- When you do something like this long enough,
and you do what we get to do,
which is play make believe for a living,
it's hard to come by humans, real people
that love other humans.
- Yes.
- Forgive me if I cry, wow.
- Are you kidding?
(audience applauding)
- You need to understand my wife read,
my wife read your most recent book.
- Really?
"Wild Flower?"
- Yeah, she sure did, she sure did.
She read the book and she loved it.
- Is it true that you guys met
when you were kids?
- We were nine and 13.
- I mean that is like out of a movie.
It is.
- [Jordan] Straight up.
- [Drew] It's incredible.
Tell us the love story.
- So buckle in.
Woo wee.
So we're nine and 13, we're at a dance studio
in Birmingham, Alabama,
that's where we met and we were kids,
and we grew up dancing together
and singing and doing the thing.
And then I was working on Hamilton,
when was this, 2016, so she came to see the show,
we got dinner,
and then we got dinner again,
and then we got lunch.
And then we decided that we only wanted to get dinners
and lunch with each other.
And that was it.
- I know you have a 10-month old.
- I have a 10-month old.
This is his first talk show, he's here.
I don't know where he is, he's over there somewhere.
- [Drew] I cannot stand it.
- Oh my gosh, that's my best friend right there, man.
Riley.
Riley William Fischer.
To me that's what sets my joy
and my happiness, what's innate
and lives inside of me, apart from everything else
because it's easy for me to block out the noise
when I'm with my family,
and with my kid,
with my wife,
but I think it's important to mention,
especially for the sake of this conversation,
we were four months pregnant, five months pregnant,
always wanted to be a dad,
knew that I was about to achieve that goal,
and take on the biggest
and best project of my life
with my partner and my best friend.
And I was diagnosed with an eating disorder
that I did not know that I had.
I just knew that I had reflux,
and all of these things
that were making it difficult for me to eat,
and didn't realize that there were all of these traumas
from my childhood that I needed to work through in therapy,
it's insane.
So there in the last couple months
of my contract were very,
very difficult physical times for me.
This is something that no,
I lost 30 pounds.
I actually never talked about this out loud
on a platform like this at all.
And man, I'm so glad that I made it through that desert,
'cause here we are now talking to you,
I am so much stronger.
(audience applauding)
- Thank God for that.
Thank God for that.
How do you think you became you?
- My parents with no question.
I'm adopted.
Got a really-
- You are?
- Got a pretty cool story.
I'm not (indistinct).
We'll have some wine, we'll talk.
- I would love nothing more.
- We will chat later.
My parents are incredible.
They have had things happen to them
that they've had to navigate
that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy,
yet have shown me nothing
but patience and kindness and love,
and gave me the opportunity to,
as a kid, grow up with a voice,
and debate when I felt like that was something
that I needed to do.
If I had a point that I wanted to make,
I was never silenced,
I was just taught to respectfully
allow my voice to be heard,
but what that did was it just gave me the practice
of listening.
And I heard some phrase at some point in time
that a fool speaks
and a wise man listens.
- You know, I love,
tomorrow night I'm gonna,
I love taking the kids to Broadway,
we're gonna come see your show.
- No way. - I'm so excited.
Are you kidding?
- Tomorrow night. - Oh my God.
(audience applauding)
And it is a privilege,
and it is so lucky.
It's getting rave reviews.
It is the hit that everybody hoped it might be,
and nobody wants to make anything
that isn't a success,
but this one really is.
So for me and anyone who is privileged enough
to go see Sweeny Todd,
what should we be looking out for
because this is the show everybody's talking about,
and I cannot wait.
- It's a dark comedy.
It is a dark comedy.
Yes, there's blood,
there's a crazy barbershop
with a crazy barber in there
down the street on Fleet Street,
and you wanna avoid him at all costs
because he is-
- He gonna get you.
- He's taking a slice out of life for everybody. (laughs)
(Drew laughing)
So it's so special.
Natasha Katz who's our lighting designer,
the big challenge here, I think,
was not how well she could light the show,
but how well she could work with light from the space.
She does this so beautifully.
It's a thrilling, thrilling piece.
If you don't think that you can go to a theater
and sit down and be antsy
and stressed and thrilled, think again.
Come see Sweeny Todd, Josh Grobin,
one of the best vocalists of our generation.
- Emily Ashford who I'm also so obsessed with.
- She's a goddess.
- So if you're not going to Broadway
to see Sweeny Todd,
you have five million followers on Tik Tok.
(audience applauding)
That is so hard to do.
- It's weird, I think,
that there are five million people
that have tapped a little red button on their phone.
- Five million Tik Tok followers.
- It's kind of wild.
- Will you do a Tik Tok challenge with us?
- I'll do a Tik Tok challenge with you.
(audience cheering and applauding)
- (indistinct) we'll be right back.
(upbeat music)