you have this moment which is it's very
much about
what's happening in the prom because
it's that's all about
uh you know broadway and broadway uh
people in broadway musical theater
and dreams of being a big star you land
this role in book of mormon and suddenly
your life
changes but i'm curious i want to go
back before that
when you are in new york and you are
struggling
and basically that's the character
you're playing in the prom you're
playing a
a struggling uh performer
who hasn't made it yet um and is in his
tending bar
what kind of jobs did you have in in in
new york before you made it
well i was um uh i was always a good
interview
i always gave a really good in a job
interview
so if people would think like oh he's
responsible he's from the midwest
like naturally and then i would work
i would work at places for like a day
and then get really tired of like the
idea of a day job
so like the worst one i mean by far
the worst one was i um worked at a gym
in brooklyn heights and my job my shift
was at 5am i had to open the gym
and i um the night before was out with
people
you know i was like 20 years old just
like knocking them back
and when the time came to open the gym i
just decided not to
and so then i got a very panicked phone
call
around i don't know 5 45 which i ignored
because there were people like lined up
outside the gym because i had the keys
and i just didn't let them in and then
conan i thought maybe it would be a good
cover
to then call my boss and say i was like
i'm so sorry
i actually moved back to nebraska
um i don't live here anymore so that's
that's would be your excuse as to why
the reason i came here is i moved back
to nebraska
but i lived above the gym i
i actually my dorm was above the gym
so i lived in constant panic that i was
going to run in
to someone and i really did it very
dramatically like i was having some sort
of like
you know real crisis that i had to go
home
and and all the while i was just like
drunk at a gay piano bar
and um was not just didn't want to go
i just yeah so it's a problem because if
anyone sees you why aren't you in
nebraska
and then you have to explain that you
have a private jet that gets you back
and forth
even though you have no money i'm just
getting my stuff
uh i just needed to unpack or pack up my
things because i left in such a hurry
yeah i did that quite a bit i would um i
would leave jobs like that
because i think like at my core i knew
that i wanted to be an actor and i knew
i wanted to perform so like
the idea of a day job was like a real
hurdle for me and i know that's not
you know the case for most people um but
i had a real chip on my shoulder about
well i can't do this i was a host for
one night at a place called nacho mamas
by columbia university and i just i
like at a certain point people kept
coming in and i was like
i can't so i just went to the bathroom
for like an hour
um which is to be fair which to be fair
a lot of people do at nacho mamas
it's true it's very true but i couldn't
even handle it for one night i was like
there's too many people i can't see
people i'm in the weeds i'm in the weeds
all right so uh fortunately for you
things worked out because i think if you
would had to make it at a real job
i'm not saying what you do isn't a real
job but i'm including myself
i think you and i aren't cut out for the
for the legitimate world
no i no i have no marketable skills in
terms of
yeah of helping people right or like
doing a service
like right yeah i just don't yeah no i
i've always thought that if i had been
born at any other time in history
i'd have been when people needed to know
how to build a stone wall
or um go plant crops they would have
just killed me immediately
because that would just be this random
wise ass that was consuming food and
saying stupid things in the corner
and they'd have just taken a stone and
killed me it's true it's true