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Jonathan Groff is swooning over Nicole Scherzinger.
“You’re hot. You’re so hot,” he tells the pop star-turned-Broadway darling as she descends a spiral staircase, decked out in a form-fitting three-piece suit.
Clearly, Scherzinger knows how to make a dramatic entrance. This season, she’s dazzling audiences with her Broadway debut as one of musical theater’s most iconic divas, Norma Desmond, in “Sunset Blvd.” She won an Olivier Award for the show’s West End run. A decade earlier, the former Pussycat Dolls frontwoman flexed her acting chops in another Andrew Lloyd Webber classic, “Cats,” in London.
Groff, a Broadway favorite who earned his first Tony last year for “Merrily We Roll Along,” is crooning his way through Bobby Darin’s catalog in “Just in Time,” a new musical about the 1950s singer’s life and career.
In person, Groff exudes boy-next-door charm, riding his bike to the Rainbow Room for his sit-down with Scherzinger. Their offstage personas couldn’t be more different, but they form an instant connection, giggling over their shared tendency to use NSFW language to describe their passion for being onstage, as well as their love for musical theater.
JONATHAN GROFF: I had the privilege of seeing you in the fall in early previews. I came backstage with Sue Fisher, my eighth-grade drama teacher, who brought these chocolate chip cookies. You were covered in blood, and you zeroed in and gave her so much attention. I wanted to say thank you for being so kind to my drama teacher.
NICOLE SCHERZINGER: She was precious. And those cookies were good. I was a bit hard on myself on that show.
GROFF: I remember you saying, “Ugh, I was not in the pocket on this one.” I was like, “Wow, if that’s you not in the pocket, I can’t even imagine what you in the pocket is.”
SCHERZINGER: “In the pocket” meaning it’s nice when you just get lost in it. When you can just not overthink and be free.
GROFF: The gays are … the seats are wet, basically. You’re singing, and they have to get a bucket and mop the floors. It’s a spiritual experience. What does it feel like when you’re holding out those notes and you’ve got the audience in the palm of your hand?
SCHERZINGER: I try not to think about what it’s going to sound like. It’s more of where it comes from. I try to conjure up all the energy from the universe, from the world, and to give everything from my heart to my soul to my vagina.
GROFF: You’ve been on Broadway even longer than the West End. How has Norma evolved?
SCHERZINGER: In the beginning, I had so much I wanted to prove. I’m able to be a bit more free now. It’s important for me to make discoveries every night to keep it fresh.
GROFF: When you were starting, you had to show everyone that you could do it.
SCHERZINGER: Yeah. I’ve never called out on a West End show, and I hadn’t called out on a Broadway show until this last week. I am normally bulletproof. I’ve been offstage, puked, come right back onstage. At 8:30 that night, I was like, “I think I can do it.” It really killed me to finally call out.
GROFF: Sometimes when I’m performing sick, it brings me to the truth.
SCHERZINGER: You’re so right. This week, I was on fight-or-flight survival with my voice, and my acting was, like, bam!
GROFF: The role I’m playing right now, Bobby Darin, this incredible performer, singer, artist, producer — part of his life story is when he was 11, he overheard the doctor say he was going to be dead by 16. I wonder if part of what made him so present as a performer is because he was always unwell; there was always a part of him that was trying to manage his health.
SCHERZINGER: What is it like having to walk through the audience during “Just in Time”?
GROFF: Bobby Darin was a supernova talent. By all accounts, his ultimate superpower was having the audience in the palm of his hand when he was performing on the floor of a nightclub. We’ve turned the Circle in the Square Theatre into this immersive nightclub experience with tables in the center of the room.
SCHERZINGER: Has it affected your performance and connection with the audience, being so immersed?
GROFF: Yes. Bobby Darin was this playboy crooner. I’m this guy from Amish country Pennsylvania. Who would think we had that much in common? But we both have this deep, passionate connection with the audience. We say it’s the only relationship he was any good at. This immersive experience of being in the audience, looking in people’s eyes … I’m showering them with sweat and spit. It’s like I’m a sprinkler going around.
SCHERZINGER: They’re like, “Yes, on me.” They’re never washing it off; you’re like a real-life rock star up there.
GROFF: You have a real relationship to Andrew Lloyd Webber and his music. What’s it been like to know the composer?
SCHERZINGER: I feel like he wrote the music to my soul. When I think of Andrew, my heart just warms. He’s trusted me with his music from day one. When someone has that belief in you, you’ll go to the ends of the earth for them.
Do you have a favorite lyric that resonates with you?
GROFF: You were talking about singing from the vagina earlier, and when it hits you in your taint. You know, “I have to do this, I have to sing this, I have to go after this …” Eight years ago, I was introduced to Bobby Darin’s music, and after I was like, “I am like a drug addict right now.”
SCHERZINGER: Your brain was probably firing, firing, firing, firing ideas.
GROFF: I sat for four hours at dinner with Dodd, Bobby’s son, and I was like, “I’m feeling this thing.” You can’t manufacture the feeling when you know in your gut there’s something you’re called to do. After the first preview, I burst into tears. Bobby loved the audience. This is a gift for them. We’re doing right by him. OK, this next question for you is balls deep.
SCHERZINGER: Bring it on, because I’ve got bowling balls for balls. That’s what my papa says. He’s like, “You got bowling balls for balls.”
GROFF: How long does it take to get Norma’s blood off after the show ends?
SCHERZINGER: It actually doesn’t take that long. I’m usually in the blood for an hour to do meet-and-greets. It takes too long to go shower and then come back down. Samuel L. Jackson was with us the other day, and I think he found it quite natural. He didn’t even flinch. He’s like, “Let’s take a selfie.”
GROFF: I love it. It also doesn’t feel like shtick. It feels so attached to your personality. OK, Patti LuPone —
SCHERZINGER: Patti LuPone.
GROFF: Patti fucking LuPone.
SCHERZINGER: PFL. The big motherfucking dog.
GROFF: Patti LuPone has an intense history with not only Andrew Lloyd Webber but this show. When Patti LuPone came to see you in “Sunset Blvd.,” did you know she was there?
SCHERZINGER: Thank God I didn’t know she was there. The next day, I heard her interview on Frank DiLella’s podcast, and I was like, “Patti saw the show? What show?” I couldn’t believe we had her seal of approval. She was so kind and generous. She said I broke her heart.
GROFF: Patti LuPone is not mincing words. She’s generous. She is theater. She is old school. She’s the definition of giving it. We could only hope to aspire to that level of what she has fucking brought her entire career, but she does not blow smoke. She doesn’t say things to be kind.
SCHERZINGER: No. So you know that shit is real. And that meant everything. I have a picture of her and Glenn Close, obviously, in my dressing room to inspire me. I’m not trying to recreate what someone else has done. All I could do is tell my own story, and I think that Patti appreciated that. I sent her flowers and wrote a card, and then she sent me a handwritten note and invited me to her house for New Year’s Eve. Babe, I was there with bells on. She was the first person I saw when I walked off her elevator, and she was like [whispering], “The queen has arrived.”
GROFF: I love that you’re whispering, but what did she say?
SCHERZINGER: She was like, “The queen has arrived!” I was like, “Bitch, the queen has been here all along. It’s your home.”
English (US) ·