When Broadway actor Kevin Gray, who plays the malevolent Scar in Disney's "The Lion King," first saw the Tony Award-winning musical in New York, he thought to himself, "Boy, if I ever got that role, they'd have to get me out with a shoehorn."

He had once auditioned, delivering four lines, but the shoe didn't fit; he was summarily dismissed.

"'You're not right,' they told me a couple of years ago, but they asked for me again and I did the same four lines in a second audition — and they offered Scar to me," he said. "They told me people change. I guess I became a little more viable and now I've been doing the show on tour for 1 1/2 years."

Speaking by phone from his Connecticut home, before arriving here earlier this week, Gray said Scar "is one of the great villains of all time. If I don't get booed, I haven't done my job."

He gets to test the boo factor when the mega-musical's Cheetah national touring company brings Pride Rock and its denizens here for an unprecedented 12-week run beginning with a pair of previews Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, followed by the formal "opening" Sunday evening at Blaisdell Concert Hall. Gray said it's the longest residency in a city since the two months he played the role in Los Angeles and Denver.

"I don't necessarily think Scar is all bad," said Gray, 49. "I think he's mostly misunderstood; he wants to move next in line to the throne and he's having a bad day. He's quick-witted, so erudite; he's funny, biting, sarcastic.

"When he does assume the throne, he then has what I imagine is a common experience: You assume power, and a lot goes with that — enormous stress, the weight of responsibility, frustration. Some just can't handle it all."

Scar is the menacing and devious brother of King Mufasa and the uncle of the lion cub Simba, heir apparent to Pride Rock, in the musical based on the Disney animated film. For a musical comedy actor, it's the role of a lifetime, said Gray, and unlike anything else he's encountered. And he's got a long list of credits, from the masked marvel in "The Phantom of the Opera" to The Engineer in "Miss Saigon."

"This is such a different show and you can't relate it to any other," he said. "Julie Taymor's fingerprints are all over the work."

Taymor directed, designed the costumes, did part of the book and conceptualized the masks and puppets that are part of a mesmerizing landscape unlike any other theatrical piece over the past several decades. As "The Lion King" approaches its 10th anniversary November in New York, the show has become a franchise to roar about in the Disney kingdom.

"It's amazing," Gray said of Scar's inner workings, which the audience never sees. "It's the duplicity that's striking; the animals are puppets, yet we show the mechanism of how we move as actors. So as an audience member, you see the actor and the puppet. No one is completely concealed; the trick for the actor is to seam up the actions of the puppets within your own self. You disappear, then reappear, at times."

Gray's Scar mask is part of his headgear; his elaborate costume — which weighs 50 pounds and takes four wardrobe workers to get him into it — conceals a circuitry of cables, wires and batteries that help him maneuver his mechanical mask, to punctuate a precise mood.

"With Scar, we've tried to use the mask to reflect extreme emotion. It's part of his personality, really; the mask is two-sided, that can be manipulated to give more angles. Most masks are symmetrical, like Mufasa's, which is straight-ahead clear. Scar is working out issues, so it's part of his complex nature, seaming up the spirit of the actor with the inanimate elements, through movements."

There are numerous challenges for the company. The meerkat Timon is a bunraku puppet, attached to the body of the actor; with Pumbaa, the actor's head peers over a mammoth moving warthog head that's part puppet, part costume; hornbill Zazu is a puppet on a rod, manipulated by fingering.

"When I first went into the show, I had seven weeks of rehearsals," Gray said. "I called a couple of people who'd done the part and they said, 'Omigod, if you get seven, take it; you'll need more time. They were right; the first performances were quite terrifying — but remarkable. You feel so completely unprepared ... until you come into your own. It's a fascinating experience, to respond to the challenge of Julie's vision."

The Scar role was originated by John Vickery in New York and remains one of the dominating figures in the show. "In my mind, there's a little bit of (Shakespeare's) 'Richard III' in Scar," Gray said. "What comes to my mind is the line, 'I am a victim of vaulting ambition.' It's so true of Scar; he's not going to be happy unless he can ascend to the throne. The trick with Scar, though, is not to make him a villain, not to make him a cartoon character, but to make him human — I hate to use that word, since we're all playing animals — but to humanize the characters."

Most of Gray's previous roles have involved onstage intensity, with shifts of temperament within the characters. It's often a drain of energy to work up to a role, then get back to a normal mindset afterward.

"Lion King" is no exception. For an 8 p.m. curtain, he begins prepping at 5 p.m. "I do some physical work; I sing a little bit. I'm in the makeup chair an hour before curtain, then I go right into costume. It's a long, continuous flow," said Gray. "We finish at 10:30 p.m.; then it takes me four hours to come down. It's my cycle of life — but there are days when you also have a matinee, when you do this twice."

He's committed to the role till the middle of next year. "I don't know how long it's going to last, but I'll ride the ride," said Gray. "I feel lucky to be a part of a journey that started for me in 1989, when I did 'Phantom.' I've done 'Miss Saigon,' 'King and I,' 'Showboat,' 'Jesus Christ Superstar,' the big shows that have spanned the modern generation, so I feel very privileged. Is it possible, 20 years later, to be still in the game?"

Yes, if the shoe still fits.

KEVIN GRAY AT A GLANCE

Age: 49

Birthplace: Westport, Conn.

When you last saw him here: In "The Three Phantoms," with Craig Schulman and Cris Groenendaal, at the Hawai'i Theatre last year

Earlier iconic roles: The phantom in "Phantom of the Opera," the King in "The King and I," The Engineer in "Miss Saigon"

How long in "The Lion King": Eighteen months — and nearly 500 performances

Acting vs. singing: "I think of myself as an actor first, though I'm lyric-driven when I sing. I look for character in the words."

Small-kid time: "At 5, I did a lot of play-acting. I'd invent characters and do a play for a birthday party."

A secret you probably didn't know about him: "I played hooky in high school and went to see a Broadway musical, 'Runaways' by Elizabeth Swados. It was a good choice; there were a lot of kids there."

His biggest tip about "The Lion King": "Do not miss the first 10 minutes; you will kick yourself the rest of your life if you're late. They will not let you in."

Reach Wayne Harada at wharada@honoluluadvertiser.com.