Christopher Abbott sees little difference between his on-screen and stage work. The 40-year-old actor approaches every role with the same fervor, intensely studying his lines so that, when he finally starts acting, he has freedom to play. The actor often gravitates toward harrowed men, including the character who introduced him to the world: Charlie from HBO’s Girls, whose arc sees him go from sensitive boy to emotionally rattled, drug-addled man.
From there, Abbott pursued more complex characters, helming critically acclaimed films like James White (2015), opposite Cynthia Nixon; Piercing (2018), opposite Mia Wasikowski; Sanctuary (2022), opposite Margaret Qualley; and The Testament of Ann Lee (2025), opposite Amanda Seyfried. More recently, he’s received praise for his stage work, particularly Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (2023) and Death of a Salesman (2026), the latter of which earned him his first Tony nomination.
This month, Abbott explores one of the most canonically tortured characters in American literature: Adam from John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. Zoe Kazan’s seven-episode cinematic adaptation, released October 1 on Netflix, stars Abbott alongside Florence Pugh, Mike Faist, and Hoon Lee, among many others. “You don’t often get to work on something this layered,” Abbott tells Bazaar in a recent video call, explaining that because he plays Adam at several ages—starting as an irreverent son and evolving into a stoic father figure—the role required extra sensitivity. Still, Abbott keeps his grip on the character as he navigates a turbulent life in turn-of-the-century California.
Harper’s Bazaar’s questionnaire series “First, Now, Next” dives into the past, present, and future of some of our favorite creatives, spotlighting the moments and people that have influenced them. We touched base with Abbott ahead of the East of Eden release to talk about the first time he watched The Matrix, “jumping into the fire” by reading scenes from The Seagull and Streetcar Named Desire, and how Kazan inspired him to pursue the role of Adam.
What’s the first film that cracked something open in you?
When I was young—I’ve referenced this movie a lot—but Mrs. Doubtfire, for me, is almost a perfect movie. One of the best movies about divorce. I’ve probably seen the movie hundreds of times since I was a kid. I still rewatch it sometimes.
Teenage years, it was The Matrix. Going to the theater to see that, I felt like my mind was blown. I’m a sci-fi fan, and that was a moment in my teenage years.
As I’ve gotten older and gotten into the business, the one that sticks out in my mind right now is this movie Christ Stopped at Eboli. It’s one of my favorites, and that actor in it is one of my favorite actors: Gian Maria Volonté, an Italian actor.
Who was your first true friend in the industry?
Mona Fastvold, who I’ve worked with a lot; she was one of my first friends when I moved to New York. We went to an acting school together. We’ve had the longest relationship, and it turned into a nice, beautiful working relationship. And then in theater, it’s my writer, playwright Lucy Thurber. She was one of the first people who ever approached me to work on anything. There have been so many now through different stages. Sam Rockwell. I did a play with him a long time ago. He’s become a good buddy, and someone I talk to a lot about acting, and that’s nice.
Have you had a failure that changed your career? Something that taught you and made you a better actor.
That’s hard to answer, because I don’t want to put out a movie that I think was a failure (laughs), but in the one I’m thinking about, the thing is, you can still learn from it. Nothing, to me, is ever an outright failure because you can learn from something. Failures are a broad term. It’s something you didn’t enjoy, but there’s usually something to take away from it. There’s a movie; I won’t say what it is, but it wasn’t very good. But the actors in it, I loved and am still friends with quite a few of them.
What was the first project that made you take yourself seriously?
I went to school. I went to a community college first in Connecticut, but then I moved and started going to HB Studio in New York. It’s where I started to try to do scenes from the big ones—The Seagull or Streetcar—to take a crack at these roles at 20 years old; you jump into the fire. I had teachers like Austin Pendleton and Anne Jackson—those were the first moments where I felt like I was taking a risk because, in a lot of ways, performing in front of a classroom is harder than in front of a live audience; the last Broadway show I did, the house was 1,500 seats. Doing a scene in front of 15 other students who are rooting for you and somewhat competitive, and in front of a teacher, feels more vulnerable. My early days taking theater classes were the moment for me.
What first pulled you into Zoe Kazan’s East of Eden? What inspired you to take on the role?
I’ve known Zoe for a long time—bring it back to the New York theater world. I’d seen her act in plays, but also plays that she’s written. Before it was even sent to me or she asked me to do it, I was excited because I knew it was purely going to be well-written. When she first sent it to me, she’d talked about this before; I was confused that she wanted me to play Adam. I thought, “You sure you don’t want me to play Charles?” I was almost typecasting myself a little bit. She explained why, and I loved how she talks about the masculine and feminine, how one presents as masculine but is in touch with the feminine side, or vice versa for the brothers. Clearly, she had thought a lot about these characters and the whole story, and you can tell how devoted she was to it.
Working to adapt a classic like this, how much were you studying the book or relying on Zoe Kazan’s directorial voice?
When shooting it, I really tried to keep it focused on the script. Reading the book, obviously, all the backstory is done for you. You don’t need to really make up much. There’s a lot of work, but it makes my job easier. How I approached it is I read the book; it became one of my favorite books, coincidentally. I felt the world of it. Now, I have that in the back of my head. Then, I focus on the scripts, trusting that I’ve done the work, all the backstory work. You have that. Now, I just focus on the scripts. You don’t try to plan too much, but you think about how the scene’s going to go. Then when you get to set, you throw that away and let whatever happens happen.
East of Eden is a quintessential “sins of our fathers” story. Adam, especially, embodies this. What do you think the story says about what we leave to the next generation?
It has a lot to do with the line in the show: “Thou Mayest.” This timshel idea is a big anchor in the whole show for all the characters. For Adam, it’s a lot about that and how it literally takes him a whole lifetime to say to his son, but also to himself.
How has East of Eden changed you as an actor and how you think about the world?
As an actor, you don’t often get to work on something this layered. First of all, it’s seven episodes. It’s a big arc. In terms of the character’s aging and how much he changes as a young man—he’s off in war, and he’s a vagabond. In the book, too, he gets arrested at times. Over the decades, he becomes, on the surface, rigid and stoic—and has this whole period of depression in the middle of it. You don’t often get those layered roles and arcs to do. It forced me to think about that and do the work. How do you show the arc without being beholden to the rules that Adam is? Because he’s older now, does that mean he acts a certain way? Are there little sparks of his younger self coming through in his older age? When he’s younger, do you get little highlights of him when he’s older? Is he starting to age into who he is becoming? Sometimes too many options can be crippling, but it also makes for a bigger tool bag you can draw from, and it was challenging.
How did you define success at 16? How would you define it now?
At 16, it was just trying to make money. I had quite a few jobs and, obviously, well, I was going to school, too. It was just about getting money, but I was 16 years old. And now, that’s still part of it but for different reasons. It’s not just to buy sneakers. Success now is freedom. I don’t mean financial freedom, although it’s part of it. The short answer is, I don’t really define it because I don’t know what that looks like, unless you categorize it. Successful as an actor is doing bigger and better things. It’s getting to work with people I’ve wanted to work with for a while. That’s a success because I’m not in control of whether a show is going to be successful. That’s out of my hands, so the only thing I can control is the time I spend with people and choosing a job that lets me spend time with them. When I score in that column, then it’s a success.
If you could collaborate with anyone next, who would it be and why?
That list is never going to end. I’m thinking about filmmakers I don’t know if they will ever make an English-language movie, but I hope they do. I would like to be in it, like Bertrand Bonello and Radu Jude—he makes really cool movies. There are tons of actors I still haven’t worked with—many I really love. De Niro has always been on that list.
You’ve also been doing a lot of stage plays. Most recently, I saw you in Death of a Salesman. How do those roles help your on-screen performances and vice versa?
The approach is the same—it’s how you execute that’s a little different. In a play, you get to rehearse for five weeks before you’re up in front of an audience. The process there, for me, you rehearse it so you know the lines like the back of your hand, so it looks like it’s coming as naturally as possible. With film it’s different, because you’ll run the scene once or twice and then you have to shoot it. You hope you capture more lightning in a bottle moments. The thing that’s constant, for me, between the two—it’s a bit banal—is really, really knowing your lines. It’s as simple as that. The better you know them, the better you free yourself up to play. I didn’t use to learn all my lines before going into rehearsal, but more recently, with plays, I try to know the whole script. I found it frees me up!
What lesson from your work on East of Eden do you think you’ll bring into your next project?
I don’t know yet. I shot East of Eden before Death of a Salesman—I can’t say, specifically, what it was I learned from that that I brought to the play. It’s not lost on me, however, that they’re a good pairing. They both were written around the same time period, and they’re both in the American canon. It’s not lost on me that I got to work on these two things—these two classic stories—and how that’s a rare opportunity to do both.
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