..continued...
So BrainDead has a musical recap, and for some reason you’re not singing it.
You know, I said this to Mary Elizabeth—because Mary Elizabeth sings also, she was in a band, and has an amazing voice as well. And Tony Shalhoub has sang, AND Danny Pino sang too—he did musicals when he was younger. It’s funny. They should’ve had us do it! They did fine though. I don’t know the guy’s name, but he is a really funny singer-songwriter, so they found a great guy who wrote it and sang it. But it would’ve been a great little tidbit or a little Easter egg if they had had us do it.
It could still happen. What about a musical episode?
[BrainDead], I think, could handle a musical episode. With
Graceland people would ask that all the time and I would say, I just don’t think it’s plausible. But this is so off-the-wall, I think it totally could have a musical episode. We’ll see. Hopefully it goes for a couple of years and we get one in there.
Is it getting hot in here or is it just us? Jeff Neumann/CBS
What’s been your most challenging role?
I think probably, with just the physical toll, and what it took from me to be on stage every night and never miss a performance,
Catch Me If You Can was just so hard.
You didn’t miss a single performance?
I didn’t miss a single performance. Much to the chagrin of my understudy—I’m really sorry, Jay.
That was just, again, it was the role of a lifetime at the time, and, you know, you have to live like a monk, and you have to make a lot of sacrifices. But I remember doing it so willingly. I remember I had worked on that show for so many years leading up to that point and we were finally on Broadway, and I had so much fun doing it every night. But I just thought it was everything I wanted to do, up until that point. So I was going to enjoy every single second of it.
How do you take care of yourself for a commitment like that?
Obviously you can’t really drink, or whatever. But I could go home and have a glass of wine or a beer or whatever. But you can’t go out after the show. Even if you’re just going out to have dinner or socialize, you don’t realize how loud you have to speak just to be heard over the murmur in a restaurant. After a show when you’re not warm and you’re tired, if you try to go out, speak over that, then you’re wrecked. Really, you just need to go home every night. Luckily, I like to read and play video games. Obviously, you have to eat really well, get a lot of sleep, drink a lot of water. It’s all very basic stuff, but you just have to do it. You finish a show at 11, you can’t go to sleep until 3 because you’re wired. So I would try to sleep in until ten or eleven, then get up and go to the gym, maybe take a nap in the afternoon or rest, and then go to the show and get ready. But again, it’s great. It’s wonderful. Even when you’re doing eight shows a week, as hard as it is, it’s 28 hours of work? So it’s not really that long of a workweek when you think about it.
What do you like to read?
I’m actually reading four books right now which is difficult. I’m almost through
The Goldfinch. It’s interesting. I love Donna Tart,
Secret History is one of my favorite books, but this one didn’t…I mean, I know the event that happens at the beginning is amazing, but it didn’t necessarily grab me right away, but I’m sticking with it, and I think I’m good. I’m reading that, I’m reading the
My Struggle books, the Karl Ove Knausgaard books, which I love. I don’t know if you’ve read them, but you kind of have to get over the pretentiousness of them at the beginning. Once you get past that, they’re great. And I’m a big fantasy reader, so I just started
The Gunslinger.
So you just did Ham4Ham, with Lin-Manuel Miranda!
I did! It was crazy.
Did he invite you? I mean, how do you get that gig?
I’ve known Lin for a long time. Actually he and I have been talking about this since I’ve been in LA doing
Grease Live, it was something, because Tommy Kail [
Hamilton’s director] directed
Grease Live, and so there’s a lot of Hamilton connections, and I’d seen
Hamilton twice before I went out there. When they first started doing it, Lin had asked me, just his schedule my schedule hasn’t worked and so I’m so glad it worked yesterday, to get in there before he leaves. And then yesterday, we were going to do the thing with Roy and I the whole time, but he, because it had gone for so long and there was a bit of buildup online about it, he had the great idea to sneak me out and for it to be a surprise.
And I did—it was very fitting! The line, yesterday, was not just out front of the [Richard Rodgers Theater]: it went all the way down 8th avenue to 45th street, and was all the way to the marquee on 45th street. I met Lin in the lobby of the Imperial Theater, the
Les Mis theater, and we went up on stage, downstairs, and there’s a tunnel downstairs that connects the Imperial and the Rodgers, which I didn’t know about! Because I couldn’t walk through the stage door to give it away, because there’s 1,000 people on the street. But I was walking down 45th street and I saw this line all the way down the marquee, and I said “This can’t be the
Hamilton line” and sure enough, it was.
It was so fun. I’m so grateful for the support of the Broadway community. I haven’t been on Broadway since 2011, but I still feel, I’ve always felt like this is home for me. I want to be able to do TV and film and theatre for the rest of my life, but theatre is kind of where it all started. I live here, you know, it’s just so much a part of my life. So I’m so grateful that things like that, and the concerts that I’ve done—I try to make a point to still stay in touch with the theatre community every way I can, because I get people ask me questions like was it always your plan to do stage and then jump into TV and film and it just wasn’t. It just wasn’t the plan.
So it’s been really nice. And [presenting at] the Tony Awards were the same thought process as this, where I’m just so grateful that even though I haven’t been on stage in New York in 5 years, that I still feel so close to the Broadway community.
I know you did RENT at the Hollywood Bowl…
That was 2010, yeah.
So even earlier. Oh, wow, wait. You’ve played every single Broadway role. Wicked?
I did
Wicked.
Hairspray.
Hairspray.
Basically every “handsome guy” role.
Yeah. [Laughs] Yeah, yeah. And
RENT was my first national tour; I got cast out of college. I was the cover for Rodger and Mark but I went on a lot over the course of that. So that’s what was also nice about the Hollywood Bowl, about six years later, to come around full circle to get to play Rodger. It’s kind of astounding to think about. Because when you’re in it you don’t really think about it that way.
You’ve been the Broadway Wonder Boy [Note: It took all of my self-control not to say “superboy“].
I’ve been really lucky. And thank you.
I remember hearing rumors that you were involved in an Anastasia musical.
Anastasia I did in very early readings and workshops of it, because Terrance McNally wrote the book of
Catch Me If You Can. I did one of the very early readings of that, but nothing else. I won’t be doing that anymore. But they’re doing that at Hartford Stage right now and it’s supposed to come in next year, to New York.
Are there roles you want to get to?
That’s the thing, too, is they’re all great roles but they’re all young, really young. So I’m excited for, hopefully, the next age block. The time being away has been nice. I mean, I turn 33 this year. It’s kind of nice that hopefully I’ll step into this next group of things. I’m dying to play Bobby in
Company, which I think is something in a couple years I could do.
Carousel—some of my all-time favorites.
Assassins?
I did
Assassins! In London, two years ago. Yeah! I got to go to the Menier Chocolate Factory, and Jamie Lloyd, who is this amazing young British director, he hasn’t done really anything over here yet but he will, he’s unbelievable. He directed it, and I got to play Booth, and I grew a huge handlebar mustache which I had no idea I could do, and it was amazing. I want to play
Sweeney Todd when I’m older. I think with my history with Le Mis, I’ve never done the show, so I think I’d like to play Val Jean I think, maybe 20 years from now. It’s exciting not to know what the roles that haven’t been written yet are.
One that I’ll say—I know they’re very early in the process but if it ever comes to fruition, I will definitely try to throw my hat in the ring—I would definitely love to be Westley if they ever make the
Princess Bride musical. That’s one of my top five favorite movies; one of my top five favorite books.
Source:
http://observer.com/2016/07/braindead-and-broadway-star-aaron-tveit-is-ridiculously-smart-really/
