Glee’s Darren Criss-Kurt’s New Squeeze?-Describes His Character as “Tom Ford-ish.” Perfect!
Darren Criss, a 23-year-old San Francisco native, joins the cast of Glee tonight as Blaine (no last name, just like Cher), an openly-gay student at a rival school. He comes to the role well prepared: he has a B.F.A. in performance and acting from the University of Michigan and was a writer and performer in YouTube sensations A Very Potter Musical and A Very Potter Sequel, which have garnered over 25 million hits collectively. I took a break from driving across the country in an electric car to talk to Darren this afternoon.
Brett Berk: Darren! Great to talk to you. And congrats on earning the role of Blaine. All the kids on the show seem to have crazy stories about their auditions so why don’t you tell me yours?
Darren Criss: It’s not that crazy. Lea’s takes the cake. I heard that she was in an accident and had glass in her hair. I can make one up for you. I was fighting a bear in Canada. I was on the verge of death and looked him straight in the eye, and the bear took pity on me before I took my last breath. “Is there anything you want before you die I’m a bear of honor,” he asked. And I said, “I really want to go out for Glee.” And he said, “it just so happens I know the casting director, I’ll get you over there right now. But I’m going to kill you if you don’t get it.” So I went into the casting office, and I said, “I really want to do this part, and if I don’t get it, the bear’s going to kill me.” So they gave me this part. And the bear let me live. And now he’s a good friend of mine and a big fan of the show.
Actually, the real story is, as an actor, you go up for things all the time, and I had fostered a relationship with the Glee casting family over the past two-and-a-half years, from acting and auditioning a lot. I first auditioned two-and-a-half years ago, before my senior year in college at Michigan, for the initial pilot. I went out for the role Finn originally, and I’m not a football player. I’m a smaller guy. And I didn’t get it. And I’m glad I didn’t because I got to finish college. So when I got the breakdown for Blaine, it was the first time where I said to myself, this is something I could maybe do and have a shot at it. It’s a great character. So I cleaned myself up and went in.
When I’ve gone in before, I went in with my guitar and my longer hair and played something very me, like Motown-I played Marvin Gaye, just asserting that angle. This time because the references were for a very clean-cut guy, I got my hair cut, didn’t bring my guitar, and I went in there looking nothing like myself. And I sang a Rogers and Hart classic, “Where or When,” a great song from the American songbook, from a show called Babes in Arms. And I sang an a-cappella version of “Baby One More Time.” I auditioned on a Monday and got a call on Friday. It was very fast. I didn’t even get a callback.
And before this, you were just a regular college student, ho-hum, going about your business?
Uh…before Glee…?
Yeah. I mean, it sounds like you had some other things going on.
Oh. I…I just…I’m never sure when I’m talking to magazines if they know my other life.
We do. But we like to get you to say it. I’m giving you the secrets of the interview technique.
Oh, O.K. Good. Well, in my eyes, Glee or not, I’ve always been a ho-hum random guy. That’s just my own perception of myself. I have a small production company that I started with my best friends from University of Michigan. About two years ago, we made this silly musical called A Very Potter Musical that was never meant to be seen by anyone but ourselves and our friends, and we just so happened to have filmed it, and that was that. That show was just like any other show from college, where everybody goes to see it and gets drunk and has a good time. When we graduated and moved to Los Angeles, we decided to put it up on YouTube for friends or family who missed it, and the next thing we knew we had an accidental viral YouTube phenomenon on our hands. It was shocking, because, well, I was in the show so I knew what was going on. But it was the same as your Uncle John taping your Christmas pageant on a shaky hand-held and putting it up. It blew up, and it really changed my life in terms of what I was going to pursue. We got a lot of attention and support from that, and that has been a platform for all the other things we do. We’ve since worked on, produced, and developed a number of musical shows with the same creative team who worked on the first one. All the guys recently moved to Chicago to solidify themselves as a theater company in the Chicago area. And I’m currently developing the score and music for our next show, for a short preview run in February of 2011, which will be our first foray into the world outside of the University of Michigan. The name of the production company is called called Star Kid Productions. It’s been a huge force in my life and a very wild journey. I never would have thought that would have happened from some shits-and-giggles endeavor I did in college. And my career-I never thought I’d be writing scores and songs.
That sounds like great fun. Now, this being for my Gay Guide to Glee column, everyone wants to know about all the gay stuff. We all know your character will be a queer kid from a rival high school, and that he’ll befriend and become a mentor to Kurt. What we don’t know is, what kind of gay is he? Prissy? Butch? Bitchy? Evil? Dishy? Lying? Warm? Sporty? Tough? Slutty? Western? Chaste? Fashion forward? Retro? …”Normal?”
Those are all delightful adjectives for anyone gay or straight. I will say, um, the reference is that he’s very Tom Ford-ish. He’s very charismatic, put-together, composed guy. Gay. But I wouldn’t say he’s overly queeny, and not too butch either. He’s just very…composed. The fact that he’s gay isn’t at the forefront of who he is. It is in terms of who he is personally, yes, but in terms of how people perceive him, it seems very matter of fact. And it’s introduced almost as a superfluous part of who he is. Obviously it’s not. It’s a huge part of who he is. But in terms of how he wishes to be perceived, it’s not a huge part.
Blaine is a very, very cool cool guy. He’s experienced many of the same trials and tribulations that Kurt has. When we meet him, Blaine sees a lot of himself in Kurt, in terms of experiences and the way they feel about the world around them. He feels the need to impart his knowledge, be a source of strength for him, and really help him through what he’s going through. He has such a wonderful energy. I couldn’t feel more positive about this.
Will he and Kurt get involved? Intimately?
I don’t know. At this point, that isn’t something that has been addressed. Right now, people want to believe what they want to believe. And I want to believe that Kurt will have some kind of romantic interest. However, I can’t confirm that at all. We want to see the good guy get what he deserves, not necessarily because we want to see the boyfriend thing, but we just want to see Kurt happy. If that’s a romantic relationship, so be it. But the great thing about Blaine is that Kurt finally has someone he can relate to. Everyone on the show is an outcast, whether it be ideologically, physically, mentally. Kurt is the only gay-teen male. So to have another young gay teen that he can talk to and relate to, that’s the most important thing. He has a support system. And whether it evolves into something more, well, we’ll see what happens.
Chris [Colfer] told me one of the times we talked that some of the power in his performances is from having personally experienced many of the things his character goes through as a gay teen. Not that this is in any way necessary for an actor playing any kind of role, but I’m wondering about your own personal connection to the character of Blaine and the subject matter you’re addressing.
It’s a subject that’s very near and dear to my heart, simply because I grew up in such an open community-doing theater in San Francisco. I mean, it doesn’t get much, stereotypically, “gayer.” I was inadvertently raised in the “gay community.” I had straight parents, but I spent massive amounts of time at a very early age with gay, theater-hopeful thirty-somethings. And those were the people I spent time with early on, so my whole perception of “sexuality” just wasn’t there. It just...was. It even got to the point where, later in life... I had all the components in place. I was, well, not super effeminate, but I was into girly things-I liked musical theater, all the stereotypical things. I had to come out and say, well, I’m sorry, but I think I’m straight. And people were like, say it ain’t so! And I would say, “It’s been a secret too long, but I’m actually a straight male.”
And so for the longest time when people asked me about Blaine, I wanted to say It doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t. But I don’t want to devalue it, because it’s a very earnest question, and I can see why people would want to know. And I realized that if I said, It doesn’t matter, that immediately means that I’m gay. So I do define myself as a straight male, but it really doesn’t come into play with me in this role. As an actor, your objective is always to play the scene. And this case, he happens to be a gay teen.
Well, we need to wrap this up, because I have to get back to a tour of a battery plant in Detroit (?!?) so I’ll just ask you one more question. It’s a two-parter: What is the thing you are most looking forward to about being on Glee?
A great character. I think Blaine has potential-and obviously I’m biased, but even if I had nothing to do with it and was just an audience member-and I’m really looking forward to Blaine having something to say. You think, what place do I have in all of this? Putting on a costume, and saying someone else’s lines, does what I’m doing have any merit? And Blaine is somebody who has something great to say, on a phenomenal platform which is Glee, where you have the whole world watching and listening. And I don’t know what the future has in store for him, but I know that he has a lot to offer and a lot to give, and to be a part of that is such privilege and such a gift.
And what is the thing you are least looking forward to? (And don’t say, Not being able to come to work every day. Because Dot-Marie Jones already said that.)
I can’t even think of something…I’m sure there’s stuff. Oh, I know. I’m not looking forward to the fact that I won’t immediately be able to connect with everybody. It’s going to bum me out that I won’t really be able to be able to spend time with everybody. I’m not a mean person. I want nothing more than to be nice to everybody. I’m a naïve idealist. But I know that it’s going to be hard to maintain that as the wheels turn for the Glee machine that I’ve jumped onto. But, hey, I’ll take the good with the bad. There’s nothing like Glee right now. Nothing bigger than Glee. I can’t believe I’m even having this interview with you about a part that I have in Glee.
Source: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2010/11/darren-criss-battled-a-bear-to-get-on-glee-and-now-he-and-the-bear-are-very-good-friends.html