Jonathan Groff just got out of bed.
“That’s my breakfast,” he says, grinning sheepishly as his door bell rings.
Forgive him if he overslept a little. The last six months or so have been some of the most physically taxing for the 40-year-old actor, who is currently playing the legendary crooner Bobby Darin in the jukebox musical Just in Time, a role he’s called the toughest in a career replete with physically—and vocally—demanding Broadway turns.
He returns to our video call with a paper bag. “It’s sausage, egg, and cheese on a croissant and two black coffees,” he tells me, unpacking his delivery, as if he’s about to do a mukbang, with a Cowboy Carter cap over a presumably messy bedhead. “And an Arnold Palmer.”
We’re a few minutes into our interview before there’s another interruption. “Now I’m getting all the snot out of my nose,” he says, laughing while discreetly blowing his nose offscreen. “I have to get it out or else it appears onstage.”
Groff may be known to some as the star of the David Fincher series Mindhunter, the groundbreaking HBO series Looking, as well as films like Knock at the Cabin and A Nice Indian Boy. But the actor has always been a true star of the stage, a virtuosic Broadway performer who dependably brings the house down night after night and who has starred in such era-defining productions as Spring Awakening, Hamilton, and Merrily We Roll Along. Famously, Beyoncé—someone who knows a true diva when she sees one—was so impressed by his performance in Hamilton, she jokingly vowed to steal his kingly strut.
Just in Time joins those roles in Groff’s personal pantheon. For two-and-a-half hours, he’s a bolt of lightning onstage, delivering showstopping vocal performances, song after song, while nailing the kind of frenetic choreography that might win him a spot on the Cowboy Carter tour. For his efforts, he was nominated for the best actor in a musical Tony Award—just a year after he walked away with the trophy for his already GOAT’d turn in Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along.
And while he didn’t walk away with the trophy this year, he pretty much stole the Tony Awards anyway, with an energetic medley from Just in Time that climaxed with him briefly straddling an unsuspecting Keanu Reeves, the Matrix star smiling and flashing two horn hand signs between Groff’s legs.
“His reaction was so priceless, the best reaction ever,” Groff says. “An hour later, I was getting ready for the Hamilton performance backstage, and the stage manager was like, ‘Is Jonathan Groff in here? Keanu Reeves is looking for Jonathan Groff.’ And he came backstage to give me a hug and say, Thank you for doing that, and how much fun it was to be a part of the number. We had such a great moment after!”
