A crowd swelled on Forty-fifth Street, spilling down Eighth Avenue as the doors of the John Golden Theatre opened last night for the Broadway premiere of David Hare’s Skylight. On the heels of a sold-out London run, the production and its dazzling leads, Carey Mulligan and Bill Nighy, were welcomed by an enthusiastic audience. Jake Gyllenhaal, Baz Luhrmann, Mamie Gummer, and Grace Gummer found their seats, and a proud Marcus Mumford arrived in support of his wife, the evening’s star.

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“Opening nights are nerve-racking!” said Mulligan, demure with backswept hair and a Costume National suit, in a suite at the Bowery Hotel after the performance. “Everyone comes to see it. All your mates are getting tickets. I discourage people, I find it so stressful.” Yet Mulligan soared as the play’s impassioned lead. For playwright David Hare, the British actress, who impressed him in her 2008 Broadway performance in The Seagull, was the impetus for bringing Skylight back to the stage. “The reason for the revival is that I heard she was walking around with the script in her pocket,” said the playwright, whose bet on the actress has paid off.

Opposite Mulligan’s Kyra, Bill Nighy ravishes as restaurateur Tom, her former lover returned after three years. Nighy, who deftly rides the play’s emotional waves, feels the heart of the work lies in a brief moment at the start of the second act which Hare refers to as “paradise.” Nighy explains in a play filled with tension, it’s a rare reprieve “where we just are deeply pleased to be together; he just does his very best to make her laugh, and she does.”

Making a commanding Broadway debut, Matthew Beard shone as Tom’s angst-ridden teenage son. “I think it’s fortunate that I’m playing an anxious character,” said the pretty twenty-six-year-old, whose performance in the London production of Skylight marked his professional stage debut. “The three of us have fun,” said Mulligan, summarizing a remarkable performance quite simply.

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