, which is not long at all, and we had the original set that they used in Edinburgh when the play was first on, which was just the sort of inside bit of the Orca that you see here. It had a table and this bench around.
It was quite an intense three weeks, but an interesting three weeks because I think for Ian, who has done this show now in Brighton and London and Canada and New York to now take it on tour. I think it gave everybody a kind of opportunity to sort of relook at it and try and find maybe some new things that weren’t explored fully the first time. So I think it was quite an interesting process.
We had Martha Geelan, our wonderful tour director on helping and and Molly Stacey her associate, and all the team. I think it’s nice, everyone’s new to the project, other than Ian and Martha. So it was an exciting three weeks, for sure.
Did you find it intimidating working alongside Ian Shaw given his personal relationship to the show?
I’ve always been fascinated by the piece. I remember when it was first on initially, I’d heard a lot about it, and had never got around to seeing it. And obviously, you know, there’s a whole meta level to the play of Ian portraying his dad, and sort of exploring his father’s relationship with his father in the play, whilst also, I imagine, tackles an element of Ian’s relationship with his dad.
It’s been a wonderful thing to be a part of, sort of a cog on Bruce’s machinery, just to be able to give to the piece, which has already been very well received. I wasn’t intimidated or worried about that, but it’s been an exciting thing to do.
How do you find working on the stage compared to screen?
Working on stages compared to screen, I mean, I love just working in general, but this, the live nature of it, is so thrilling that every day it feels like a different show. It feels like a fresh show, because the audience are the other, the other voice that on a film set you tend to not have. You work with a crew, and it’s quite a small environment, and until the edit has been done at the end, you don’t know what the finished product is. Whereas here you’re guaranteed that every day it’s fresh and it’s live and it’s happening there. So there is really nothing more exciting than that, and also getting to explore all these amazingly beautiful venues and come and share these pieces with new people is always an honour. So I’m very, very grateful that I get to do this for a job.
Why do you think people find it so fascinating to look behind-the-scenes at the making of a film?
I think people are always, I mean, I know, for me, I’m quite nosy, I imagine. I think people are always excited and interested to hear how people really get on, or what really happened. I think there’s always, you know, you only ever see one version of something, and you hear all these tales about what might have happened. It’s human nature to want to kind of look at people and understand them or study them and see how they behave in a space. So it’s always quite exciting to kind of drop in and be a part of that kind of present nature of it.
What’s one film you’d love to peep behind the scenes at?
Ooh, I mean one of my favourite films of all time is The Godfather. So just to have been able to experience, looking at how they all were, all those big personalities on that film set, would have been amazing. But I’m also scared to do that, in case you end up seeing parts of people that you don’t really want to see.
Jaws is now 50 years old, why do you think it’s still so loved by audiences?
I think it’s such an iconic movie for cinema in the changing of the times. You know, it was a really like, it was a new age of cinema, when it first came out in 75 and it brought out this blockbuster new way of filming, especially as it was the first film to be shot at sea and on location. It’s amazing.
I think the message is still very strong now. I think people still kind of look at the Amity mayor, the money taking over the area, and that’s more important than safety and all of that. There’s a lot of stuff that still resides today, but I think it’s an amazing film, and it’s created such an iconic, lasting impression for people. So yes, it’s amazing.
How would you describe The Shark is Broken in three words?
The Shark is Broken in three words….. A fantastic evening!
It’s a wonderful play. It’s great fun, it’s enjoyable, and it’s nostalgic and great. Please enjoy it!
