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How do you feel if people perceive it as comedy?<\/strong><\/p>\nComedy is part of it! When you make someone laugh \u2014 you\u2019re on a date and you make them laugh genuinely, you know you\u2019re getting somewhere, right? Laughter is part of accepting the way human beings are. That\u2019s always been a part of my work as an actor, too. If I play someone that does bad things, I also want you to feel for him, a little bit. If I play someone who does good things, I also want you to be a little suspicious: \u201cIs he entirely good?\u201d Because I think that\u2019s the way life is.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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You grew up in Chicago doing a lot of musical theater.<\/strong><\/p>\nIt was all musicals \u2014 one after the other, sometimes two or three at a time. When I was in high school, I\u2019d be doing musicals at this girls\u2019 school, this [other] girls\u2019 school, and<\/em> my boys\u2019 Catholic high school. Like I was jobbing myself out. I thought of school as kind of like my day job \u2014 like, \u201cYeah, I gotta go there, but what I really do is musicals<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\nI got an amazing education in a lot of things by participating in those schools where nuns and women ran the whole programs. The school Mother McAuley, across the football field from my high school, was like a liberal arts college. They had a thousand-seat theater, they had an orchestra program, a choral program. They had all these strong women that taught me how to be a feminist. They taught me to find my voice.<\/p>\n
Did you also study clowning?<\/strong><\/p>\nI did amateur clowning. At my church when I was a kid, I did this thing called clown ministry, where they taught us how to put makeup on, and we\u2019d go to nursing homes or street fairs, like community outreach. I was actually considering going into clowning after acting school, because I heard that Ringling Bros. had this clown college in Florida. Then someone talked me out of it. They\u2019re like, John, you\u2019ll be shoveling elephant [expletive] for five years. You won\u2019t be clowning; trust me. I was like, all right. Then I started working with Steppenwolf [Theater], and I was off to the races.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Are there artists who inspired you for Mister Romantic?<\/strong><\/p>\nThe singer Jonathan Richman. In concert, he\u2019s fully improvisational, wearing his heart on his sleeve and bringing the room into the moment. He\u2019s just magical that way. Tom Waits is another. His combination of showmanship and obviously his musical prowess, his understanding of character. The way Tom Waits creates a theatrical event when he plays music, it\u2019s really inspiring.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Do you get a lot of people on dates at the shows?<\/strong><\/p>\nYes! And that\u2019s a very unfortunate thing for Mister Romantic, because he\u2019s looking for single people. We did two shows on Valentine\u2019s Day this year in L.A., and they sold out in under five minutes.<\/p>\n
I keep telling people it\u2019s an empathy mission and there\u2019s a nobility to it, because I can tell you it\u2019s a break-even proposition financially \u2014 in the best case.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s be real, the show was born out of despair as much as joy. Because I was looking around at the world \u2014 and this has only gotten worse since we started this project, unfortunately \u2014 thinking, what in the hell is going on? How could people be so lacking in empathy? <\/strong>I wish it wasn\u2019t political to say that love is worth trying, but it is, for some reason, in this world. It\u2019s a strange time to have to defend empathy. Empathy is the foundation of civilization.<\/p>\nIt sounds like this experience has been transformational for you.<\/strong><\/p>\nDefinitely. This album in particular was really a struggle personally. We\u2019d already been doing the shows, I know we do them well. But there\u2019s something about getting into a studio, recording, saying, \u201cHere I am.\u201d That takes a lot of courage. And in a way, it\u2019s taken me my whole life to get that courage. It\u2019s affected me in that way. It\u2019s made me realize, love is worth the risk.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve done this show on days when there\u2019s been school shootings or horrible developments in war, really heavy stuff. You can feel people coming in carrying this. And then I explain the concept \u2014 because a lot of people don\u2019t know what they\u2019re getting into when they come. Their shoulders just start to relax: We\u2019re all going to be nice to each other for 90 minutes. What a refreshing change of pace. Even if they\u2019re not sure if I\u2019m sincere \u2014 which I am, by the way \u2014 people still like hearing, I love you. Maybe that\u2019s na\u00efve. But maybe we need some na\u00efvet\u00e9, you know?<\/p>\n
Video camera operator: Grant Spanier.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n