John Lloyd Young Quotations

My interest in acting came from seeing Broadway shows on summer trips to New York as a child. It was the original production of 'A Chorus Line' in an easy tie with the first 10 -15 minutes of Dustin Hoffman in 'Tootsie' that hooked me on the romantic idea that the impossible, difficult life of a struggling actor was for me.

I was the first guest star asked to appear on 'Glee,' which we all know became huge.

I did have a falsetto, but I only used it when I was joking around with friends or to annoy my girlfriends, or in the shower, because no one else was around. Or in college. I'd go to karaoke bars and sing Tina Turner songs in the original key.

I think that of musicals - especially the big, splashy ones - require an actor that's also part cheerleader, too, and that's really tough to do if it's not something that really grabs you and your heart's not in it.

My natural mother passed away from cystic fibrosis when I was a toddler, so I feel a great deal of empathy for people who are struggling with disease.

My mother died of cystic fibrosis before I knew her. I was two years old, and I don't remember her. I do remember, though, when it was just my father and me, before he met the woman who would become the mother who raised me, before my younger sister, Gillian. It was just the two of us, and he was my whole world.

The thing early on that you think is 'wrong' with you, that makes you not fit in with everyone else, becomes the key to your career as an actor. Start embracing it.

Something in me was instinctively drawn to the life of a misunderstood, brilliant and wilful artist. I wanted to become one.

During 'Jersey Boys,' I discovered one of the most rewarding ways to use your goodwill is to motivate fans and friends into lending support to charity.

I'm looking for smart friends all the time.

It was a surprise to me and a happy accident that it was such a skill [natural falsetto] - a latent skill and that there was a way to exploit it. And it was a key to playing great role Frankie Valli in such a huge show.

It's funny - Frankie Valli's story and that advice that he was just getting from, you know, Christopher Walken's character, is very true for someone who's in a creative field.

I was a Hollywood musical fan as a kid, and I know how rare it is for someone who originates the Broadway role to get to then do it on screen.

I know, for me, you know, my generation - I never would have known anything about Robert Preston's performance in 'The Music Man' if there hadn't been a film where he played the part. I just heard how great he was on Broadway way before my time.

I'm kind of happy to know there may be some kid or teenager now who might never have had the chance to see my Broadway performance, but gets a taste for what it might have been like now, because they can see Clint Eastwood's film."

I definitely worked really hard to evoke Frankie Valli, but not do a strict imitation, because I feel that a strict imitation is not as compelling to watch.

I don't have a Jersey dialect. So when I approached the singing, I approached it the same way as an actor I approach a dialect, just as a singer.

I approach the singing kind of like with dialect thoughts in my mind. I have to sound like this on certain things to give that Frankie Valli flavor.

I've learned to keep my work on the stage or on the screen.

It was great to play for a live audience on a stage.

I think one of the ways that these young singers got started is that they would end up in clubs. And a lot of them were mafia owned. And so there was almost an unspoken kind of mafia sponsorship, which is just a very interesting part of that area's music history.

I think you couldn't do this role or you couldn't be Frankie Valli himself unless you had a natural falsetto. And I had sort of discovered it by accident as a child or a young adult when you realize you have a special skill that you don't really have any use for you, and you just take it out at parties or to amuse your friends or to annoy your girlfriends.

But when you get to know a character so well, you start to have insights that you can't show because you're confined to your script of your hit show.

I think Frankie Valli did everything right. He kept singing. And you also have to remember, he was confined to a certain society, which was this sort of like - the wrong side of the law kind of society of Italian guys from the streets of Belleville, New Jersey. So he found his way.

When you look at sort of pop stardom now, some of these singers, it seems like the idea of them was created in a marketing meeting, and then they just found someone to sort of fulfill that role.