After stage success, Christian Borle hopes for 'Smash' hit on TV
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Christian Borle plays Tom and Debra Messing is Julia in "Smash," premiering on NBC at 10 p.m. Monday.
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On a beautiful fall day in New York, Christian Borle was thinking of Pittsburgh. He had expected to return to his hometown, but filming episodes of the new NBC series "Smash" was demanding his time.
"Where in Pittsburgh are you so I can imagine it?" he asked. When I told him I was near the Point, he said, "Ah. I really, really wanted to come back for Thanksgiving. It just didn't work out, unfortunately. I moved here to New York in 1995 and my parents retired to Sarasota, and I don't really get to go back, and I love going to Pittsburgh so much. I miss it."
Broadway has kept Mr. Borle busy for more than a decade after he sang and danced his way there from stages at St. Edmund's and Shady Side academies and Carnegie Mellon University.
He has worked steadily since 1998, including two years each in "Footloose" and "Thoroughly Modern Millie" before plum roles in "Spamalot" as multiple characters; as the replacement Bert in "Mary Poppins"; and as Emmett in "Legally Blonde," for which he earned a Tony nomination. Earlier this year, he joined fellow CMU alums Billy Porter and Zachary Quinto off-Broadway in "Angels in America" and earned a Drama Desk nomination as the pirate who would become Captain Hook -- a role he is set to reprise on Broadway this spring -- in "Peter and the Starcatchers."
Next stop: television. Until now, his biggest exposure on the small screen was in the musical commercial "That's on eBay" in 2005.
In "Smash," debuting Monday as a midseason replacement, he plays Tom, the composer half of a songwriting team with Debra Messing, star of the long-running NBC show "Will & Grace." The chance to play a character who gets to be on the judgment side of the audition process has been a kick, along with "the Spielberg aspect," meaning the opportunity to audition for "Smash" executive producer Steven Spielberg.
"When this role came along, there wasn't much in my mind about having to make a decision," he said. "It was just this lovely thing that fell into my lap. It is certainly useful to have seen people on the other side. We do spend some time in the first few episodes behind the table lording choices over the young actresses who will get the part. It's much nicer to be on that side of the table, I have to say."
First Published February 5, 2012 12:00 am
