Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm 6'2 and not a small person.
I can't wake up at all without caffeine.
I love doing both theater and television.
I still can't shake the Nebraska off of me.
It was always my goal to be a working actor.
My mother was predominately a stay-at-home Mom.
I used to do community theater with Conor Oberst.
I've been pretty career-focused since moving to New York.
I haven't really made up my mind concretely about having kids.
This is a musical, ma'am. If there's no gay, there's a problem.
I think as a young person, you're kind of game for whatever sometimes.
In 2011, I earned a Tony nomination for my role in 'The Book of Mormon.'
Always my fallback is - I'm gonna move to a poor town and open a scone shop.
Luckily for me I have a very supportive family and a loving group of friends.
I am mildly addicted to Mucinex-D. I feel like I should just come clean about that.
I would like to tell stories through the lens of the gay person, but not just for gay people.
I remember seeing 'Falsettos' on the Tonys in '92 and being like, 'What the hell was that show?'
It never occurred to me that one could just buy tickets to the Tonys. I figured you had to be invited.
If you get into multicultural sort of casting for no other reason than to diversify, then it seems false.
My only goal is to make the crew laugh, basically. It's the only litmus I have to know, is this good or not?
I didn't have an agent until I got 'Hairspray.' I had to get a Broadway show without an agent to get an agent.
I've certainly played those leading man or male juvenile roles, where you're not supposed to make people laugh.
The majority of celebrities that come to the show actually don't come backstage. Because they don't know that they can.
At a very early age I knew I wanted to be an actor and then more specifically that I wanted to be on Broadway and be in musicals.
Even though I'm from the Midwest, the majority of my life has been spent on the coasts where being gay wasn't really much of a conversation.
As an actor, particularly in theatre, you're trying to get jobs on TV; but you're also losing jobs in theatre to people who are on television.
I love doing both theater and television. I definitely foresee more Broadway, but I think I would like to keep the singing and the TV separate.
There was something really special about working with Lena Dunham. I immediately felt very comfortable with her, and we spoke the same language.
I figure, oftentimes the best way in is through humor, and you can deal with serious situations a lot easier, or at least bring up the conversation.
I live in the East Village, and occasionally people will recognize me there. When I'm in Williamsburg, I always get recognized. Midtown, not so much.
I arrived at New York, and I went from being Andy Rannells from Nebraska to being Andrew Rannells in New York who was gay. And those were just the facts.
When I was a kid, there were hardly any gay story lines or characters on television that I recall. Then when I was in college, 'Will & Grace' started up.
In L.A., people will recognize me for doing 'Girls,' but have no idea that I have ever done anything on Broadway or can sing or dance or any of that stuff.
Surround yourself with people who are going to support you regardless of what your sexual orientation is, and you can have a beautiful life filled with love.
When I came out when I was 18, and I graduated from high school, and I felt like that was the time to officially say it, I surprised zero people in my family.
I would always pick pop songs and would sing them even if they were not correct for the audition - which didn't always get me a lot of jobs, but sometimes they did.
There are certainly actors who I felt rivalries with, but then, as time goes on, you realize that you have to keep your eyes on your own paper because everybody's doing their own work.
I'm always thrilled when I get feedback from young people, particularly from 'The New Normal,' young gay people - when they say they want that when they grow up, that means a lot to me.
Always my fallback is - I'm gonna move to a poor town and open a scone shop... Sometimes after some bad auditions I think, you know what - time to open that scone shop! Let's start baking.
Everyone is different, and every relationship is different, and I think the rules can change, and feelings can change. It's not only about who you're with, but also where you are in your own life and your own process.
I was interested in being part of interesting stories. As an actor, you generally don't get to choose what projects you are part of, so I've been very fortunate that The Book of Mormon was something I got to be part of.
I've always been a huge fan of Tina Fey's. She's a very unique storyteller and has such a great voice and sense of character and comedy, and manages to do things that are oftentimes very broad but still have a lot of heart to them.
I was a little boy who watched 'Solid Gold' every week and wanted to be a 'Solid Gold' dancer. And I would do very in-depth reenactments of 'Grease 2' and 'West Side Story' with my sister Natalie in our garage. I was a very theatrical kid.
One of the great things about 'Girls' is that each of these characters really does represent a human being. There are definitely relatable aspects to all of these folks, and certainly within my close friend group, those personalities very much exist.
Girls was the first television show I got to be a part of, and that was here in New York. Getting to work with Lena Dunham, and to work with HBO and Judd Apatow, and then being a big fan of Ryan Murphy, I couldn't have asked for a better opportunity than this.
My group of friends, we sort of go at each other pretty hard sometimes. And it's half performance, half truth that you can say cutting things to your friends that might be a little true, but as long as you package it in a joke, it becomes a little more palatable.
I don't want to be lofty, but it was groundbreaking, in many ways, for musical theater, so that was really thrilling to be part of The Book of Mormon . And Girls felt very much the same way - there was an excitement about it as we were doing it; I knew it was something special.
Coming to New York to go to school and being very far away from my own family, I definitely found myself piecing together my sort of chosen family here, and I have friends that I'm still very close with, that we all met at the same time and have become a huge part of each other's lives.
I had to be clean-shaven all the time to play a Mormon missionary, so after I was done, I grew a mustache out of rebellion. It was actually very polarizing. I became attractive to a completely new group of people and also repulsive to a new group of people. The lesson: mustaches are divisive.
My career, definitely, the early years were a little scattershot, in terms of - it was a little regional theater, it was a lot of voiceovers, it was a lot of random day jobs. I mean, it was hard. It was hard to scrap around, and once 'Hairspray' happened, then it all kind of clicked into place.