Jonathan Groff talks 'Mindhunter,' 'Hamilton' and 'Frozen'

[Music] what's more of a research thing research just a series of interviews chatting with individuals not unlike yourself we're just talking I don't get to go someplace do a bunch of tests no yeah no tests just right here why well because I believe it could be useful talking about what your behavior I guess if you want to that is I mean we don't have to talk about anything at all if you don't want to why are you so tense you're tense right now no I'm not tense hi everybody I'm Peter Travers welcome to popcorn where we tell you what is poppin in the culture and so I have an obsession now it's called mine hunter it's on Netflix you can watch it you can go episode by episode you can binge watch it you can do anything but you will always be seeing my guest today Jonathan Groff because he's never not in any moment in this was that in your contract I will be in a single moment exactly that's it anyway welcome jonathan groff thank you great to have you back here it's great it always is and with this triumph I love that you're looking at yeah oh my God look at you I mean you already did looking right this is a whole different thing so for those people that are out there that haven't yet watched one episode tell us in a perfect way who the hell this guy is that you're playing this FBI well the show is called mine hunter based on a book called mine hunter by a John Douglas that my character is inspired by and it's the story of the birth of criminal profiling in the late 70s well the debt sounds very dry and I want to give you the perfect I just you asked for the perfect summary exciting show it's going oh Willy and what else will I learn education can kill entertainment any time I know right yes that actually has been the interesting thing about it because David Fincher is the director creator genius behind the show and when he says he I know who's yeah exactly and when he sat me down initially and we were talking about it he said you know the whole show is gonna be people in rooms talking there's a violent moment in the first episode in the first scene but other than that there's no gore it's a very cerebral psychological deep dive into the world of criminal profiling and serial killers and crime in the late 70s and that has been in the reception of the show it's been the most exciting thing to me because people are binge watching it like it's scandal but it's this like psychological cerebral show it's it's it's very intellectual it's not a show that you want to watch while you're emailing or texting you got to really like focus in you know it's like a it's a drama it's like the psychological drama but the response has been so amazing because people are are just eating it up which has been really exciting this is 1970 what 7 or something like that 78 and yet everything about it in the discovery of why people do this is so relevant to now yeah why does the guy in Vegas just get and knock out a window and shoot all these people why and that's the I think your co-star it has that line in in the show where he says something about we have to learn to about crazy yeah yeah in order to get ahead of it yes exactly how do we get it how do we get ahead of crazy if we don't know how crazy things hold McAllen a who's amazing he plays bill 10th yeah yeah but no that line is very relevant today in a million ways and I think it's also why people are obsessed with serial killers because they're so they're humans but they're so different from us and it's I think endlessly interesting to try and figure out why they do what they do and this is like you said it's the late 70s so John Douglas in real life in the late 70s had this idea to go into jail cells and interview these incarcerated criminals like the FBI up until the early 70s was Hoover so it was very black and white go get the bad guy good at good versus evil don't ask why I did it exactly exactly and then John Douglas had this idea that maybe by talking to them we could learn something about them and perhaps prevent crime from happening and understand the way they think and as they started talking to these people you could see these similarities in in some ways you could add up what had happened in their life to what they the horrible things that they ended up doing and so now the behavioral science unit is a huge part of the FBI and they gleaned a lot of information from these people the scenes you do with Cameron Britton who plays Edie Kemper this real serial killer yeah you couldn't eat that popcorn exactly the things he did do his poor mom I know you know I know and it's as if because you're all so good in it that we're there we are describing it the description of it is so sensational and so horrifying and so fascinating and debilitating and unfathomable yeah that it can just be conversation because what has happened there were the realism of what happened is so insane and that also was one of David's sort of mission statements was there's been all these things done about serial killers and they're they're seen as these sort of comic book villains and he wanted to show them as as real as possible is like the real sad humans that they are talk about Fincher for a minute because whenever I talked to him I always say why do you torture actors like you do you know Jesse Eisenberg said he did the first scene in social network a hundred times and he used take number two you know right so did he do that to you oh gosh I'm the wrong person to ask about torture because you love it nobody I'm a little masochistic no but coming from I know the true you know that yeah yeah do it a lot exactly no yes seriously though I love doing it over and over and over and over and in theater to me the play doesn't gel until at least three months in you know when you've done it three months so I saw Spring Awakening too soon and you probably Wow although we were young so we were like amped but it doesn't you know and in with Fincher like doing the scenes revelations happen when you I mean it's all so he's not mysterious he's very pragmatic he's not torturing us intentionally he's not sitting with a cat like dr. evil like go and do it again do it again do it I wanted right I mean energetically sometimes he's like no but no it's it's all logical and everybody knows why they're doing it again it's not like you're in this weird torture chamber where you're doing multiple takes and sometimes we don't do multiple takes but when we do do them we know why we're doing them and for me personally as an actor and on mine hunter he's actually assembled a lot of people that got their start in the theater so we're all so down for it there was no eye rolling or we were all exhausted but but it gives a real sense of pride when you're working with someone that is a genius and wants to get it right I'm looking at this very earnest FBI guy but I know inside as I know you he's twisted in some way that can never be cured it's just innately it's out of you know the ties always perfect yeah everything is that he sets forth you know that way and yet and your own susceptibility to things yeah yeah but this is a show where you know you're seeing the worst of human behavior it made me think of you singing reindeers are better than people and because these people are really you know not terrific and then I began to think of your whole career as this association with twisted even when you were the king in Hamilton rule in your King George what is that interesting and I'll kill your friends and family to remind you your friends and family yeah Wow yeah so this is a culmination for you is it this yeah kind of really I should be playing a psychopath I mean honestly I'm just the next step it's the next step because and yet you just the simple boy with a dream who came who came out of Amish country true right true you know I don't know white parents dad is Mennonite yes yeah yeah I'm impressed that you know that yeah well sometimes I listen to you and it sinks in and des yeah and we'll talk now you you've come to give them a serial killer show yeah you know where what's so innocent people I know right it's taking all your clothes off in hair I know I know Michael Mayer actually who's the director Spring Awakening emailed me actually his husband emailed me and was like we're watching mine hunter a tripe which you haven't gotten to this episode yet but I do say that at one point in the show they were like really and I said you know what when you gave me totally and the delivery and you I'll beat the hell out of you that I said to Lee in the show you ruined me forever so really like what do you expect I used to actually it's funny when I moved to New York from Pennsylvania I didn't swear I'd never used swear words ever in my life and when I started on Spring Awakening we were singing well you know all that stuff and I would turn red I would swear I when I used to swear I would like completely blush because the saying those words in where I was from was such a like I just never did it and so Spring Awakening changed all that for me Virtue's that that show has you know yeah it's done that to you yeah but now I can say without blush what was it that show I mean I don't forget the year that you decided you would coming out and you hear it I'm gay how did that go over in Amish country oh god I just there's probably so many like gay Amish that I feel bad for but no actually during Spring Awakening so during Spring Awakening I was in the closet I had a roommate who was my boyfriend and we were together for three and a half years but we were only in the you know four walls of our apartment mm-hmm and I really believe this the character that I played in Spring Awakening was a rebel he was didn't let the world define him stood up to his teacher stood up to his parents a brilliant thinker really bold set up for his friends was very vocal which was the opposite of who I was at the time I was a people pleaser I was a good soldier I never wanted to you know push the boundaries of anything and I was just you know a good little you know half Mennonite mm-hmm and I but I was playing this role eight times a week for two years and when I left the show it was as though this sounds so like hippy I'm so not melody in this way but but I had like cultivated this side of myself through doing this character then when I left the show it was like I had this energy that I didn't have when I started the show and a month after leaving Spring Awakening I came out to my family I came out to my friends I broke up with that boyfriend I moved into my own apartment and my whole life changed and I really credit a lot of it to doing Spring Awakening and then I went right into doing hair in Central Park so it was like this this like perfect kind of juxtaposition and got to like you know have my then I got high for the first time when I was doing here with the girl that played Shelia and the guy who played Berger so really then my life kicked into high gear I remember the last time we spoke you said something though about your mom the ring awakening yeah bringing a busload of people yeah Amish country while you were on stage having sex yeah yeah what were they thinking was that a good bus ride back well yes they caught that Michael Mayer called it the Mennonite bus cuz it was like all the people from Lancaster coming up to see the shows when we were off-broadway at the Atlantic Theatre actually so it was only 300 seats so they were closer to it all so much better and that more they said it was the loudest clapping post-sex scene that we ever had so I think it was like a good release of sexual repression which is really just my goal in life is to give people that release the whole story and then with the Mennonite bus yeah I know it's it's just it needs to be done and told right even by David French exactly well that's it I discuss it with my parents and my brother had my family over to watch mind hunter right and then there I am in the first episode of mine hunter having sex with my girlfriend and my mom you know called me after and she was like listen I really love this show and just put like why really it's like everything it's like every they're just waiting for frozen - you know what I mean so many of us are yeah but you gave them frozen rights right it you did and you gave them you get to be reindeer and this very manly yeah Christophe you know he's he's quite the listen well he was yeah is he still is yes never settle never end it'll live away past me they could afford you for the new musical version yes they said now and he changed his image to any serial killer dude exactly frozen is the most successful Disney animated movie ever I think we're in that then you show up in Hamilton you know as King George which is for the 21st century what's bigger it'll be running until the 22nd century yeah I hope so so is your head now exploding with your own like gigantic uncontrollable ego I mean I'm great you know look at what I've done oh my god it is it's it's so luck though you know what I mean yeah but now it's just I wish that I think I credit for a success of frozen and Hamilton but I just feel lucky to be in him see that's what they are I was lin-manuel Miranda yeah I probably would just be so yeah like have the hugest head ever did you know I was King George for nine minutes so what you're really saying though is that anybody out there that's watching this that needs tickets to Hamilton should just contact you directly at hashtag hashtag jonathan groff and it's okay you can find me on social media you have any suck left there to actually now see no no does yes they say that they just never emailed back now yeah i did when i was doing the show for the year in my contract I had two House seats to every show I used those two House seats for every show I was like Santa Claus for years because I could yeah I was like you as an Oprah I was like who wants a pair of tickets Hamilton yeah which was amazing but now it's over now those days are over those days are over your your lady friends have just completely diminished now no no that you could it was interesting though that's funny you say that the people coming out of the woodwork I was like oh thing yes the ex-boyfriends know like people from elementary school or even dated yeah exactly exactly I see it I'm not feeling for you yeah thank you yes so hurry it was really hard and really hard well you know you can't go yet because we end in song always right last time you were here you did that fabulous romantic ballad for me about I told maker song yeah yes but what now ahead are you filled with my publicist was like you I forgot you have to sing and I was like oh right what am I gonna say yeah I'm gonna call her on the way crazy with fear no no no no but I wanted to pick the right song but I can't I hope I remember the words this is gonna be mine hunter themed Wow okay okay so it'll be very romantic and I want you to and I'm gonna see I'm gonna test your music knowledge see if you can tell me who sings this if you could read my mind love what a tale my thoughts would tell just like a paperback novel the kind in the drugstore sell in and them and and that er that the chains upon my feet and you and Jim Croce know who is it wait if you could read my model of what a tail Gordon Lightfoot yep okay which I left the Gordon Lightfoot version but I also love the Barbra Streisand version well honest Tony end album but like that's totally you then right it's it's Barbara it's Barbara it's all smart bro and it's all you letting the Sun come in I got red thank you you got life you got it all you got [Music]

Channel: Popcorn with Peter Travers

Views: 22,618

Rating: 4.988183 out of 5

Keywords: Jonathan Groff, Mindhunter, Netflix, Hamilton, Frozen, Glee, Popcorn ABC

Id: OyeKMqkbEDM

Length: 19min 23sec (1163 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 22 2017