Part 3 of our interview with Broadway star and host of our 2013 Cabaret Benefit Aaron Lazar. Check out Parts 1 and 2!
If you were stuck on a desert island with one score and one book, what would they be and why?
That’s almost an impossible question. Right now Steve Martin’s Born Standing Up. And, the score to Carousel is what’s in my head.
Are there other shows that you’ve done before that you want to return to at some point?
I’d love to do Man of La Mancha again. I’d love to do Les Mes, and play Jean Valjean. There’s so many great parts that I’d love to play that I haven’t played yet too. I’d play Sweeney [in Sweeney Todd], that would be great.
Now I know they’re super young, but do you hope your kids grow up to be artists?
I certainly have a different take on it than when I was growing up – it was very common to just push your kids into academics and doctor/lawyer/banker thing. I think the world is an amazingly different place with individualism and entrepreneurship. I would certainly not mind if they were artists. The reality is that if you want to have a family, you have to make a lot of money to survive.
I dunno… whether destiny is predestined or not – I think it’s a little bit of both. There’s infinite possibility depending on the choices that you make. But some people — you read biographies of Paul Newman, and the cards just fell into place. And certainly I’m not saying that he didn’t work hard, but every door that opened seemed to be the right door. That is fascinating to me.
So you have to learn how to make it the right door?
I think one has to learn to not limit themselves as to the doors that they think they should be walking through. But I think that only comes from a connection to your gut. Not doing what you think you should do, or what others tell you, but being so sure of yourself that you trust yourself.
What was it like to realize that you weren’t going to be a doctor and you were going to be a performer instead?
Well, it was this [process]: an MCAT score is good for 3 years, go to grad school for 2, live in New York for 6 months, get a tour, and come back and the MCAT scores are no longer valid. So if I want to go to medical school, I have to take the test again, and I don’t ever want to do that. And so, “Well, I guess this is your path.” And it’s been an interesting one having come from such an academic place, acting is such a physical place. You know, it’s a brain place versus an action place. They’re just different worlds. And I’ve spent 10 years just trying to get more comfortable in the physical world.
I think one of the things that inspires me is just knowing that I got this far with a relatively limited idea of my own self. So, I’m looking forward to the next 10 years.
Thank you!
Thank you! Great questions. That was fun!
“I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper.” – Steve Martin
