It is said an artist spends their whole life trying to get to the place where their heart was first opened up. 'Rent' was that place for me.
— Leslie Odom, Jr.
When we go and cheer Cynthia Erivo on in 'The Color Purple,' it's because we've elected her to be our voice. She sings 'I'm Here' for all of us.
I know it's hard for people to imagine a time when 'Hamilton' wasn't 'Hamilton,' but for years, it was just this little thing that I was telling people about that didn't make any sense to anybody as I was describing it. But I loved it.
I think for a lot of us, you know, what 'Hamilton' gave us the opportunity to, what it gave me the opportunity to do, was to go, 'Here's what I've learned in 35 years.'
Oh, Alexander Hamilton fell short of his best self every now and again, and he still managed to do these wonderful things - well, so do I. So what am I capable of?
I've done a lot of translation in TV, and I can do it. I'm trained to do it. I know how to inject a certain amount of my naturalness into that and where I come from into those things, but it helps if somebody's writing with my experience in mind.
I've been involved with 'Hamilton' for about two and a half years. I've learned so much. I came into it a young man. Now I've dropped the 'young.'
We don't get to get swept up, because we have to start over every day at 8 o'clock.
I think it was, my parents got me a karaoke machine when I was about 9 years old. Even before that, they got me a tape recorder that I used to walk around my life with. And there was something about recording and then hearing myself back.
For most of your career, what you're trying to do is to step into other people's shoes.
I know what it's like to be ignored; when I got to L.A., I longed for somebody who looked like me to show me the ropes.
I think I spent most of my childhood, and my early years as a performer, in student mode. And I think that's OK - I mean, it led me to where I am.
Making $1,260 a week at 17 years old? That was a million dollars a week to me!
I think art, at its best, happens on a conscious and a subconscious level.
I studied at Carnegie Mellon. I went there with a bunch of really, really talented kids.
I had no vision of me being a part of that show ever. But I was committed to being the first super-fan of 'The Hamilton Mixtape' that there ever was. I was in love with this thing.
When I step on the stage and sing 'Wait for It,' I'm singing that for everybody. I don't mean I'm singing it for them; I mean, you are their voice.
We want to pull out songs from the American song book, and we want to make them palatable for a modern audience.
All I try to do is put as many colors as I can on the canvas every night.
I grew up in Philadelphia.
I want to know that I'm gonna knock 'em dead every night.
Nothing lasts forever in my profession.
None of us get to divorce ourselves from the world. We walk into the theater and bring all of our grief and our pain and our joy with us.
What goes up must come down; I'm not going to be in 'Hamilton' forever. Everything I work on won't have this kind of success.
I don't have any control over the offers that are going to come to me or not come to me. But I can't go backward, and so that's what's tricky.
None of us wants to be judged by our worst act on our worst day, and we consistently judge Burr for that. He was not a perfect man, but he's not a villain. He's a dude, just a guy.
I was a good student; I was a good boy. I got A's, and I did all the papers right.
At 14, 15 years old, I started reading 'Backstage' regularly. Eventually, I got enough courage to look at the auditions section.
I got my Equity Card with my Broadway debut when I did 'Rent.' I was in high school, and I came to New York to do that show.
The only reason to keep talking about history is if you are juxtaposing it with the world that we live in today, if you are learning something about our world by looking at the way they shaped their world.
If I'm allowed it, I'm really looking forward to a little time on the couch and a little time on a beach in Brazil.
I've spent a long time learning my way around a stage as an actor, but this I don't know as well. Humbly, I'm excited to get with a band and perform regularly as an artist and see what I can learn and how I can grow in that space.
You hear a song like 'Wait For It,' you hear a song like 'Dear Theodosia' - if you get one of those songs in a musical - one - it's worth dropping everything to sing that one song.
You can't judge the people that you play anyway; you leave that for somebody else to do.
When I see the black experience - there's not one, but it is specific, and you can't ignore it.
You go see a great production of 'Romeo and Juliet,' where those kids are full of life and love, you hope and forget.
I feel like every night, when you see a really good production of 'Romeo and Juliet' or something, you should hope that it ends differently. That's why we watch our favorite movies again and again.
Sometimes I think of creativity or art as this well that we all draw from.
Until you make a name for yourself, they're like, 'Be a little more Denzel,' 'Be a little more Wesley Snipes.'
That was the bat signal for me - 'Rent' changed my life. It took me years before I got beyond that show.
I have a great foundation, a great training foundation. But it took me a long time to let the training go.
It's about polarization. You're trying to stir up something in your audience.
If you're an open channel when you're onstage, if you're just a vessel, things are going to come out that are stored away deep in your DNA.
Josh Gad was in my class. Katy Mixon. Griffin Matthews. Josh Groban - he ended up leaving to become a huge star, but he was in our class in freshman year. I remember Josh was this nerdy kid in a turtleneck with a voice from heaven.
I'm addicted to growth.
