Jonathan Groff has opened up about his coming out experience.
Since his debut in the early 2000s, the beloved talent has captivated film, TV and Broadway audiences with his superb singing voice, dreamy good looks and stellar performances.
In addition to earning acclaim as a talented actor and singer, Groff has cultivated a passionate LGBTQIA+ fanbase for remaining an open book about his gay identity – including some of the internal struggles he faced before coming out.
In a recent interview on NPR’s Wild Card with Rachel Martin, the Frozen star named coming out as a “weight” he had to shoulder “before he was ready.”
“The obvious one that’s coming to my head is when I came out of the closet. I guess this is the most essential one. The wrestling with that and the acceptance of that is now… it helps me with every other version of that in my life. So it’s like that thing of compartmentalising an innate truth,” he explained.
Groff went on to say that after he moved to New York, he was able to work through and feel more comfortable with his identity.
“Experiencing other people that were who they were and watching them thrive and seeing their examples helped me to start to move that from a compartmentalised part of myself out of my mouth to really bring the truth out of my throat,” he continued.
“And then falling in love with Gavin Creel, RIP, who just passed last year, and then feeling that feeling, and going, ‘Oh, wow! This is way better than anything.’ And so that was the final kick in the ass that I needed to fully express it and talk about it and release that weight.”
The Looking star also expressed gratitude for not being outed by his peers in the industry.
“I’m so grateful that someone didn’t rip that truth out of me, that I was surrounded by such loving people,” he continued.
“Even when I moved to New York, and I was in Spring Awakening with a cast of my peers – and everyone knew probably that Cody, my boyfriend, was not my roommate, which is what I said he was – no one every really pushed me to declare who I was. They just held me with love… in retrospect, looking back, I’m so grateful that it was all of those steps to get it there.”
Groff’s recent sit-down comes over a month after the release of his hit gay romantic comedy, A Nice Indian Boy.
Based on Madhuri Shekar’s hit play of the same name, the film follows “socially-reserved doctor Naveen Gavaskar (Karan Soni), who brings his white fiancé Jay Kurundkar (Groff) home to meet his traditional family”.
HBO
The synopsis adds: “[Naveen’s family] must contend with accepting his white-orphan-artist boyfriend and helping them plan the Indian wedding of their dreams”.
Since its release, A Nice Indian Boy has received universal acclaim from critics and viewers, with many praising the film for centring South Asian love story, witty dialogue, and Soni and Groff’s chemistry-filled performance.
It even earned a certified fresh rating of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes.
When discussing what drew him to the film, Groff told Newsweek: “It is a love story about these two people. But in a broader sense, it’s a love story about joining somebody’s family. The last third of [A Nice Indian Boy] was such a beautiful surprise to me that made me want to be a part of it.”
A Nice Indian Boy is out now.
Check out our interview with Roshan Sethi – the director of the film – and Soni here or below.
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