Preview of JB UK’s Jon Lee’s Interview with OK! Magazine
October 19th, 2011
Check out a preview of JERSEY BOYS London’s Frankie Valli alternate, Jon Lee’s interview with OK! Magazine:
OK: Jon, how did the part of Frankie Valli in Jersey Boys come your way?
Jon Lee: I saw the show about two-and-a-half years ago and was obsessed with it. I thought, I have to be in this show! But it’s such a great role that the boys never want to leave, so you have to wait until the space becomes available. Last year I was doing another show, which the producer of Jersey Boys came to see, and he said there was a space coming up and that he really wanted me to audition. So I did, and I got it.
OK: When you were growing up, weren’t you too young to know who the Four Seasons were?
JL: To be honest, I thought they were black! Just because of their style of music – it’s got that soul sound, and Frankie has that falsetto voice. I was brought up on Motown, and one of their original songs, Working My Way Back To You, was made famous by black group the Spinners in the late ’70s. When I saw the show, I knew Sherry, Big Girls Don’t Cry and Walk Like A Man, but I hadn’t realised how many songs of theirs I knew.
OK: Did you do much research about the group once you’d landed the part?
JL: The producers did all the research. They flew me to New York for a week, and I went to Jersey, and stood outside Frankie Valli’s house where he was born and raised. I went to the bar where they first sang, the Belleville Tavern. It was incredible to see the very humble beginnings of these guys.
Click HERE to read the full interview.
