Jersey Boys Blog

Back Stage’s Mark Blankenship talked shop with Tony Award-winners Christian Hoff, Beth Leavel, and Bob Martin. Here’s what Christian had to say:

BACK STAGE: You’ve achieved professional success, but we’d like to know how you got your careers started.

CHRISTIAN HOFF: I started working when I was 8 years old. It was The Music Man, [playing] Winthrop Paroo, in San Diego. I dove right in, and when I stepped on stage I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I was surrounded by people who were professionals, and they showed me it was going to be a life of work and process. That’s what the business is. It’s constantly reassessing yourself and defining yourself.

BACK STAGE: Can you describe a light-bulb moment where you realized that acting was, in fact, your job?

HOFF: I noticed the light bulb when it was turned off. When the lights go out, you say, “I need to go back and put myself out there again. I need to take a new approach.” There comes a time when you have to put yourself back into the theatre in order to maintain your sanity.

BACK STAGE: Speaking of taking a new approach, have any of you had times when you altered the way you work?

HOFF: As actors or writers, we constantly need to re-evaluate what we do. But it’s always about your own essence. You still need to be true to who you are and what it is you love.

BACK STAGE: How would you define that?

HOFF: But sometimes there’s a contrast between how you see yourself and how others perceive you. It takes a lot of experience to bring those two together…. You have to be able to say, “What is true about me, whether I’m doing a comedic role or a dramatic role? What is consistent no matter what I’m wearing, no matter what mood I’m in?” We have to constantly be in tune with that so we can be trusted with other people’s material and sell our material to other people.

BACK STAGE: How do you know when you’ve found the genuine part of yourself?

HOFF: It can be difficult to define, but that’s our job as artists. [And] that’s what collaboration helps you do. You need to get a lot of people together to help you get out there. It’s such a lonely existence for a lot of young actors who think that it’s all about them, being seen, being on American Idol, being discovered.

BACK STAGE: It seems like those fulfilling roles could make acting feel like less of a job.

HOFF: It’s a lot of work. And whether you’re looking for work or you’re actually working, it’s still the same commitment, especially in a long-running show.

BACK STAGE: Which parts of your career have most helped you learn how to craft a performance?

HOFF: When I played Will Rogers [in The Will Rogers Follies] and had the experience of running a show by myself…that was great training in pulling the cart. In those singular performances where you take the stage and say, “Mine,” only then can you really know, “Am I okay?” Because the audience will tell you that., there’s a genuine give and take.

BACK STAGE: Plus, you had Bob on stage to see which lines didn’t work…

HOFF: When we were creating Jersey Boys, we had the same privilege of having the writers there with us. Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice were with us on their own dime from day one. In our first production in La Jolla, there were times I had 25 or 30 new pages for that night’s performance, and I would just take it on. They kept molding, and I was able to create this character from the inside out in ways I couldn’t have done had the writers not been there.

There’s that combination once again of intuition and craft and business and trust. I don’t think you’ll find it in any other industry.

BACK STAGE: So what do you rely on when you feel the show isn’t working?

HOFF: Sometimes you have to draw on your raw talent. Sometimes it’s a connection with the audience where you let them know that you’re still in control, even if the ship is sinking.

BACK STAGE: Would any of you turn down a role?

HOFF: But you need to be careful of casting yourself out of things, too. That can be a hazard of taking too much control of what you will and won’t do. You need to be true to yourself and bring what it is that you bring, even if it’s not at all what they want. You need to demonstrate that you understand who you are. If you can win people’s trust in that way, then no matter what the outcome [of an audition], you will have won.

BACK STAGE: How would each of you define what you bring to the table as an actor?

HOFF: I’ve learned that I [come across] as strong-willed but teachable. I’m full of beans, but people know I don’t take myself seriously, so that puts people at ease.