Just like the real-life Jean Leslie, Claire-Marie Hall brings boundless enthusiasm and remarkable talent to Broadway in Operation Mincemeat. As a biracial artist of Welsh and Filipino heritage, Hall’s portrayal of the ambitious secretary who helped craft a fake identity that fooled Hitler brings depth to what could have been a footnote in history. Her Jean is “small but mighty”—a woman determined to break free from society’s limitations and prove herself “useful” during wartime. Hall’s powerful vocals and nuanced performance transform Jean’s struggle for recognition into one of the most emotionally resonant aspects of this genre-defying musical.
After our illuminating conversation with David Cumming, we’re thrilled to bring you the second installment in our exclusive three-part series on the Olivier Award-winning musical sensation that’s taking NYC by storm. From her early inspiration watching Lea Salonga to her current trailblazing status as an Asian woman in musical theater, Hall offers fascinating insights into both her character’s evolution and her own remarkable journey. Stay tuned for our final conversation with another creative force behind this genre-defying masterpiece!
Chloe Yang (CY): Lea Salonga recently gave you a shout-out in her roundup of Filipino singers on Broadway. Did you always know you wanted to do musical theater? Who were some of your inspirations growing up?
Claire-Marie Hall (CMH): Randomly, and this is why it was so special to me, my actual first introduction to theater as a whole, and what made me want to go into it, was watching Lea Salonga. Before I’d even seen a West End musical, I had the VHS of the auditions for Miss Saigon—it was a backstage documentary called The Heat Is On. I saw her and I was like, “Who is this woman? What is her voice?” It was insane. That got me thinking, “I want to do that.”
Then seeing how this musical was made, and finally getting to see the musical in London, I was like, “Oh my God, this suddenly makes so much more sense.” That’s why it was absolutely inspiring that she would be the one to do a shout-out of Filipino singers on Broadway. It’s so amazing that there are Filipino women leading Broadway at the moment. There’s so much Asian and Filipino talent out there. It’s wonderful it’s being recognized.
CY: When you were growing up, what were some of your dream roles? Did you feel limited in the roles you could see yourself playing?
CMH: When I was growing up, because I was half Filipino, my dream roles were based on the roles that Lea Salonga had played, because I thought that was the only sort of career path open to me. So my dream roles were like Éponine in Les Misérables or Kim in Miss Saigon. Tuptim in The King and I was another role I ended up doing.
Then it was so nice to enter the industry and actually end up being Cosette in Les Misérables, which I didn’t see coming at all. I always thought I would just be Éponine because Lea Salonga played Éponine. Stepping into the industry and realizing there was a whole bigger world opening—it’s opened more and more throughout the years, thank God—but realizing there was more opportunity for me than I thought when I was younger was fantastic.
CY: How did you first discover Operation Mincemeat, and what attracted you to the role of Jean?
CMH: When I first joined the show, they had done one five-week run at a fringe theater called New Diorama. I was doing a play on the London fringe circuit at the time, and I just heard that there was this fringe musical that had instantly sold out its run, and everyone was going mad over it. I didn’t know anything about it—I was just like, “It’s a new musical. Why am I not part of it?”
When they did their next run, they were doing a 10-show performance, just a week-long thing, and they were auditioning for a new Jean. It was the only part they were adding to their cast. There wasn’t much on the internet about it. All I knew from the breakdown was that it involved multi-rolling, it was comedy, and you needed to be able to rap and sing in a range of different styles. I thought, “My God, this sounds so up my street.”
So I went in blind, not knowing any of the songs or any of the real story. I literally got handed the script, or an excerpt of it, in my finals, so I didn‘t realize how great it was. I was just up for the idea of it. When I got handed the songs for my recall, I was like, “This is brilliant, these guys are geniuses.” And then I was like, “I really want this job, I really want to be part of this.”
CY: What was it like working with Jak Malone? Were you both brought into the show at the same time?
CMH: Jak and I have always played the roles opposite each other. When I joined, the four of them had already done one run, and I was slotted in almost, but at that time the script was evolving. What it has become today has been crafted around the five of us.
CY: What aspects of Jean Leslie really spoke to you, and how has the character evolved during your time with the show?
CMH: She’s changed so much over the years, which has been a lovely ride to be on. From what she first started out as, she’s grown as a character as she’s been grafted more into the script.
I always knew I wanted her to be enthusiastic. There was a lovely excerpt from a book I’d read about her where people could always hear her fluttering down the hallway. She always ran everywhere—she never walked. And there was something really lovely about that—she’s just really enthusiastic and happy to be there and wants to take this job by the reins.
What SpitLip portrayed about her is someone who is just happy to be given the opportunity to follow the ambition that she finally can. Over the years, she’s become what I call “small but mighty,” because I’m tiny—only five foot two—but she is this tiny woman with a huge ambition, huge heart, that I think has been overlooked and undermined by society so much growing up, maybe even by her own family. Finally, she has this chance to break out. She finds an ally in Hester, an older woman who sees her potential, same with Bevan and Montagu.
CY: Did you have input into how Jean developed as a character?
CMH: The main changes are mainly done by SpitLip, but Jak and I have had the privilege of being able to throw out ideas or ad-lib in the rehearsal room, and they actually listen to those things and incorporate them. That’s why these characters have elements of Jak and me in them now.
It’s such a privilege as an actor to have writers who are also in the cast, who are also your peers and your friends, and who respect your vision of the character as well as theirs. It’s been a huge luxury and wonderful opportunity that I don’t think happens often.
CY: What’s your favorite moment or song for Jean in the show?
CMH: The obvious one would be “Useful.” I love that song and the scene before it, which is really heartbreaking. American audiences are so much more vocal than British audiences, and you can see that they are so upset by what’s just happened to Jean.
“Useful” was created in the third iteration of the show, when lockdown happened. They were trying really hard to come up with a song that was the answer to Hester’s ”Dear Bill,“ to cement the relationship between Jean and Hester and fleshed out their arcs—especially Jean‘s. Originally, it was a completely different song. I think “Useful” was born out of people wanting to be useful to their peers and community in a time when that was all you could be—you just wanted to help your neighbor get their groceries, or to find a point in being alive at that point.
I always love singing that song because it’s about all the people who have gone before, and are forgotten because they aren’t the celebrated ones receiving medals. Including people like Glyndwr Michael, which creates such a beautiful circle with the entire story.
There’s also a tiny moment at the end, when Bevan is on the phone receiving a call from Churchill. We’re all on stage listening on phones to this conversation taking place. That’s one of my favorite moments of the show. Jean feels such relief and happiness at that moment when they say the mission succeeded, partly because of her—she was useful. They say there were minimal casualties on both sides, and I think that’s all she cares about—that she actually helped save people, and that people were okay. She’s got such a beautiful heart.
CY: How has the audience response evolved from your early fringe performances to Broadway? Any memorable interactions?
CMH: People were falling in love with it left, right, and center in the fringe. It was very tangible, because we were this close to the audience. You could feel everyone’s excitement, which is so nice that that still exists in these bigger venues. People still instantly give a standing ovation at the end, which is wonderful every night. We are where we are now because there’s a group of fans called “Mincefluencers”—they named themselves—and it’s so lovely because they took it upon themselves, for this tiny show with no budget, to basically drag other people along to see it and incorporate them into what felt like a secret mission to get this musical to the West End.
When we were in the fringe, there wasn’t even a stage—people could just get up and they would walk onto our playing space. There was a guy once who, I think, thought that the show had ended, at a pretty somber point. He desperately needed a wee, so he got up, was obviously going to the toilets, got confused, walked into our stage wings, realized the band was there, then realized he was on stage. We were all looking at him like, “What are you doing?” And he had to come back onto the stage to wander off and finally find the toilets.
When things go wrong, the audience loves it, especially because this cast is very good at ad-libbing and including the audience. So if people come and see things go wrong, they go away thinking, “We were there for this show—we were there for the show where the tie kept falling on the floor, and they kept making a joke about it.”
CY: Have you been able to work on other projects during your time with Operation Mincemeat?
CMH: Because it’s been on and off over the last five years, I’ve literally married doing this show with so many others, which has been really lovely. Another show, which I did twice during the run of this—I don’t know how it worked, but I’d literally finish one and then go off and do the other—was called The Wicker Husband. One of its writers, Darren Clark, has just won Outstanding Musical Contribution for The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button at the Oliviers. That show also won Best Musical, which we’d won the year before.
CY: What roles would you love to play in the future?
CMH: Jak Malone and I joke a lot that the next show we’re going to do is basically “sitting in a chair for a very long time.” There are two actual roles I’d love: Glinda—because there hasn’t been an Asian Glinda back home yet—and Eliza in Hamilton.
CY: What’s your morning routine like when you’re performing in the theater?
CMH: We’ve got two matinees a week, so the earliest we need to go in is about 12:45. To be honest with you, I’m quite easy going. I have a coffee, and that’s my morning sorted.
CY: What’s your coffee order usually?
CMH: I’ve got a little coffee machine here which doesn’t make the nicest coffee, but I’m very much like, stick a pod in and then let’s go. But my husband is here at the moment, so he’s making me really lovely coffee with one of those things you put on the hob.
CY: Now that you’re in New York, what’s on your bucket list for the city?
CMH: There’s so much I want to do here. I want to go vintage shopping in Greenwich Village. I want to make it my absolute mission to try all the best food, which will never happen, but still!
