Jonathan Groff Quotes

My mother's side of the family is Methodist, which is how I was raised. It was conservative in that I had strong values - sitting down and eating with the family every day, listening to authority and going to church every week and having perfect attendance at Sunday school.

But at the same time, my parents always encouraged my brother and me to be happy with what we were doing. My parents were athletes in high school; my mom and my dad were the stars of the basketball team, but they never pushed my brother and me to be anything we didn't want to be.

Make sure that you always follow your heart and your gut, and let yourself be who you want to be, and who you know you are. And don't let anyone steal your joy.

If I were to be back on Glee, I would like to spend some time with Lea Michele because I love her and we go way back.

When you get to really involve yourself with a piece [script] and the other people and you get to feel like it's a community and you're all building something together, it helps me to produce better work, I think. And there's an exhaustion that happens on a film set - an exhaustion that translates into a relaxation and helps me to live in the moment, in the performance I'm giving and what's happening around me.

Musical auditions are always the worst because you have to sing and act, and that's so stressful.

I went to a local high school in Lancaster. Not much I can say about it; it was pretty much your typical public high school back in Pennsylvania.

In theater, you're in charge of your performance, and at the end of the day you're the one who gets credit because you're in front of the audience doing it, and in film and TV it's the director who gets to decide when to cut to you on a line, which take he uses.

I love acting in the theater,but I'm fascinated with acting on film. If it's a film or a play or whatever, if the writing is good and you really feel passionate about it, you just can't lose. You'll grow from it. Whether it's a success or not is neither here nor there; you're going to grow as an artist from this experience.

I sort of have the belief that you work being your character out while you're working on it, or that's been my experience so far. I throw myself into it 100% and try to live in that world, and then when it's over, just sort of be able to leave it behind.

At the end of the day, the end of the movie is sort of ambiguous - it's whatever you want it to be.

Just follow your joy. Always. I think that if you do that, life will take you on the course that it's meant to take you.

I was born and raised in Lancaster, Pennsylvania - in Amish Country!