Thirty-seven-year-old Darren Criss is a star on Broadway, and a regular at piano bars."Keep the music going, you know?" he said.
"I think the expression goes, 'Life is a cabaret!'"When he's in Los Angeles, it's Tramp Stamp Granny's, where he and his wife, Mia, are the owners."It's kind of a beautiful little Hollywood tale," he said.
"She slings the drinks, and I sling the tunes."One rule in a piano bar? Play the hits.Criss had his first hit at the University of Michigan.
He starred as Harry Potter in an unauthorized student show based on the books that became a YouTube sensation in 2009."This was a very interesting moment in time," he said, of "A Very Potter Musical." "That really did kind of change my life.That would kind of set me on the path to where I am now."From 2009: The unofficial parody show "A Very Potter Musical": I asked if "A Very Potter Musical" was the first musical to go viral.
"I don't know; I guess we'll let the YouTube historians sort of decide the validity of that," Criss said.But Criss took a detour on his way to Broadway, by becoming a TV star.
"'Glee' was happening at the time," he said."And I went out for it, like hundreds of thousands of other people in my situation at that time.
And I happened to book it." He played Blaine Anderson, and quickly became a fan favorite."I owe my tenure on that show to the sub-cultural fan base army that we had gathered from the Potter stuff," he said.
Watch Blaine Anderson (Darren Criss) perform Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" on "Glee":Criss went on to win an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his portrayal of serial killer Andrew Cunanan in "The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story." Now he plays an obsolete robot named Oliver in a new musical, "Maybe Happy Ending," one of the most acclaimed shows currently on Broadway.The New York Times calls it "joyful," "heartbreaking," and "supersmart."Criss said, "This show begins with a song which is the question the show ...