Jonathan Groff Quotes

I'd always wanted to be on Broadway one day, but it seemed like a dream that might be unattainable. This business has a lot of ups and downs and I learned that pretty quickly.

I want to keep working with the best, keep going and be a better actor each time I go and dive into something.

I got into acting classes. I didn't want to just go by luck.

All my graduation money went to paying for bartending classes so I could have a side gig. I bartended for two months before I was supposed to move to New York and then two months later I got the job as an understudy in 'Sister Act' and haven't looked back since.

Any rehearsal process - I find, anyway - does have quite an effect on me, and I very much live in that world for the whole period of time that I'm involved with the production. But normally, afterwards with a little bit of space, I can come right back out of it again.

My interest in acting came from seeing Broadway shows on summer trips to New York as a child. It was the original production of 'A Chorus Line' in an easy tie with the first 10 -15 minutes of Dustin Hoffman in 'Tootsie' that hooked me on the romantic idea that the impossible, difficult life of a struggling actor was for me.

I was an actor for over a year before I ever saw a play.

I was terrible in my first play. After that experience, I had to face that I wasn't good enough to play with the big boys. I had to go away and learn, so I worked in regional theater for three years. I even understudied at the Kennedy Center.

I think on a bucket list for a performer is definitely doing a stage show, whether it's in Vegas or on Broadway or whatever.

When I get older, I want to be a Kristin Chenoweth and Sutton Foster - you know how they do all of it? I just want to do anything that has to do with performing.

It's a question of finding the right thing, if I'm going to be an actor... if I have to get up eight times a week for a number of months, I want to be excited and challenged from the day I start to the day I leave.

I was so focused at 21, maybe to my own detriment because I didn't allow myself to have fun. I was constantly looking for the next audition and working to pay the bills.

I took 'Grease' to play my trump card, my voice, and get attention that would lead to auditions for serious work like 'Angels in America.' But I backed myself into a corner with 'Grease,' and it took me 17 years to get out.

Shooting this show is pretty intense. You lose your life. But I have no life, so it's perfect!

When I was a young woman, before I moved to New York, working in small, non-Equity theatres in the Midwest, I did a lot of musicals in my early to mid-20s.

I worked consistently on Broadway from when I was 8 years old through 'Spring Awakening,' which I left in 2008.

You can't come out of drama school and think, 'It's all going to be amazing.' You have to expect to work in a bar for at least five years and be a waitress for maybe two!

I wouldn't mind doing Broadway, but I am definitely trying to get a album out there first.

In high school, my first thing ever was I played Tony in 'West Side Story' when I was about 17. I was a really shy kid, and I just, like, forced myself to learn how to sing this one month because I loved 'West Side Story' so much, and I somehow managed to get the role.

When I talk to young people who want to go to Broadway or whatever, I say, 'The highs are very high and the lows are very low and then there is a lot in between.'

I have been involved with 'Spring Awakening' for six years. I am 20 now - I just turned 20 in August - and I originally auditioned when I was 14 years old. I auditioned for Michael Mayer, Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater.

I moved to New York to do a play when I was 18.

My brother's an aerospace engineer who works for Boeing, and I started thinking, 'Well, my brother works nine hours a day at his job... What if I worked nine hours a day at being an actor?'

I played more performances of 'Chris' in 'Miss Saigon' than anyone else.

I had already played a lead on Broadway before I ever did a film. I had had three, four seasons of stock with good, fat parts, good supporting and leading parts. And I had done, oh, God, over 400 live TV shows.