Jonathan Groff Quotations

I was born and raised in Lancaster, Pennsylvania - in Amish Country!

Don't let the world define you. In the world of acting, and I think in any profession, really, people are really eager to put you in a box and categorize you as one particular thing.

If I were to be back on Glee, I would like to spend some time with Lea Michele because I love her and we go way back.

We didn't have a glee club at my school. It depends on what area of the States you're from. It's more in the Midwest.

Musical auditions are always the worst because you have to sing and act, and that's so stressful.

I went to a local high school in Lancaster. Not much I can say about it; it was pretty much your typical public high school back in Pennsylvania.

I love acting in the theater,but I'm fascinated with acting on film. If it's a film or a play or whatever, if the writing is good and you really feel passionate about it, you just can't lose. You'll grow from it. Whether it's a success or not is neither here nor there; you're going to grow as an artist from this experience.

When you get to really involve yourself with a piece [script] and the other people and you get to feel like it's a community and you're all building something together, it helps me to produce better work, I think. And there's an exhaustion that happens on a film set - an exhaustion that translates into a relaxation and helps me to live in the moment, in the performance I'm giving and what's happening around me.

I sort of have the belief that you work being your character out while you're working on it, or that's been my experience so far. I throw myself into it 100% and try to live in that world, and then when it's over, just sort of be able to leave it behind.

In a play, you can adjust your performance to audience reaction, but in a film it's like you're trapped in a bad dream watching yourself act and you're in the audience

In theater, you're in charge of your performance, and at the end of the day you're the one who gets credit because you're in front of the audience doing it, and in film and TV it's the director who gets to decide when to cut to you on a line, which take he uses.

I definitely prefer the single camera better. For me it's the simple fact that I enjoy working in front of an audience, but when you're trying to create a suspension of disbelief it's much harder to do in front of audience because they become a partner. Moreso than that, they become in charge of the timing. From the simple, mechanical fact that you have to hold for their laughter. The actual timing of the scene is in the hands of the audience. As a control freak, I don't enjoy that as much as the ability to be able to control it in an edit room.

My mother's side of the family is Methodist, which is how I was raised. It was conservative in that I had strong values - sitting down and eating with the family every day, listening to authority and going to church every week and having perfect attendance at Sunday school.

But at the same time, my parents always encouraged my brother and me to be happy with what we were doing. My parents were athletes in high school; my mom and my dad were the stars of the basketball team, but they never pushed my brother and me to be anything we didn't want to be.

I'm kind of whatever about nudity. Hopefully I wouldn't be a part of anything, whether I'm naked or not, that I didn't believe in. But I'm pretty comfortable being naked.

My grandfather used to say 'Eat the biggest crabs first, that way you're always eating the biggest crabs.' In making a TV show, that means if you have a big funny or smart idea for an episode or a scene or a joke, go for it. Don't save it for another season or another episode, because you may not have the right time again. It's good advice for television, but truly stellar advice for eating crabs.

At the end of the day, the end of the movie is sort of ambiguous - it's whatever you want it to be.

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.

Make sure that you always follow your heart and your gut, and let yourself be who you want to be, and who you know you are. And don't let anyone steal your joy.