![\"Aya](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MixCollage-10-Apr-2026-01-18-PM-4504.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAya Cash only got 10 total days of rehearsal before she took the stage in London and New York in Giant. In London, she got seven days, joining the company after it had already been performing. In New York, she squeezed in just three, flying in from Toronto after Vought Rising, the upcoming The Boys spin-off in which she reprises her role as Stormfront, wrapped filming. \u201cWhat a beautiful gift from Amazon and Paul Grellong,\u201d she tells The A.V. Club over video chat. \u201cIt was not a given that I would be allowed to come do this, but everybody knew how important it was to me and I\u2019m so grateful.\u201d That\u2019s about the extent of what Cash is allowed to say about Vought Rising. When asked about online suggestions that the prequel series may depict the beginning of Herogasm, Cash flashes a big, tight smile: \u201cOh, is that what they\u2019re saying? Interesting. We know when it started canonically, and we\u2019re in that time period, so\u2026\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
What she can and does talk about plenty is Giant, the new play that just opened on Broadway after a successful run on the West End. John Lithgow leads the play as author Roald Dahl, who\u2019s on the verge of publishing The Witches in 1983. In the show, he has just published a book review which goes beyond criticizing Israel to attack and blame the \u201crace of people\u201d he held responsible for a 1982 attack on Lebanon. Cash portrays Jessie Stone, a Jewish American in the sales department at FSG and Dahl\u2019s main foil in the play. The conversation between Roald and Jessie is the invention of playwright Mark Rosenblatt, but the words of Dahl\u2019s review and of his antisemitic remarks given over the phone at the play\u2019s end are a matter of historical record.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The tensions Giant explores are left open-ended, but Cash is happy to talk to us about them, along with what it\u2019s like acting opposite Lithgow, separating the art from the artist, and her suggestion for a You\u2019re The Worst global takeover.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The A.V. Club: You played this role in London, you\u2019ve done a bunch of theater, but this is still your Broadway debut. How does it feel?<\/p>\n
Aya Cash: It\u2019s insanely exciting. I\u2019ve wanted to be on Broadway since I was, you know, a kid. I have to do the job, so I can\u2019t think about it too much. I think if I thought about how meaningful it is every day, I would probably not be able to get through the show. But it\u2019s really wonderful. Ultimately I don\u2019t think that being on Broadway means that it\u2019s better than off-Broadway, but it\u2019s exciting.<\/p>\n
AVC: This production traveled elsewhere before it came to New York\u2014I know it was in Madrid\u2013<\/p>\n
AC: I was not in that production, and then everyone except my role went to the West End because the woman who played my role couldn\u2019t do it on the West End. She was British and they decided to look for an American. So, that\u2019s when I auditioned and came in. And of course they won all the Oliviers three weeks before I showed up to do my first rehearsal. I was like great, no pressure!<\/p>\n
AVC: Well, you definitely rose to the occasion. Jessie\u2019s one of the only characters here who\u2019s not a historical figure\u2014we know who Roald Dahl is, but we don\u2019t necessarily know who Jessie Stone is. What was it like finding that character?\u00a0<\/p>\n
AC: Well, that\u2019s the gift of the play, right? All I have is what\u2019s there. It\u2019s like doing a TV show. Any time you play a not-real character, your writer is your god rather than the person you\u2019re playing as the answer to all the questions. So, it was just about talking to Mark [Rosenblatt] and going with what I saw in the script. It felt very straightforward. There wasn\u2019t a pressure of like, oh, well, they\u2019ve got a distinctive voice, or they have a certain mannerism. I also think there\u2019s more leeway in plays. You know, Elliot [Levey] plays Tom Maschler. Most people don\u2019t know what Tom Maschler was like. Anna Wintour does [laughs] because she knew him. There are people who knew Tom Maschler, but most of your audience is not going to be like, well, Tommy wouldn\u2019t have done that.<\/p>\n
AVC: I hear a lot of theater actors say they often find new things in the work from doing it every night. What new things have you found?\u00a0<\/p>\n
AC: Well, first of all, this play particularly lends itself to that because the news every day changes the things I hear differently in the play. It\u2019s impossible to ignore the parallels between then and now. And so whatever is happening in the news affects what I hear in the play. And there are certain lines that pop out or I have a different reaction to, based on that. So I find lots of new things. There\u2019s one that I just felt stupid that I hadn\u2019t found all through England. At the end of the first act, he calls her not by her name. Before, I was just on a train to get him and I didn\u2019t hear that. Now it changed how I play the very end because I hear that specifically as a reason to speak my last few lines. There\u2019s things that feel like, ugh, I feel like a dumb actor that I didn\u2019t get that before. But then there\u2019s things that you\u2019re gonna hear differently because of what\u2019s happening.\u00a0<\/p>\n
AVC: Why do you think it\u2019s so difficult for a powerful person or character, like Roald Dahl in the play, to apologize for very obvious harm?<\/p>\n
AC: I think it\u2019s hard for most people to apologize in general. We are attracted to people who have certainty. There\u2019s a reason we like people who have all the answers and who are certain in their answers because it\u2019s much easier than dealing with the gray areas, right? If somebody can tell you, \u201cNo, no, no, I know this and that\u2019s it and I can\u2019t be swayed,\u201d that can be very attractive. We as a culture seem to be drawn to that in our politicians, in our stars, in our everything. I think that the idea of apology as weakness is prevalent in our culture, first of all. And we\u2019re attracted to narcissists, in general. [Laughs] Dahl was a bit of a narcissist, but he was also a lot of other things which I think is what\u2019s so interesting about the play is that he can be all these other things and that you know he\u2019s not just just the one horrible human. He and Jessie are able to connect about their kids. He\u2019s kind to some of the people he works with and not kind to other people he works with. He\u2019s many things. I do think as a culture we\u2019re attracted to a certain kind of confidence that doesn\u2019t allow for apology or for changing your mind.<\/p>\n
AVC: I do think there is a lot of ambiguity in Dahl\u2019s work\u2014it\u2019s very dark, especially for children. I know you were a fan of his work before this\u2013<\/p>\n
AC: Totally, I grew up with all of his books, and the movies were obviously so big growing up too; Willy Wonka and The Witches with Anjelica Houston. Those were things that just feel like an ingrained part of childhood. I didn\u2019t even realize. I knew nothing about the controversy until I read this play. It just was not in my orbit.<\/p>\n
AVC: I had a similar experience. I remember my third-grade teacher reading The BFG to us and having that fond memory from childhood, and hearing the disgusting things from Dahl taints the memory I have a little bit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
AC: But for me\u2014and again, I think it\u2019s really individual\u2014but\u2026 how many great artists have we discovered are horrible to their wives, who are complete bigots? I mean, there\u2019s so much great art that comes from very complicated people. I think it\u2019s individual, but for me, it doesn\u2019t taint it for me, for whatever reason. I have a harder time watching a Woody Allen movie or listening to an R. Kelly album, but that art seems to be about the thing that we\u2019ve learned about them and that makes it hard for me to engage with the art. Versus Dahl, it doesn\u2019t feel so related. I\u2019m not necessarily reading antisemitism into The Witches in the way that Jessie is clocking it might be construed. I think our discomfort with paradox is something that we should all be paying attention to. The fact that he was an antisemite and gave us these beautiful children\u2019s books, holding those two truths actually feels like part of good work of understanding what paradox is because right now our our culture just decides it\u2019s one thing or the other. And social media pushes you to binaries. And I think what we all need to be doing is actually being able to hold both.\u00a0<\/p>\n
AVC: That\u2019s an interesting scene: Jessie says The Witches could be interpreted as an antisemitic allegory because Dahl said this other stuff. Because I agree with you, I don\u2019t think the book is a one-to-one allegory. With the extra context, you could make an argument. Dahl keeps asking her to debate him, but it doesn\u2019t seem like he actually wants to have a debate. He keeps interrupting you. Do you feel like there was an actual debate, or is it this powerful man plowing ahead, to an extent?\u00a0<\/p>\n
AC: I don\u2019t know if Dahl and Jessie enter a debate in the sense of, like, a respectful exchange of ideas. But I do think the play does that. Meaning, I think the audience gets the debate even if it\u2019s two people unwilling to engage in the other\u2019s ideas\u2014obviously Dahl more so than Jessie. It\u2019s hard because everybody sees something different in the play, I think, and I don\u2019t want to put my idea of what the play is on it. But I think there are different ideas very well represented in the play, if you are listening.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Aya Cash and John Lithgow in Giant. Photo by Joan Marcus<\/p>\n
AVC: Tell me what it\u2019s like to act opposite John Lithgow every night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
AC: Easy. He\u2019s great. That makes it easy. You know, a good actor makes you look better. I think it\u2019s a gift, to me, to be able to act opposite him. He\u2019s an incredibly kind, warm human being. It\u2019s just really fun to go up against him in that way because there is none of that offstage. There is no combat. We love each other a lot offstage, it\u2019s not such a problem. [Laughs] I get asked that a lot. Of course, there\u2019s some intimidation at first, but it normalizes so quickly because it\u2019s my job. One of the great things about being in theater is that when you\u2019re all on stage, there is no hierarchy. You\u2019re all there to make the play work and to do your job and to give as much as you can. It doesn\u2019t feel that different. Look, John is one of the greatest actors of all time but I feel that every single person on stage is incredible. So it\u2019s like, great! We all are just there doing the thing. Because John\u2019s entire body of work I\u2019ve seen over again since I was a kid, there is that intimidation knowing all the different things he can do, but we\u2019re all just doing this one thing together. And I think everyone\u2019s incredible. So it\u2019s all the same in some ways.\u00a0<\/p>\n
AVC: There\u2019s no slouches in the cast, that\u2019s for sure. Your character has to go t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate with him the most. What surprised you about his acting process?\u00a0<\/p>\n
AC: This is my interpretation, I wanna be clear, because I don\u2019t know if this is his experience. He\u2019s able to craft a performance and then fill it up every night in a way that is surprising. It doesn\u2019t change drastically. There\u2019s certain lines that he can say the exact same way every night but it all comes out perfectly natural as if it was the first time. There\u2019s other actors who every time are a little different, and John is able to\u2026he\u2019s like the perfect balance of technical and emotional-intuitive. He knows this is where he needs to be, and this is the laugh, and this is the idea of how you need to say this line to get this to work, and then it\u2019s just completely filled. I think lesser actors you kind of get one or the other. Super technical, and then I\u2019m always left a little empty, or you get intuitive-emotional, in which it\u2019s thrilling and exciting and beautiful and sometimes terrible. [Laughs]\u00a0<\/p>\n
AVC: I have to ask before you go: I see shows like Girls getting a huge resurgence thanks to some millennial nostalgia. What\u2019s it going to take for that to happen to You\u2019re The Worst?\u00a0<\/p>\n
AC: I think talk to Netflix about licensing it. We need to send it out because it never really got international. I mean, I think England maybe got it for one season. I think we need it to get on a streamer that, you know\u2026 I\u2019m like can I get in trouble for that? I don\u2019t even work for them anymore! [Laughs] In some ways it\u2019s lovely. It\u2019s like a little secret, that show. When someone comes up to me and goes. \u2018I love You\u2019re The Worst,\u2019 I go, I do too! Because I do. It was so special. So if it never goes further than that I do feel like we\u2019re a little cult community and I love my worsties.<\/p>\n
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aya Cash only got 10 total days of rehearsal before she took the stage in London and New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-386943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}