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[0:06] Patrick Oliver Jones: Since making my Broadway debut in Beetlejuice last year, I've spent a lot of time thinking about what it actually means to make it in this business. It took me 20 years from my first Broadway audition to finally getting that credit. I mean, there were a couple of shows that were supposed to transfer, but one lost its funding and the other never found a theater. Along the way, though, I was lucky enough to work at regional theaters, off-Broadway, and on two other national tours. But now imagine being 10 years old and moving to New York City with your family for your Broadway debut only to have the show close during previews. That's exactly what happened to the guest I sat down with in 2022.

[0:53] Anthony Rapp: My name is Anthony Rapp. I'm from Joliet, Illinois originally. I have been living in New York City since 1989. And uh I am an actor and uh sometimes writer and director. Yep, that Anthony Rapp, best known to many as Roger in The Musical Rent. But in our conversation, we talked about much more than that iconic role. He shared stories of that almost Broadway debut, of film producers who didn't want to cast him, and how he navigated the loss of two people closest to him. And for this look back episode, you'll also hear a bonus conversation about his time playing the title role in You're a Good Man Charlie Brown. Throughout the interview, Anthony was candid and generous in sharing his experiences and perspective, showing that perseverance and achievement in this industry never come in a single moment, but rather unfold as an ongoing process.

[2:03] Patrick Oliver Jones: Welcome to Why I'll Never Make It, an award-winning theater podcast about the realities of a career in the arts. I'm your host, Patrick Oliver Jones, a Broadway actor here in New York City. And as we head into the tenth season of this podcast, I wanted to take a moment to look back at 10 guests who have been so meaningful over the years. Their stories, honesty, and lessons are still just as relevant today, reminding us of what it really takes to keep creating, performing, and showing up in this business.

[2:43] Patrick Oliver Jones: Well, welcome, Anthony. It is so nice to meet you and so nice to have you on the podcast. So thank you very much for joining me.

[2:50] Anthony Rapp: My pleasure, thank you. I never get to talk about Little Prince, but I'm giving it away, but I never get to talk about it.

[2:55] Patrick Oliver Jones: I know. Yeah, I wanted a chance to, you know, to talk about things that you don't normally get to talk about. Obviously, Rent and other shows have uh been a big mainstay of your career as far as you know what people know you for. But us actors, we have so many things in our resume and career that may not get much attention. So it's always good to bring those to light.

[3:17] Anthony Rapp: Sure. Well, the first story, as you said, that I want to talk about is what was to be your first Broadway show in 1981 and 1982. It was called The Little Prince and the Aviator, and was based upon, of course, the famous children's book. However, the um the director and choreographer were replaced during rehearsal process, the Broadway previews were delayed, and eventually the show closed before it ever actually opened on Broadway.

[3:43] Anthony Rapp: Now it it just sounds like a roller coaster ride for you and the cast yeah I actually was originally cast as the Fennec the box and the understudy did the Little Prince because they were concerned that I was um I was very young. I mean I was I just turned 10 uh at the end of October of 1981 right before we started rehearsals. So they were understandably you know concerned about a 10 year old being able to carry a show um but during the uh rehearsal process I don't remember you know so long ago I was very young I don't remember the exact amount of time that passed but not too long into it they actually uh changed things where they made the actor who had originally been cast as the Little Prince um my understudy they made an adult actor the Fennec and I became the Little Prince and I can you know all these years later as an adult I can only imagine how devastating that must have been to the original actor who was cast he was I think four years older than I was maybe three something like that.

Um it must have been very very hard for him but I mean it was incredibly exciting for me um to to get that to get that I was plenty happy to be playing the Fennec it was a really fun role also um but yeah it was uh so that was that was the original rollercoaster like that was a nice upswing on the ride and then um I mean I had a I had a very good time throughout as a kid I mean I was I was really enjoying it for for whatever reason I always as a kid, from the first moment I ever did any kind of rehearsal and a show at my summer camp theater that I where where I made my debut as an actor. I just always loved being in that process.

[5:27] Anthony Rapp: So whatever the process was like, however it was going, I was happy to be there. Um and you know, I can look back again as an adult and see, oh yeah, there are things that were chaotic and weird. But for me, it was just like I was just rolling with it. I was just happy to be there, having a really good time, learning all these songs. I got to fly in it, like um flying by foy, you know, the guys who did Peter Pan.

[5:32] Patrick Oliver Jones: Oh, yeah.

[5:50] Anthony Rapp: Um, so that was really fun. I mean, there all those things I just I have really happy memories of it. Um, and I can also recognize that it was probably a really rough show, like from a you know, audio's perspective.

[6:04] Patrick Oliver Jones: Well, yeah, especially for a Broadway show. Because as you mentioned, you started rehearsals, you say in October, and then it was something like this November, I don't know, somewhere in there.

[6:13] Anthony Rapp: I yeah, and then because then it was set to open at the end of December of that same year, but it it didn't open till January, or uh previews didn't start till January. So that that's a really quick turn, especially in today's terms.

[6:26] Patrick Oliver Jones: That's a quick turnaround for a Broadway show to begin and then to open.

[6:30] Anthony Rapp: Yeah, and I couldn't even tell you. I we certainly didn't do weeks of tech rehearsals of what they do now. I think sometimes show some shows do like four to six weeks of tech rehearsal. I know it's kind of crazy.

[6:40] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah.

[6:40] Anthony Rapp: Um, I think maybe we did a week, maybe. I mean, and we had some technical things going on. We had like flying, we had things on tracks, which then was still pretty not there weren't that many shows that were doing automated tracks, you know, um coming on or off stage. We had a the the planet that the Little Prince was on was on a cherry picker, like you would see at a construction site.

[7:02] Anthony Rapp: So that was part of our set. We, you know, we had people in like the the guy playing the snake was in an interesting snake costume where his arms were becoming like the the cobra head above his above his head. So we had to like he had he had this very skin tight outfit and he had like move like a snake and keep his arms up. And we had a lot of things going on. There was dancing, there was a big plane because it was the aviator, you know, had his the all that stuff.

[7:21] Anthony Rapp: And we had a pretty short period process, as you said, and the there was staffing changes during it too, which I don't even like that's a part, like as a little kid, I don't even think that I registered that.

[7:39] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah.

[7:40] Anthony Rapp: I don't I don't know. I I couldn't tell you.

[7:43] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah, I mean, I I certainly have been in shows with children, and and of course I I started, you know, in the fourth, fifth grade myself.

[7:50] Patrick Oliver Jones: So yeah, for us, it's just like just happy to be there. The songs are fun. Adults generally tend to treat you nice and you enjoy and and yeah, and then you got to do a bunch of like technical things, flying and whatnot, that uh that make it even more fun.

[8:04] Patrick Oliver Jones: So then for you, what was that audition process like since you were originally cast in a different role?

[8:11] Anthony Rapp: I don't honestly remember the material I had to do for the for the auditions, but I I was I believe I was first seen in Chicago where I grew up outside Chicago, so I think they had a they did like a nationwide search kind of thing. And then I had at least one callback. I think it was only one session in New York, and that was the first time I ever went to New York. My mom and I, it was her first time being in New York. We flew to New York, and I remember getting out of the cab from the airport and looking up at the Chrysler building and thinking it was the Empire State Building, which I'm sure that 99% of everyone does, yes.

[8:42] Anthony Rapp: Um, but just like and I all I also immediately fell in love with New York. I'd been to Chicago, that was the other major city that I'd been to, and I like Chicago, but something about it, I again I couldn't tell you exactly what, but I just felt like I was home.

[8:54] Anthony Rapp: Um and uh, you know, so the audition process was pretty uh it was as far as I remember enjoyable. Like I feel like I was well treated. There was nothing about it that was scary or weird or dangerous, you know, feeling or anything like that.

[9:11] Anthony Rapp: Um, and then it was just like put, you know, I've I've said this before in other interviews that I've given in the um I don't know if it's ever really come across. So this was the early 80s, this is before the internet, this is before reality TV, this is before there was a sense of like people becoming like where I grew up, it wasn't no one we weren't thinking about becoming famous. It wasn't about like trying to get your get your your profile and your and your um become an influencer. There was it was just simply like just putting one foot in front of the other, and oh, okay, now we're running New York and I'm gonna be in a Broadway show. It was just there was no like grand design to um and I was fortunate enough to have mother who was just incredibly supportive and eager for all of us kids to have whatever things in our life that we wanted.

[10:02] Anthony Rapp: I was the only one who was pursuing acting, but you know, my brother was an athlete and she was very supportive of him being, you know, in basketball and track and field and baseball. So I say that to say that it wasn't like some like we had this, we had our sights set on like coming to New York and becoming a professional actor and becoming famous. It was just like, oh, this is what we're doing now.

[10:22] Anthony Rapp: Um, we were very naive in every way that you could be. Uh and yeah, not knowing, not knowing what would come of it, not certainly thinking, oh yeah, Broadway show's gonna close before it opens. I mean, for sure.

[10:35] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah, you know, who could have predicted that?

[10:36] Anthony Rapp: Yeah. And my mom was the breadwinner of the family. She was a single mother nurse, my um, and she had three kids, and and and at some point I it wasn't right away, but we went out alone at first, and then my brother and sister joined us, but like right after that the show closed and then we were like, what do we do now? So it was kind of a chaotic family moment too as much as anything else.

[10:58] Patrick Oliver Jones: Oh yeah, yeah, I bet, because now you, your mother, your your family are kind of planning on this show to at least last a few months, you know, who knows how long. But yeah, you you don't expect it to to close right away.

[11:11] Patrick Oliver Jones: So I I can only imagine what that must have felt like because were there were there any signs that you can remember of during rehearsal that that it was troubled.

[11:19] Anthony Rapp: I mean well I was oblivious to it if it was I mean I was just having fun like I said I like yeah now as another oh yeah the director is fired. Yeah that's trouble. Um there was a lot of uh material got changed a lot but I I recognize that's just the case of almost any show that's in development.

[11:37] Anthony Rapp: Um so that's not necessarily a sign of trouble. Um you know Michael York was lovely to me as a 10 year old child. He could not have been more lovely and Ellen Green like all David Pertham who played the Fedneck I mean all of the adults were just so wonderful to me.

[11:53] Anthony Rapp: Um I'm sure that they were going through really stressful moment because you know they they could see the writing on the wall I'm sure in a way that little kid me couldn't.

[12:03] Patrick Oliver Jones: And I'm sure that they tried to maybe shield you from some of that as well.

[12:08] Anthony Rapp: Yeah that's certainly possible and pro improbable. You know I would run I remember going into Michael's dressing room at intermission and running alliance with him and he would and I I even like I recently moved and I found a note that he written me um that was just lovely, really supported. Um, you know, so uh and I I'm I'm certain that he it was a crazy thing for him, you know.

[12:30] Anthony Rapp: He and it was his first um, I believe it was his musical theater debut, or at least Broadway musical theater debut. I mean, I know he was in the film of Cal Bray, but he didn't really sing in it, so he wasn't really a singer.

[12:43] Anthony Rapp: Um, so it was a big risk for him too. And he and his name was above the title and all that stuff, and uh, so I'm sure he had a lot writing on it.

[12:51] Anthony Rapp: I'm sure it was a huge sense of setback and disappointment. But he never if it was, he didn't none of I don't have any memory of that being filtered down onto me in any way, shape.

[13:03] Anthony Rapp: Yeah, because this production, the producer of this Broadway version, Joseph Tandit, uh, he also produced the Lerner and Lowe musical movie. And did you did you know of that movie or had you seen that in any way?

[13:17] Anthony Rapp: I don't have a memory of seeing it then. I've seen it since, but I don't think I'd seen it then. I was very familiar with The Little Prince because I'd done a production of a play adaptation of it when I was like eight. And it was a it was a really special experience because it was a theater in which deaf and hearing actors worked together. It was a community of theater, but wow. Um the the director who was hearing, um she worked with and somebody to help her adapt it, then so that there were some actors who were deaf and signed their role, and then there was a speaking actor, sort of like what Def West has done in their productions. And I, as a little prince, spoke my lines and signed um while I was in the show.

So that was so I was and I'd read the book, and so I mean it was, it was very much a part of my spirit in my soul. Like I it was something that I was very uh that had meaning for me, resonance for me. Um, but other than that, I don't remember any other knowledge.

[14:12] Anthony Rapp: And I know it's it's a it's an interesting thing that because it's been adaptations have been attempted multiple times over the years, and it seems like no one has really gotten it right. But that you know, it's like some pieces of work, their their best version really is on the page, maybe, you know. It's just everything has its place, you know, and setting. And some adaptations can kind of heighten things and illuminate things and make them special in their own right, and some things it just loses in transl. It's it gets something that's lost in translation.

[14:39] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah, I mean, for me, I I think I saw the movie whenever I was in my teens. And so I I was, you know, had been doing mu a little bit of musical theater up to that point. So I at least knew who Lerner and Lowe were and this and that. So I I at least was interested in it just from a musical standpoint, but then I actually loved the movie. Critically at the time it did not do very well, but I I love the movie and and it's kind of gotten a fan base ever since. But yeah, as you say, it's uh for whatever reason the little prints has been a difficult property to to translate onto the stage, especially. And and and even scream versions just haven't done very well. Looking back on it now, or maybe from your memories of of having done those two productions, do you see a reason why it's just so difficult?

[15:27] Anthony Rapp: I think because it's you know, it's very it's very much an allegorical parable kind of story. And I think that there's something about the the delicacy of those types of tales that maybe just lend themselves a little bit better to a kind of, you know, that that inner voice poetry experience you have of reading words and imagining it in your head. And when you when whenever anything's on stage or on screen, it becomes literal in a way that maybe just it's harder to maintain that um ineffable mystical mysterious experience of what it what the imagination can do on its own. I don't know. It that's just a theory.

[16:09] Patrick Oliver Jones: No, no, no, but it does make sense to to read a book and have a certain idea, and every person that reads it's gonna have a different idea, but they'll have their own idea of what it looks like, what it feels like, what what this particular relationship is like, but then to see it, it'll either meet with your expectation or it won't. And it just seems like people's imagination may be a lot wilder and a lot more inventive than whatever productions they've seen.

[16:34] Anthony Rapp: Yeah, and you know, and then every once in a while you you are able to, if you have somebody, you know, um like maybe Julie, somebody in the in the realm of the Julie Tamores who can come up with these wonderfully inventive ways to make these fantastical images on on stage that you can feel the magic of it, and it it that you know, and it's best the best moments of Lion King, like they really you really feel like you're seeing something truly otherworldly, I think. Um, but it's still at the same time, there's moments in Lion King where you're still, oh, I'm still watching an actor and a puppet thing. It just gets there's times where it just gets a little like you know, it kind of bumps up against itself a little bit.

[17:14] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah, because even as you were describing the snake, it seemed very reminiscent of or what I when I've seen Lion King of the headpieces above them, yeah, and them having to move with them. So it seemed reminiscent of that.

[17:27] Anthony Rapp: So yeah, that yeah, yeah, maybe there could be an element of that that could make it work. But um whenever the show did close, whenever you found out you weren't gonna open, how did you find out?

[17:40] Anthony Rapp: I mean, what what was that? I I mean, my memory is like a thing on the callboard, but that just maybe because I know that that's what it is. But you know, I just yeah, I think I don't know if it was in a meeting, an announcement. I just I remember being very sad, like as a 10-year-old, like that was a big sad moment. Um and uh yeah, and totally unexpected. And again, not I wasn't sad because I wasn't gonna be like opening it a broadway show. I was sad because the experience was really it was like, oh, and it happened like that. So we didn't even get to have the pleasure of like even having an opening night, you know.

[18:18] Patrick Oliver Jones: Right, right. No, no party, no, you know, all all that all those things that come with that opening night.

[18:23] Anthony Rapp: Yeah. So how long did you and your family stay in New York? Did you go back to Chicago after?

[18:26] Anthony Rapp: No, so we were we had just gotten a place in Staten Island, and it was I mean, it sound this might sound like I'm making it up, but it's true. It was a place that had like the heat was really messed up, it didn't have much heat. We didn't have a refrigerator, we put our food on the windowsill. It was winter, and we were like trying to figure out what we're gonna do next. It was crazy. There was a point at which I almost like sang on the Saturn Ferry to make a little money because we had no money coming. But pretty quickly, like I think within a couple weeks, I auditioned for and got the tour of King and I um that Yul Brenner was doing to replace the actor who was playing Louie in that tour. And uh, so that happened pretty quickly, and then I went just right there and joined the tour, joined the tour down in Florida.

My mom went home with Adam and Ann, my brother and sister, and uh got them settled and then came on tour with me. So it was a it was a whirlwind bananas thing again as an adult. I come up back and go, wow. As a kid, I was just like, Oh, this is what we're doing, you know. It's just one thing in one thing in front of the other. No, no sort of like long-term plan or awareness or thinking of anything in terms of a career or anything like that, just having these experiences and these opportunities.

[19:42] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah, yeah. Have you uh this question just came to me since that little prince? Have you had an opportunity or audition for any kind of any other little prints property that's come along the way?

[19:54] Anthony Rapp: I don't believe so. No, yeah, nothing that I'm remembering that's coming from Monica, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that there haven't been a lot of things, but there have been like the animated movie and other things, so I wasn't sure if if that had ever crossed your path.

[20:05] Anthony Rapp: Yeah. Did you know that it that the poster exists at uh Joe Allen?

[20:10] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yes, yeah, yeah. I happen to find it online.

[20:13] Anthony Rapp: Yeah, yeah. It's it's really cool that it's still there. Now, do you remember uh the producer Joseph Tandit? Did you ever meet him?

[20:20] Anthony Rapp: Or I remember I remember briefly like having interactions. I remember I I could if you show me a picture, I could say, Yeah, that's what he I think he looks like. You know, I think I might be conflating him with the direct one of the directors though, too. So that's a probably right, yeah, yeah. Those people, yeah. I remember songs from it. I remember moments. Uh yeah, I remember things about it very strongly, even all these years later.

[20:45] Anthony Rapp: And it is a lot of years later. It's 40 years later.

[20:49] Patrick Oliver Jones: Right, right. But but yeah, the those I mean, I remember fourth grade. So I was nine years old. Uh I was a shepherd boy in the church. I remember going down the aisle. I remember singing, I remember what it was like to, you know, have the audience because that was like my first real lead role. So, yeah, you remember those things, even if they're decades, decades ago. It's really crazy.

[21:25] Patrick Oliver Jones: Well, you certainly survived that setback and uh, you know, not only have continued to do theater, but you made movies as well. And three of your movies, uh, were talking Adventures in Babysitting, which was your very first film. Then there's school ties and days to confuse. In these movies, the producers did not want to cast you, yet the directors did. Now, uh, did you find out about these differences of opinion after the fact or during the audition process?

[21:55] Anthony Rapp: It's hard for me to remember exactly when I found out, honestly. I I'm uh so with Adventures of Babysitting, I did a screen test and it went very well. And um, I think Chris Columbus told me this when we were on set, probably, but I just don't remember for sure. But um, but for the I uh they asked me to come back and do a second screen test. And for the second screen test, they dyed my hair red, which was the color it wound up being in the film. And when they dyed it red, they dyed it permanent red. They didn't do like a rinse. So it felt like it was probably gonna happen that I was gonna get the role. But so what I found out was that the the I don't know if it was the producers exactly or in the studio, um, somebody at Disney, I think, uh not necessarily producers themselves, um was concerned that I would be as a blonde person that I would remind people or be too reminiscent of Anthony Michael Hall, who at the time, you know, this was after Breakfast Club and and uh um Purdy and Pink and I mean what was he in Pretty and Pink?

What all the it was out, you know, it was sort of in all the 80s movies, yeah. Um so they were so one of the executives at Disney was like, Oh, we can't cast a blonde kid in this role. So then they were like, well, let's just dye his hair, but then they dyed it red, uh, you know, or they got it red permanent dye, which because Chris was like very calm, he wanted me anyway. So that was the first time that uh, you know, the the director had to go to bat for me, which I appreciate.

[23:20] Anthony Rapp: Um second time, school ties it actually uh the so there was it was sort of like Little Prince in the sense in a in a certain sense. That one of the the the original director, I had actually auditioned for a film for him years before that I didn't get, but um Sydney oh, what is his name? Oh man, I'm sorry that I remember I was gonna say Sydney Wemet, but that's not right. But uh I could look it up real quick. I could I could look it up real quick if you want. He also directed without a trace, honestly.

[23:52] Anthony Rapp: Oh, interesting. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I know that movie, I but yeah, I can't think of because that was the one I auditioned for didn't get, but um, so I I had really good auditions for school ties and looked like maybe I was gonna get it, and then I didn't get it. Uh as they were getting ready to go into production, the original director got uh directed by Robert Mendel. Yeah, he was he be he replaced. So oh right. So he were he replaced the original director, which was let's see, let's see if it says I don't even know what it says. But the original director got um hired in the middle of production or pre-production, he got hired to become the head of Paramount Studios. Oh, okay. Okay. So he no longer was directing it. So when Robert Mandel came on board, he actually cast me in the role. So it's a little different. It's it's but it's a role that I almost didn't get that I wound up getting. Um because of the change of circumstances.

[24:46] Anthony Rapp: And then in uh Daisy Confused, it was similar to Avengers Babysitting, since that um Rick Winklaider, who did tell me this pretty soon after word was he had to go to bat for me. Um, because the producers thought that Tony, my character in Daisy Confused, was sort of a stand-in for Rick, and Rick has brown hair. And so they were like, How can you cast a black eyes? What is it with your hair? I, you know. But it's just it's just funny to me because you can always dye hair or anyway. So Rick won that battle. We had a whole for Daisy Confused audition, it was a it was it did a really interesting process. He had uh like a whole day where he brought in, I don't know, 20 or so actors and kind of mixed and mashed us with all these different combinations.

[25:33] Anthony Rapp: Um and so it was like we and we have like pizza park. Um, and I think that was the idea of Rick and also the original the casting director. Uh but like Rick again in the in telling me afterwards, he was like, Yeah, I was you were my guy all along, but I just had to kind of like I had to go to bat and prove through this day, like among other things that you could do it because they were concerned about you not having prior hair. So, you know, I mean yeah, it's it it's it's so interesting that for two of those, your hair was the issue.

[26:03] Anthony Rapp: Yeah, the the other was maybe just a difference of director, and then and then things changed. But uh that's yeah, yeah, yeah. That's that's so do you know what led to the producers or the the the studio finally giving way to the directors? I guess I mean through my screen test for Avengers Babysander, I guess, oh yeah, he can have brand hair, okay. Okay, no academic Paul. I guess that solved that. And then I guess it goes. It was just a change of color. That's yeah, and then I guess Daisy Confused, I guess, you know, the day went really well, and so the producers were then convinced. Oh, okay. He doesn't have to be brown hair.

[26:36] Anthony Rapp: I don't know. I don't know. You know, and but Rick Rick had like my casting wasn't the only battle he had to fight on that movie. Like the producers were pushing against a lot of things that he was doing. Because Rick comes at things from a very unconventional point of view, especially I think it's a little more conventional now than it was when he was starting out. But you know, he's very he wants the work to be very organic and very like in the moment. And there's a lot of improvisation that goes into the process.

[27:04] Anthony Rapp: And you know, I think in some filmmaking worlds, that's like you got a plan everything. You gotta have it all like you know, like like a like a battle plan. And uh he's unconventional in what he wants the texture of it to be sometimes, and he and the kinds of actors that he likes or weirdos, you know. So um, and Days to Confused is a is a different kind of movie.

[27:28] Anthony Rapp: Yeah, yeah. It was it really stuck out in the 90s from other movies that were being made at that time. And because for me, one of my favorites of his is before sunrise.

[27:36] Anthony Rapp: Yeah. Again, a very like just two people walking the streets of of Europe. Like, like that's a movie. Okay. But but but he makes it work.

[27:45] Anthony Rapp: Yeah. So he he's uh he's definitely a different kind of director when it comes to that. And I think it's great that he was able to uh to push for you, especially in you know, in that movie, because I I remember a a theater production that I did, it was almost the exact opposite situation where I had the entire creative team producers, they wanted me, but it was the director who didn't.

[28:05] Anthony Rapp: He just had someone completely else in mind for it, even though I had nailed the callback. I I knew that I had done well because they, you know, you just you feel that energy in the room.

[28:14] Anthony Rapp: Yes. And so, and so it was interesting once I was told that that it made me kind of appreciate having gotten the role even more so. It's like, oh, so someone had to fight for me. Did you kind of feel that same when once you found out?

[28:29] Anthony Rapp: Yeah. I mean, I especially being a director, like there's something about I've I've always felt such um, I've been pretty fortunate that that like 99.9% of the directors I've worked with have been like really good people to work with and for.

[28:42] Anthony Rapp: So I've always felt very supported by them and very like it's been a really collaborative experience for the most part. So I think knowing that is probably part of what has led me to really be willing to trust and um work with directors because I know that they have to do this kind of stuff sometimes where they have to really advocate for you, fight for you.

[29:01] Anthony Rapp: And um, yeah, it meant a lot, it meant it it meant a great deal to me to know that I had their confidence in that. When it comes to directors on uh film or television versus theater directors, do you have a different working relationship with them?

[29:16] Anthony Rapp: Well, on television in it in a television series, which is you know, being on Star Trek Discovery is the first time ever did a regular television series, it's a very different kind of dynamic.

[29:25] Anthony Rapp: Um it's it our lead or wonderful actor or what wonderful human being is who's the leader in our show, Senequin Martin Green. She she used the terminology kind of that they're sort of guests in our house.

[29:38] Anthony Rapp: Like the show was our house, and the directors who come on board are essentially guests in our house. Um, because they just come in for that episode, most of them. That we do have sometimes where they've occurred now over the course of seasons, and then they're more b then they're part of the family, and then that's their house too.

[29:54] Anthony Rapp: Um, and it's not said in a way that's like adversarial, but just uh that you know that they're not the boss in quite the same way as they would be in a play or movie.

[30:06] Anthony Rapp: Um it's it's you're just a little more uneven playing field in terms of we we know more about the world that we're inhabiting than they probably do, and including like sort of the tone and the history of our characters, and so there's a they kind of many times do rely on us to help fill in some gaps, or you know, um it's not so much that we're you know, we're we're both trying to fulfill each other's vision, but we just have a little more say, I guess you could say, in how that vision comes across than we might in a film.

[30:40] Anthony Rapp: Um but then like people like Jonathan Brakes, who is been he's directed I think five or six episodes now, that's that's a that's a lot of time we spent with him, and and he's very much a part of our fan.

[30:53] Anthony Rapp: Um well, and he's very much part of the Star Trek universe for sure.

[30:57] Anthony Rapp: Of course, of course, yeah. And it helps that he's also a great director to work with, like he's so much fun, and he's you know, he really loves actors and he, you know, he he wants he wants us to uh be able to collaborate fully, all that stuff is very meaningful.

[31:14] Anthony Rapp: You know, it's the only time it could be weird is if a director comes into a TV show that's like this pre-established kind of environment and they come in with like a a way of being that's very at cross purposes with the sort of the way the kind of machine is working, that would be that could be very disruptive.

[31:31] Anthony Rapp: Um, but thankfully we haven't really had that happen too much. So when it comes to the TV series that you're a part of or the films you've done versus the the theater work, w is there one you're more drawn to, the stage or the screen?

[31:46] Anthony Rapp: No, I'm very much more drawn to stage as a performer for sure.

[31:49] Anthony Rapp: I figured, yeah. I figured.

[31:51] Anthony Rapp: Yeah. Um I and you know I've done a little bit of directing on camera. I I think ultimately I think as a director there's a there's a lot of excitement for the the extra level of collaboration that can happen as a film or television director.

[32:07] Anthony Rapp: That's that's a weird way of saying because there's tons of collaboration that happens with theater director too. But I don't know there's something about being on the set as a film director just feels a little more tactile than being I've directed some plays and some you know live shows too which is very enjoyable but there's something it's a little more I don't know passive that passive is a wrong word.

[32:27] Anthony Rapp: It's just it's um I just like getting in I feel like as a director on film or television you're a little more in with everybody.

[32:34] Anthony Rapp: Well I mean yeah I mean there are those rehearsals where the director can kind of be there on stage and maybe you know kind of more of a hands-on director but a lot of times there is that that table or they're in the house and so there's a distance whereas yeah yeah when I've been on set the director's like right there okay I I want you to you know turn on this moment and then deliver the you know you know it's it's like they really kind of get into it and they kind of stare at you and then say try it try it I had this one director say the line to me no no no try that okay then you know and and and so not not a line reading but more just like yeah yeah yeah yeah just like really in my face going yeah do it just like that and then he pulls back and it so it's there's there's a different approach because you know that the the eyebrow, the the lip movement, the the timbre of your voice registers and rings so much more on screen.

[33:21] Anthony Rapp: And the camera, you know, working with as a director, talking to a cameraman, like the camera is another character.

[33:27] Anthony Rapp: So and you know, similarly, like yeah, when you're directing stage, of course, the light is a character and the way the set moves as a character, but it's just a little you can get that much more precise and specific in a way that you're talking about performance.

[33:40] Anthony Rapp: You can also get that what the camera's doing is part of that, is part of the scene, also part of the moment. And that's just fun and exciting to get in there with the with the technician who's also an artist, um, in a is a very special way.

[33:53] Patrick Oliver Jones: Do you see you wanting do you see yourself wanting to transition to directing or balance that with acting a little more as you go along?

[34:00] Anthony Rapp: I I don't ever see myself like transitioning out of acting and into only directing, but I would like very much to do both.

[34:07] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah.

[34:08] Anthony Rapp: I bet.

[34:09] Anthony Rapp: I went to I went to film school only for one semester. It was very expensive.

[34:12] Anthony Rapp: Um and I was paying for it myself. But uh, but it's something that I've been very interested in since I was a you know in my early teen years.

[34:20] Anthony Rapp: Um, you know, see watching films is, you know, great uh films made by great directors is one of my favorite things to do.

[34:28] Anthony Rapp: Um, and to absorb and try to, I wouldn't want to copy, but to try to absorb what makes those films special and then find a way to uh bring that to my work is something that I that's sort of how I am with actors.

[34:42] Anthony Rapp: When I see when I see a great performance, I don't want to copy it. I don't want to emulate it. I want to be inspired by it and and you know, what is it about that work that spoke to me and try to you know and and and have that be embodied in my own.

[34:57] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah, I think that's a lot of times what we as actors or directors or whatever we're watching, it's like I see how resonant that voice is, that perspective is, how honest it is. What can I do to bring to my performance or directing that can be just as honest?

[35:13] Anthony Rapp: And and so it's still us, it's still a part of who we are. But yet we're taking that, as you say, inspiration from others.

[35:19] Anthony Rapp: Exactly.

[35:20] Anthony Rapp: Yeah.

[35:21] Patrick Oliver Jones: Now, with regards to that, uh, was this a semester that you lasted at NYU and then you left? What what was the the trigger that said, nope, I'm out of here. I can't do this.

[35:30] Anthony Rapp: It was money, seriously. It was money and the fact that, you know, I think the undergrad program at NYU film school, and this was again, this is a long time ago. This is the a this 1989.

[35:41] Anthony Rapp: Um is not quite the same level of uh training as the grad program. And I think that's uh true of a lot of art arts university programs that the the grad program gets so many more resources, it gets so much more attention, it's much more kind of curated experience in a an undergrad program is a lot more kind of like a like a here, throw it all against the wall and see what sticks.

[36:06] Anthony Rapp: Um it felt more like a trade school than an art school experience to me.

[36:10] Anthony Rapp: And uh I so I was a little disappointed.

[36:13] Anthony Rapp: Um, and you know, at the time, and I think this may have been proved, but at the time we were watching films, you know, classic films as part of what one, you know, one of the film classes I took was uh language of cinema, you know.

[36:24] Anthony Rapp: So we're watching classic films for the ages. We were watching it in an auditorium in a lecture hall on it.

[36:30] Anthony Rapp: So we were watching like old prints of movies that were on like the the the films themselves would might have been shot on cinemascope, but we're watching six essentially 16 millimeter prints with bad sound at one of the top film schools in the country, paying a lot of money to do that.

[36:47] Anthony Rapp: So all those factors made me a little like I don't know if this is worth it.

[36:50] Anthony Rapp: Um plus I didn't, you know, it was running out of money. I was I was an actor who I'd saved up some to go to school, but I was like, I wasn't working. I was going to school so um yeah I I put my put my school whole essentially and then right away soon after I got cast in some trees of separation which then became a big hit that I was in for a couple years.

[37:11] Anthony Rapp: So so then I just never went back.

[37:13] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah well I mean I mean it it certainly seemed to to work out for you.

[37:18] Anthony Rapp: But uh but but at the same time was film at the time did you think film would be your next you know the next path for you that you would uh maybe not do as much theater but film would be the next thing no not necessarily it was just something that I was very passionate about and having that at that point done a couple of films um you know and working with Chris Columbus on Adventures Babysitting I mean I was so spoiled my first film experience was with a supremely kind and really fun and very collaborative enthusiastic passionate filmmaker Chris Columbus and it that was his first film.

[37:55] Anthony Rapp: So I was like soaking it all up and he was eager to share with me. So I felt like I had a kind of he wasn't like directly my mentor but I had a kind of mentoring experience right away.

[38:05] Anthony Rapp: So that just made me so that was concurrent with me seeing films by great filmmakers like David Lynch and Jonathan Demi um and then you know and uh the Cohen brothers that that were like kind of blowing my mind about what movies could be that all of that was happening at the same time and that's what made me go like I want to do that.

[38:26] Anthony Rapp: So but it wasn't like I want to do that instead of or apart from it was just I also wanted you.

[38:46] Patrick Oliver Jones: Well, it was certainly decades later that you got to work with Christopher Columbus again in doing the movie for Rent, which has certainly been I assume you would just say Rent has been a blessing to your life and has given you things that you wouldn't have otherwise, probably.

[39:01] Anthony Rapp: Yes.

[39:01] Anthony Rapp: Yes, unequivocally from the first moment I did it until now continues.

[39:07] Anthony Rapp: Yes.

[39:07] Anthony Rapp: Yeah, yeah.

[39:08] Patrick Oliver Jones: Now from that moment, even before opening, you know, when you're just in the rehearsal, the collaborative process of creating it, did that show feel different from other previous theater work? Was there an energy or spark to the show or role?

[39:22] Anthony Rapp: 100% from the first moment of the first day rehearsal, Michael Grife spoke very eloquently about some of the themes of the show. Cause you know, when you're starting rehearsal, that doesn't always happen. Sometimes you just dive dive into the learning the music. But he spoke very eloquently about, you know, that the show was a—I'm paraphrasing—that the show was about facing grief and crisis and loss, and also trying to live your life fully. That both of these things could be true at the same time. Like that alone is like that sounds really like full of wisdom and strength and possibility. And then the first thing we did in rehearsal was learn "Seasons of Love." And you know, there had never been a song that I'd heard that was quite like it, certainly in theater.

And I don't know that there's really been a song like it since. So yeah, right away I was like, Oh. And I had listened to some of the music, I'd listened to Rent for my callback, and that was a cool, fun rock song that said, Oh, this is cool for music theater. But that didn't begin to tell you what was the power of the show, what the power of the show would be, which so encapsulated the "Season of Love." So, yes, from the moment, from the first moment of first day rehearsal, I was like, this is something really special. And then it just got more so and more sort of so as we went on.

[40:45] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah, it's interesting what you said Michael Grife told the cast about that balancing of grief and then still going on with your life. And it really is amazing how Rent itself matched that with the loss of Jonathan Larson, and you know, dealing with that grief, but then also you personally were dealing with your own mother who was battling cancer at the time. And so that you had your own battles, she trying to manage that. So you mentioned whenever you answered the final five questions that one of your favorite pieces of advice was the only way out is through.

[41:26] Anthony Rapp: The only way, yeah, the only way out is through.

[41:29] Patrick Oliver Jones: So how did you keep going through that first year or so of Rent with Jonathan and your mother losing their fights to these deadly diseases?

[41:38] Anthony Rapp: I mean, I was very fortunate in the sense that Rent itself encapsulates that idea. It so, you know, I think it would have been a very different story if I was in, I don't know, you know, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels or something. The fact that it was in Rent that was in and of itself telling the story and what it's like to live your life fully in the face of all this, not denying that it's happening, not forgetting about it, not pretending it's not happening. It is happening. Love Ibohm is all about that. Like to people living with not dying from disease and acknowledging that they are also living with disease and they could might be gone. But it's so it's not saying forget about them, it's saying here, hold them up, embrace them, celebrate them for however long they're here.

And then the rest of the show, you know, there's a funeral in the show. That we were fortunate as a cast, as a friend, as personally as a friend of Jonathan, that I had that avenue that he'd kind of written for us to help mourn him. So it felt like a gift in so many ways. At the same time, of course, we would trade it all if he happens to be there. But similarly with my mom, I mean, yeah, that I had a place to kind of put all that stuff that I was going through. There were times when it was a little too much, like I could never escape it. And so, you know, towards the end, I did I would take a night off here or there just to sort of give myself a mental health break. But mostly I really wanted to be there because I had a chance to kind of channel it into something, and it was something that also that my mom was very, very proud of, and it meant a great deal to her that I was doing it.

So she didn't want me to leave the show to go be with her. She was very clear about that. You know, so it's like there but balancing it was hard. I'm not saying it wasn't hard, but I was shored up by the fact that I was a part of something that was telling the story that it was telling in a way that was also helping me very much personally.

[43:49] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah, yeah. You'd mentioned that your mother didn't want you to leave the show or stop doing anything like that. It sounds like she, as you'd mentioned before, was very, very supportive of your career, of doing what you were passionate about. And so I imagine that that is something that you got from her as far as like living your own life and really pursuing your passions and having that type of drive and persistence.

[44:16] Anthony Rapp: Yeah, I mean, the sense that I always made of her approach was that she came from a, you know, in her upbringing, she didn't necessarily feel that kind of support. She had to fight pretty hard to live the life that she wanted to live. And I think she kind of made a vow to herself that she wasn't going to do anything like that to us. So yeah, she made sure that we knew that we had her full support. And then she also I think it helped too that she was a lover of the arts. And that she gained a, you know, she felt a lot of pleasure and pride in what I was doing and that I was good at it, you know. It brought her joy. And I think she didn't have a lot of joy in her life. I think that we as kids were the biggest source of her joy, you know.

She had a really tough childhood. She was a single mom under a lot of stress, working as a single mother, singing mother nurse as a nurse. She had a lot of pain that she experienced from the people that she took care of. She was very passionate about, she was a wonderful nurse, but it was like it was hard, you know. So this was a place where she could feel some light, the light could shine. And so she was, yeah, very much in favor of it. I was incredibly lucky and grateful that she was able to come to see Rent because it was the last thing that she saw me do. And it would have been very strange. I mean, I would have been able to find a way, I s I know, but it would have been really, really extra hard if she hadn't, because it was such a culmination and the kind of crowning moment of everything that we had built together through the years, you know, and she'd seen me like struggle and you know, not get work, and she was always a huge champion of mine and huge cheerleader and a huge supporter. And so for it to turn out as well as it turned out was I know very, very comforting to her too.

[46:11] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah, it sounds like that your successes were her successes as well.

[46:16] Anthony Rapp: Absolutely.

[46:17] Patrick Oliver Jones: Your parents had actually divorced when you were a toddler. So as you said, your mother was really your world as being a sole parent, a single parent raising you and your siblings. I myself grew up with a single mother as well. And I'm curious, how do you think that shaped you growing up with a single mother?

[46:38] Anthony Rapp: I mean, I think that it probably contributed to my willingness or desire or ability to kind of be so fully absorbed into artistic work because I was home alone a lot. She was working, so I read a lot. I would, you know, I didn't watch a lot of TV, but that like I would get very involved in like stories. And then when I did start doing plays, I don't know, just had never had any—I never had any difficulty kind of jumping fully into this sort of imagination exercise. And so I think that's part of it in some ways, because I had a lot I was like left to my imagination a lot as a kid. So I mean I'm just grabbing a theories right now, but it seems like I made makes sense.

[47:29] Patrick Oliver Jones: Certainly sounds right.

[47:29] Anthony Rapp: Yeah. And like I said, because she was so she was such a supporter of the arts, like that it felt very natural and easy. Then like I know many young actors who've told me that they had to kind of battle a little bit with their to get the support of their family because their family was worried about you know being in the arts and it's not a stable life and all that stuff. That was never a conversation to have. So I feel just lucky also that I didn't have to like transcend that hurdle.

[47:58] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah.

[47:58] Anthony Rapp: Yeah. Now you had released a memoir about your mother and your time with Rent called Without You. Was that a difficult piece to write? Because you wrote it several years after all of that, but was it a little easier to write with that distance?

[48:13] Anthony Rapp: It was not it, it was the hardest thing I've ever done creatively. Yeah, I could have written another book at maybe, who knows? I've written a short story that got published this past year, which I'm very proud of, but that was the first thing I'd really written since. I find writing to be kind of lonely. And like the longer I went with writing my book, which sometimes was periods of not writing, the more the pressure of it started to feel like enormous and overwhelming. And then I would like I would have a no I would know like okay, I have to write this scene now of the moment when I went in and spent time with my mother's body after she died, and I know how I want to approach it and I know what I want to do, but I just couldn't touch it.

It was just too hard. So it was just really, really, really hard to do. But I'm also proud of it. And I mean, and I honestly didn't expect it to get well received. I thought, you know, who's gonna care in a way, but the reception that it got was far exceeded anything that I ever hoped for. So I was very grateful for that. Continued over these years now. It's been it came out like 16 years ago. That it continues to touch people and you know part of the reason I wrote it was that so there was not a lot of literature out there that at the time anyway I don't know about anymore that was directly about a young person losing a parent. There was other literature that was about losing a parent like when you were an adult, you know, and even though I was 24 and or 25 and technically an adult, it's still like a young adult as opposed to like somebody in their 40s or 50s losing their parent kind of thing.

[49:59] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah and shortly after the release of that book you created a stage version of a one man show of the book and it featured your own songs you know you you kind of conceived the show yourself what was that a bit of catharsis as well to present this thoughts and grief on stage that was so personal to you?

[50:20] Anthony Rapp: It was but I want to be very clear like I didn't ever think that's what I was gonna do with it. And I was actually there was a young producer that I met who planted a seed in my mind and I was like I don't know how do I do it and a director friend of mine named Steve Maylor who I worked with in Boston and Henry the Fifth we had a great experience working together we've been looking for other projects and then I got in touch with him and was like, Do you think you might want to help me try to adapt this? Cause I don't know where to begin. And he's like, yes. And he did he did me the great service of kind of taking the 300 page book and sort of chopping it into like a hundred pages of text that he felt could be the spine of a show. If he hadn't done that, I wouldn't know where to begin.

[51:05] Anthony Rapp: And then we just started like a kind of a workshop process of just sort of like I have this song that I wrote years ago about visiting my mom called Business While She Was Sick. Is there a way that we could try to fold it in to the text? And so we did that and we just tried it and then we were like here's what we'll do. We'll do a reading and invite people that we really trust who aren't just gonna like yes us to tell us if it's worth if if there's something here because I it we I could not have very much objectivity. I was it was yeah it was too busy. Yeah you can't separate yourself from a show like that. So we did a night uh of that at Arsenova. Um we were great we were lucky enough to have a connection there that gave us a night to do that and um Brian Yorke who's who had become a friend through working with him on early versions of Next Normal and then we worked together later on if then he came Michael Grife came my brother Adam came another wonderful sort of advisor that I'd known for many years came and other friends and they all unequivocally said yes keep going and that was just like the boost that just said okay yes let's keep going um so we wrote some new songs which we did a whole bunch of stuff and then we've done many now several different iterations of it and it's been I didn't I didn't know what doing it was going to be like in terms of uh I thought it might be a little too much for my system to take.

I thought it might be a little too hard, but honestly it turned into kind of it did become kind of cathartic in a way that I didn't anticipate. And uh and I felt like I was actually getting to spend time with my mom in a way that was really, really special. Um and I would still love to do a proper run of it at some point again in New York. Um it's a little hard to plan these things in COVID times plus being in a TV show. It's a little hard. Yep. Um but these are very very good problems to have well COVID's not a good problem. The the TV show problem is a good problem to have um but hopefully you know that's something that we keep our keep and keep our eyes on people have said really incredible things to me after seeing the show.

I had a young man in Swaran I did a run of it in Toronto a number of years ago and young man came up to me who had just lost their mother his mother like two days before and I was like when he told me that I was like and you're here are you sure and he's like no please yes yes yes so I mean th there's many stories like that are people who shared that kind of thing with me. Um so I'm yeah and I'm uh I'm very proud of it and I believe in it. Um and uh it's been very very special thing to have uh possibility of doing again and who knows maybe I think that's one of the beautiful things about theater I mean even though this started as a book but I think bring it to the stage like that young man said, it it was something that he needed at that particular moment.

And I think theater its live element provides such a visual uh a visceral response and connection with an audience that that you can't find in other mediums and I I I know for myself that's one thing that I love most about theater and no matter what the show is, it can be a heavy, more serious show like Rent, or it can be something light like Music Man. Anything that can connect with an audience and make them laugh or cry is special.

[54:25] Patrick Oliver Jones: I agree, yeah.

[54:26] Anthony Rapp: And and there was something about doing the show that it's it's kind it it I don't I'm trying to find a way to articulate it. You know, this idea of the only way out is through. That's something that I say in the show. It's it's words that come out of my mouth in the show, and and in a way, by doing the show, the show itself is living proof. Like that I have lived through this moment, and here I am to tell you about it. Um helps prove that the only way out is through. I don't know if that makes any sense, but no, no, no, no, it's it's that old adage, don't tell me, show me. And you're showing it.

[55:22] Patrick Oliver Jones: Well, besides the Little Prince, you have also played other another famous children's character, Charlie Brown. And in 1999, you were part of the revival cast for You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. And that production featured two previous guests of this podcast, uh Alana Levine, Andrew Lippa, uh composer, but it also had B. D. Wong, Kristen Chinwith, and others. I mean, you must have just had a blast with this production.

[55:48] Anthony Rapp: It was a great, great, great experience. And we have we have a little text chain to this day of the cast. We had a little reunion at BroadwayCon a couple years ago that was very, very, very special. Um yeah, it was it was a it was a joyful experience creatively. And then and and I'm sure Alana or Andrew told you, or maybe they didn't, but we we got great reviews out of town, um, including from some tough critics out of town who, you know fully were could have torn us to shreds and then so we had we were riding high coming into New York and then Ben Brantley just put a big skybosh on us except for Kristen which he deservedly you know she was wonderful in it but he made he launched her stardom in that review but he kind of crushed our show at the same time so it was a very strange strange experience from that perspective.

[56:38] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah yeah so uh it was it's uh it's a bitter there's things about the memory that are bitter sweet in the sense that we had such a we had such a joyful time making it and we loved performing it and then um it was a bit crushing to not have the kind of like with the hoping up um but it still remains a very very very precious memory to all of us because the original production was in 1967 so how much was the cast involved with updating Charlie Brown 30 years later.

[57:10] Anthony Rapp: We were very involved we so there were all the all these copies of various um peanuts books were strewn around the rehearsal room and we were encouraged to take them home and find strips that we thought might have stuff in them to build little vignettes out of and it couldn't it didn't have to be like for our character like we could find something for any of them and so uh yeah I mean I I that was one of my I love peanuts as a kid especially uh I actually played Snoopy when I was a kid so I hid in Charlie Brown. Um so it was a show that was very much part of my heart and soul uh and yeah we I remember coming in with stuff that I I'm pretty sure that at least one of the strips that I brought in made it into the show. You know, but we would we would kind of workshop all. We would just try to put them on their feet and see if they would work as as script.

[58:01] Patrick Oliver Jones: How fun.

[58:02] Anthony Rapp: How fun. So yeah, so if it really was like just recreating it all over again.

[58:06] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah.

[58:09] Anthony Rapp: And you know, and Clark Gesner was involved, like he certainly gave his blessing for Andrew to write new music and to adapt the uh orchestrations of the songs that he wrote. Um, you know, and his original music is also wonderful. So it was a but it just felt like a great time, a chance to breathe this fresh new life into this delightful and also very um heartfelt show. You know, it's I the irony of the whole fact that we didn't have the kind of success that we were hoping we would have is that not long after our show, Charles Schultz passed away, and there was this outpouring of appreciation for the depths of his writing that he'd done for Peanuts. And I think if that had happened before, I think it might have tuned a couple of the critics to a little more into thinking of it as a more sophisticated piece of work that maybe they were prepared to think of it, if that makes any sense. It's just the it might have brought a slightly different context to it.

[59:09] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah.

[59:09] Anthony Rapp: But who knows maybe not, maybe we just hated it. I don't know.

[59:12] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah, who knows how to please Ben Brantley.

[59:16] Anthony Rapp: Yeah. Well, I mean, I there was one thing he said in his review that, like, of course, uh, I couldn't disagree with critics, whatever, that's fine. But there's just one thing he said in his review that was just I don't understand, which was he talked about like there were being a sense of a vacuum in the audience where there should have been laughs. And I know the night he was there, and it was an uproariously funny night, and the audience was eating it up. So that was just the part that I was like, I don't think you're seeing the same, I don't know what you're talking about there. You can you could disagree with an artistic choice, but to say that the audience wasn't with us seemed a little strange.

[59:50] Patrick Oliver Jones: But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[59:51] Anthony Rapp: I've I've had those reviews where it's almost like they're watching a different show. And so I you know, it it is one person's opinion, and that's that's exactly what it is.

[1:00:01] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah. But um, but considering the the heaviness and seriness start again. Considering the heaviness and seriousness, I can't say the word serious. Here we go. Considering the heaviness and seriousness of a show like Rent, was it a nice change of pace to do something light and fun like Charlie Brown?

[1:00:23] Anthony Rapp: It was a absolutely a nice change of pace to do Charlie Brown after Rent. Um yeah, and also because it was the first show that I did after my mom passed. Um it was very weird to think of doing something um without her being able to see it. So the fact that it was a show that she had familiarity with, even though we were doing a new version of it, was also helpful for me to make that transition. Um, but yeah, the the the much less uh vocally demanding, much less physically demanding, and much less emotionally demanding. Although Charlie's also kind of going through some stuff, so it's not like it's not like he's suddenly, you know, like having an easy life, but um but yes, it was a relief on my system to to do Charlie Brown after the the heaviness and intensity of Rent.

You know, and the and as much as anything else, that the Rent also the the schedule we were on was five show weekends, um, which is really intense, especially for a show like that. So look up by Sunday night, you know.

[1:01:22] Patrick Oliver Jones: Actually, Sunday night sometimes was like like, okay, whoo, I can just like relax.

[1:01:28] Anthony Rapp: Sometimes Saturday night was the hardest one because like I've got two more and my I'm exhausted and like my voice is tired. How am I gonna do it? But so but then Sunday night is like okay, but you just wet fly kind of thing after I can day off and it's there.

[1:01:40] Patrick Oliver Jones: Right, right. You you see the light at the end of the tunnel, it's like Monday's coming.

[1:01:44] Anthony Rapp: Yeah, yeah.

[1:01:46] Patrick Oliver Jones: So with so with rent, was it it's certainly vocally taxing, it's certainly emotionally taxing. Is is there one that's that's harder than others? Like, like if yeah, if if like it's hard to to to get through the show, but is is there one that's like okay, well, I can at least just rely on I know my voice is good, so I'm just gonna barrel through this, or is it more the emotional, like, okay, I'm just gonna let the emotion carry me, even if my voice isn't with me?

[1:02:16] Anthony Rapp: Yeah, it's an interesting question. Um, I mean, I I take really good care of myself physically and wokally, so I would, you know, I never I never really got like to a point where I was like worried like with the note come out. Um, but it was just more like I would get like at the end of La VOM on a night when my was physically tired. I would almost you know that time sometimes when you're you're singing, like I would be singing the end of La Bibo and dancing, and it was almost like I got tunnel vision. Like my head, like the blood in my head was just pounding. Yeah that was what that was the experience of it. Just the just having to like run that extra little burst of energy when when your body's like, I just need to sit down, man.

But you can't. So it was that was the thing I felt the most. When I went back in the show years later with Adam, I actually had learned even more about nutrition and hydration and stretching and rolling out your IT band and all that stuff. So actually, as an adult, I felt like I I and I wasn't going any, I wasn't, I was still being really intense in the show, I promise you. But I just felt like I I didn't get quite as wiped out because I was able to even take better care of myself uh than I was as a youngster. Plus, I also didn't have the extra weight of going through my mom's illness, you know, there were and and all the uh extracurricular stuff we were doing in the original show, too, of all the press and all the recordings and stuff, which was great to do, but it was also exhausting.

[1:03:54] Anthony Rapp: You're older, you have a bit more experience, life experience, and professional experience. Do you feel like you were able to attack the role differently than you did previously?

[1:04:04] Anthony Rapp: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think I was just a little more probably—relax is the wrong word. I didn't have to like—I never had to feel like I had to push, push to get—that's not the right way to say it. I felt like I could just trust it more. I didn't have to prove anything. I don't know. Not that I felt like I had to prove anything as a youngster, but it just felt like a little more, a little simpler, I guess. It's more essential as an adult. Things kind of got down to like the real core of it, maybe a little more. And also, like, I was visiting an earlier part of myself, so I could like—I wasn't in it at my—like when I left the Nederlander as a 25-year-old, I was so much living life Mark. And as an older person, I could look back and see that life that I'd lived. So I could sort of almost let it go a little more existence.

[1:05:02] Anthony Rapp: Yeah. So it wasn't as exhausting.

[1:05:05] Patrick Oliver Jones: It certainly sounds that you were able to put it in its emotional place, in its physical place, and you were able to handle the demands of it a little better that second time around.

[1:05:16] Anthony Rapp: Yeah. And I, yeah, and recognize, you know, having that much more experience of like, yeah, I'm gonna like just chill and not run around like a youngster, you know, during the day. I'm gonna do the sh—I'm gonna preserve my body for the night, you know, a little more than I did. Not that I was ever being crazy crazy, but probably more than I certainly more than I was as a—because one of the professional experiences or things that you went through in between that first run of Rent and your second, is there was a gap of time in there where you couldn't find work. You had kind of been going strong, strong, strong through the 90s, and then 2000 hit, and you kind of hit a rough patch as far as just a dry spell. What was that like?

[1:05:59] Anthony Rapp: It really felt like all doors had closed, and I don't even remember auditioning very much. I don't remember having meetings. I probably did here and there, but it just felt like no one was calling. It was like total desert crickets. And in the meantime, I was also working slash not working on my book, so that was hanging up. So it was a really scary, rough time emotionally. I was financially okay because I've been able to save some money from that good—that fertile period, but it was also starting to get like, if I never work again, what am I gonna do for money kind of thing?

[1:06:36] Patrick Oliver Jones: Was that really something that you thought that, you know, based upon all the success and what you accomplished that this—you might not work again? Did that really—I mean, in a certain sense it wasn't like I don't know if it was that articulated like you're never gonna work again, but there like it just did feel like, hmm, maybe I'm—maybe it's done. Maybe I'm done. Maybe nobody's really interested. I don't know. It just—and I got close to a couple things. I did get close to a couple things in that time too that didn't pan out, and I was like, okay, um—but then I was in LA, I was working, I was staying with a good dear friend of mine in his guest house trying to write my book. Like I was really just trying to do that and—which was very much a struggle and auditioning a bit, but like not much was happening.

And I had auditioned quite a while before that for A Beautiful Mind, like maybe at least a month or two, and I hadn't heard anything, so I was like, okay, that—check another one off. It wasn't gonna pass. And I woke up in the morning, and I had a call from my agent, and they're like, oh, they want you to do A Beautiful Mind. So it's like that was the end of the fallow period. It couldn't have been a better ending. I mean, it turned out to be an incredible experience. So I—you know, but it—but if you'd asked me before it was not going to come through, I would have said no way. I was done. I auditioned for it so long ago, like never heard anything. It's not gonna happen.

[1:08:02] Patrick Oliver Jones: Did you ever have a sense of, well, maybe they're not—they don't want Anthony Rapp anymore. Maybe I need to do something else. Maybe I need to branch off into something else. Do you—was there ever a thought that you needed to do something differently?

[1:08:21] Anthony Rapp: Um, not necessarily. Yeah, I mean, I was also doing a bit of teaching here and there and, you know, doing some music stuff. So I was like, I have other things in my back pocket that I'm gonna try to make and was writing my book under contract. So I did have that going on. But I never got to a point where it's like I'm gonna change careers altogether or give it up. But I did wonder if it was—if I was toast, if I was quick, you know, right? So, you know, I mean, and it seemed, you know, I fully know now, especially after all these years of being in this, there are people who win Academy Awards and then sometimes don't work for two years. I mean, that happens sometimes.

[1:09:03] Anthony Rapp: Yeah, it's just a weird thing. And I didn't put this in my little form, but I thought about it after I filled out the form. I remember in the early 90s when I was doing Six Degrees of Separation. An actor friend of mine was doing a two-character play at an ensemble studio theater, this tiny little theater in Midtown. And I went to see it, and in it was this actress named Edie Falco. And she was incredible in this spell or in this play. And she'd also—and I also seen her in like Hal Hartley film. So I was a little aware of her, but I was like, there's this actress, she's amazing. And we shared a—we should be both lit downtown. We shared a cab afterwards, and on the cab ride downtown, she was like, yeah, I can't get arrested.

I don't know, I don't know. I might have to give it up. It was a full like eight years later that she got Side Mad and Sopranos. So—and she was always one of our best actresses from my estimation from seeing her in this little two-character play at this all studio theater. So it's not like she magically overnight became the amazing actor that got, you know, that won all these awards. She always was that, but it just for whatever reason, it just happens differently for different people at different times.

[1:10:14] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah, yeah. I think that's one of the beautiful but also frustrating things about this business is that it can be. There are those people that just kind of like, oh well, acting could be fun. Let me audition for something, and they get it. And it's just like boom, it was this huge role, huge movie or show, whatever it is. And then there's Edie Falco, there's you, there's me, there's where we have these moments of, okay, I'm doing everything I've done before to get work, and now it's not working. I can't do it. We start to question ourselves, we start to wonder, we start to think, well, this is as good as it's ever gonna get.

[1:10:50] Anthony Rapp: Yep.

[1:10:51] Patrick Oliver Jones: And you know, it is—it's a long life, and you know, things come and go, you know.

[1:10:57] Anthony Rapp: Yeah, I don't know. It's pretty wild.

[1:11:00] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah, you know. Now, for you being in your position, you certainly, you know, have things on your resume that a lot of people don't have. Does that give you some assurance that, okay, well, something will come along? Are you at a point now where you don't worry about that?

[1:11:19] Anthony Rapp: Yeah, maybe I'm naive, but I feel pretty good that I'm gonna get your work on stuff, you know. Hopefully, but I never know for sure. Um, but yeah, I mean, I also know that I have enough colleagues and friends that we could say, let's come up with something together if it really came to it that we could, you know, like I did with my friend Steve, the director, you know. So that is something I feel fortunate about too. If I have to generate my own work in that sense too, that's—I'm happy to do that as well.

[1:11:52] Anthony Rapp: Um, yeah, I—I don't mean to say, like, oh, I got it sewn up, yeah, no problem, but I do feel like I've earned enough of a—hopefully enough of a reputation that I could be counted on to do, you know, quality work and I'm good to work with and, um, and yeah, that I could say, you know, down the road if a couple years from now I'm like really twiddling my thumbs, I could, you know, call up a couple of my friends, say, is there anything? Can we do a little something just to like make something happen? You know, we'll see, you know, maybe—but knock on wood.

[1:12:29] Patrick Oliver Jones: Hopefully, this is what—no, I don't—I definitely think it's good to have those people in your life, but also those ideas, those sparks that will just keep you going, you know, when it—whenever months turn into maybe more months or maybe a year or two, yeah, in between things so that you can continue. I mean, I know that COVID has kind of driven us all to those moments of, well, what's next? What am I—if not this, what can I do?

[1:12:58] Anthony Rapp: Yes.

[1:12:58] Patrick Oliver Jones: Did the pandemic hit you as hard when it came to that?

[1:13:03] Anthony Rapp: I'm very fortunate in the sense that we'd wrapped our season four of Star Trek Discovery right before the shutdown. And so our hiatus was that first chunk of the—you know, from March till October of 2020. So that was gonna be my downtime anyway. So it hit in other ways, but it didn't hit professionally in the way that so many people. So I was very fortunate. You know, and then we—because our—all the film and television unions got together and made a return to work plan that was pretty effective and safe, we were able to return to work in October, and so we were working all through that time. So yeah, I—I'm very, very, very lucky. Um, I did do a couple of Zoom readings, which are very strange because, you know, theater, it's one thing—like we've been doing Zoom reading read-throughs of our scripts for Star Trek Discovery, which is also not great.

You know, it's really—we'd much rather be in the room with each other, but it's still—we're a little more used to it. But for theater, it's so strange, I think, to be like Zoom musical theater reading. It's really hard, sorry. But I've also recently done two workshop readings in person, although one had to be cut short because there were multiple positive tests right at the end of the process. We didn't even get to complete the process, so that was too bad. But yeah, I've been fortunate to have had the opportunity to continue working this very, very difficult time, so yeah.

[1:14:37] Patrick Oliver Jones: So as we wrap up here, what do you say to those who are not necessarily starting out but even like myself who are kind of in that in-between? We're not really well known, but we're certainly not beginning. We're not just the, you know, versions of this theater, so to speak. But what do you say to those who want to continue but are finding that struggle, finding that when's the next job coming? Why am I not getting this? What do you say?

[1:15:04] Anthony Rapp: Um, I mean, I would say that there—you can only control what you can control, and what you can control is trying to fill your life with as much stuff that does bring you fulfillment as possible because the vagaries of this business are almost never gonna line up the way you want to. So yeah, sometimes you'll hit the jackpot of a great amazing experience, and sometimes you miss out on those things, but what you can control is how you find things that fill your soul. So I would urge you and others to try to find those things in—for those periods of time and uncertainty, and that's probably easier said than done sometimes, but no one can take that away.

[1:15:04] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah, yeah, it's ultimately up to us.

[1:15:04] Anthony Rapp: Yeah, it's very true. Well, Anthony, this has been such a joy to talk to you, to get to know you better, and I really appreciate you opening up and sharing your experiences with us.

[1:16:03] Anthony Rapp: Thank you so much for asking me. I appreciate it.

[1:16:03] Patrick Oliver Jones: Well, that about does it for this episode. I'm your host, Patrick Oliver Jones, in charge of writing, editing, and producing this podcast. Background music is from John Bartman, and the theme song that was created by me. Be sure to join me next time as we talk more about why I'll never make it.