Graceland's Aaron Tveit Dishes On His Future Broadway Return!

For those of you who are dying to see Broadway alum Aaron Tveit return the stage, your dreams may not be so far-fetched.

JustJared.com sat down with the 30-year-old actor on the set of his addicting show Graceland, which returns this summer, where he opened up to reporters about that itch he has to do more theater.

“It’s gotten to the point in the last couple of years – because I haven’t been on stage since Catch Me If You Can in September 2011, even though I did Les Mis, which is singing also, but it’s so funny – any time I go see a play or I go see something at a theatre, I just sit there and I feel a pull inside that, ‘I want to get up there,’” Aaron told us. “‘I want to get up there.’ I feel like I say it all the time, but nothing feels like that. I love working on set and the week-to-week change, and finding out who these characters are, but there’s nothing like standing in front of an audience and hearing them react to what you’re doing right in front of them. It’s something else. I can’t wait. I have no idea what it’s going to be, but I can’t wait until that opportunity comes up again.”

Click inside to read the rest of our set visit experience with Aaron Tveit…

As for what particular play would draw him back to his roots, he already knows that answer.

“I would love to work with Stephen Sondheim. I’ve had a few opportunities to do some stuff that hasn’t worked out because of timing,” Aaron said. “But I really want to do a revival. New musicals are hard. Putting the work in is amazing, but then you pour everything into it and you have no idea what’s going to happen. A revival is a revival for a reason. It was written by one of the greats, and it already polished, so you get to play in this world that’s already created. I’ve always loved Carousel. I think I’m a little young to play Billy Bigelow, but that’s definitely one that I’d love to do in the future. I’d love to play George in Sunday in the Park with George. When I’m older, I’d love to play Sweeney Todd. Revivals are now really on my radar a little bit. And what’s amazing too is I was playing young kids – 18, 29, 20 – and now hopefully, I’m aging into the next range of roles I can play in musical theater, so I’m looking forward to that too.”

Meanwhile, Aaron is set to make his Carnegie Hall debut at the upcoming 31st birthday of The New York Pops.

“I have a joke with my father and my brother because they’ve both sang at Carnegie Hall and I have not, so it’s been a long-running joke in my family that they got there before I did,” he said. “But I look forward to it. I was asked a while ago by Marc [Shaiman] and Scott [Wittman] to do it and just the nature of television scheduling, you don’t really know if it’s going to work. I just found out last week that it’s going to work and I’m very excited. I’m singing the song from Catch Me If You Can, so to revisit that music and sing it with The New York Pops orchestra at Carnegie Hall, it’s going to be quite an evening.”

Aaron added, “I’m singing ‘Goodbye’ from Catch Me If You Can. As of now, I am, but I was going to find out if I’m doing more. Because I did Hairspray too and I don’t know if we’re going to do a big number from Hairspray or something, but I have not heard about that part yet.”

When asked about the Internet’s obsession with him (um, have you seen the Aaron Tveit fans on Twitter?!), he charmingly brushes it off.

“I don’t know. I can’t explain it. As you also know, I’m not on the Internet, so I don’t see it on a daily basis. I don’t know if that’s part of it, that I’m not there. I have no idea how to explain it,” he said. “But listen, it’s people positively responding to work that I’ve done and because I care about what I do in all facets of my work, that positive feedback is wonderful. I couldn’t be more grateful for it. And you know, as much good stuff, I’m sure there’s bad stuff too. I’m glad that I don’t really look at it. It’s like an old adage, people who read their reviews – you can get 15 good reviews when you do a show, if you read one bad line, that’s the one that sticks in your head. I’m happy that it’s all there, but I’m glad that I can have a little bit of separation from it.”

Aaron‘s Graceland co-star Serinda Swan spilled that he likes to sing on set, so of course we had to ask him about it.

“I probably sing on set,” he responded with a smile. “I kind of sing all the time without even knowing, so thankfully they don’t all hate me. But it could be a nervous thing to relieve tension. I think it probably relaxes me and I just spout off songs.”

While his desire to return to Broadway is strong, Aaron‘s currently very content in his starring role on the USA drama.

“This is what I tell people too – this to me, this work, everything new thing that I’ve done has felt the same in the way it feels exactly like when I first started doing shows or when I first started performing,” he said. “That it was just a group of people coming together to do the thing they love to do. Maybe I’ve been blessed to work with fantastic people, but it’s never felt any different than that for me. That’s why I can’t conceptualize that part of it, because this to me, is just something I love to do and I’m beyond fortunate to be doing it. I think I’m in a very small percentile of people who can say that. That’s the way that I think about it.”

TELL JJ: Which play would you love to see Aaron Tveit take on?

– Reporting by Sharon Tharp (@SharonTharp)