Actor

When a piece of art gets really specific is usually when anybody can relate to it.

For me, there's nothing more valuable as an actor, or better way to learn, than getting to perform in front of a live audience, no matter where you are. Whether it's on Broadway, in Florida, or doing a tour.

Just follow your joy. Always. I think that if you do that, life will take you on the course that it's meant to take you.

Whenever you get into a new environment, it's scary. You don't know the people; you're not really comfortable with the machine that the show is.

I beat 'Super Mario Bros 1,' '2,' and '3.'

Ultimately, we're actors: I'm putting on a costume, so we're playing pretend.

I was obsessed with Nintendo.

I just don't know artistically - because I don't write my own music - I don't know artistically what an album would mean for me. I don't know what I would want to say with an album that would be unique to me - something that hasn't been done before. I'm just not sure what that is. But I'm absolutely open to it.

I loved traditional musical comedy. That was my passion. Then 'Spring Awakening' happened, and it took that rock n' roll and pop music to change gears for me.

Alfred Molina is one of the nicest people on the planet and a complete master.

I believe in 'Backstage.' It changed my life.

I ended up doing three very complicated off-Broadway plays that, in certain ways, were not successes in that they were received in a complicated way. But for me they were successes because they forced me to act without singing, which I'd never done before.

Obviously, gay projects play a special role for me because I am gay, so I'm doubly proud of them.

'Looking' is more than just a television show. It's contributing to the cultural conversation, and for me, those are the most exciting projects to be a part of.

I feel like certainly there are people expecting 'Looking' to be representative of everyone that's gay, the entire gay community. And it's a dangerous expectation to come in watching the show expecting that. Expecting that out of any show.

I taught a class about the Tony Awards at a summer theater camp the year after I graduated from high school. So, the first time I was nominated for 'Spring Awakening,' it felt like a surreal dream: it was every childhood dream I had come true. It felt like a fairy tale.

Once I came out of the closet, it was sort of that thing of 'The truth will set you free.'

The word 'improv' always makes me feel a little anxious because I always feel like we'll have to pull props out of a bag and find 800 different ways to talk about a stick, the way you do in theater school.

If I've had roadblocks along the way for being gay, I'm not aware of them.

I feel like, with a television show, you're always biting your nails hoping you're going to get that next season.