Josh Groban started out thinking that music wasn’t the career for him.
Ahead of his Manila stop for his Gems World Tour, the California-born singer spoke to Rolling Stone Philippines about how he’d always thought that he’d make a name for himself in acting.
“At first, singing for me was just a way [to be] a better actor,” said Groban, recalling how he spent his younger years joining improv classes, Shakespeare troupes, acting camps, and musical theater groups.
But fortune struck Groban at the age of 17, when he was called to stand in for Andrea Bocelli to sing “The Prayer” with Celine Dion at a rehearsal for the 1998 Grammy Awards. The award-winning music executive, David Foster, happened to be at the rehearsal, and, having tapped Groban in the past for rehearsal singing, called the teenager up and had him come to bat.
Since then, the singer has added hit after hit under his belt, including original singles like “To Where You Are,” as well as renditions of classics like “O Holy Night” and “You Raise Me Up.”
“[Acting] was what I really wanted to do,” said Groban. “So you can imagine my surprise when suddenly, at 17, somebody tells me, ‘I want to make you a recording star.’ That was not in the cards for me at all.”
Yet, over the years, he’s had multiple opportunities to show off his acting chops. Groban made his Broadway debut in 2016 as Pierre Bezukhov in Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, earning him a Tony nomination for Best Actor. “The golden vitality of Mr. Groban’s tenor was not a surprise,” wrote The New York Times in a 2016 review of the musical. “But he doesn’t just make pretty sounds; he invests his singing with the pain and frustration that define Pierre. [His] acting is superb, as he all but trembles with the existential despair that courses through Pierre’s veins virtually nonstop.”
Groban has since left multiple marks on the Broadway stage, most recently earning another Tony nomination for his 2023 performance as the titular razor-wielding murderer in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. “[Groban’s] performance [lived] up to every shriek and cry from diehard Grobanites that [greeted] his entrance at the Lunt-Fontanne,” wrote Deadline in a review.
Onscreen, Groban has brought the same level of dedication to his craft, whether he’s playing an irritating boyfriend in Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011), an inmate locked in a solitary confinement box in Muppets Most Wanted (2014), or a straight-laced detective in The Good Cop (2018), where he headlined alongside Tony Danza.
“Having the opportunity to… come on board, whether it’s a silly cameo like in Muppets Most Wanted, or a more challenging role like The Good Cop or Sweeney Todd, is a chance for me to revisit a muscle that is very special to me,” said Groban. “Acting is all about timing, and well, music is all about timing, too.”
“Being a kid that was bullied in school and having to tell jokes to make sure kids didn’t pick on me, acting was… something that I did to escape and something that I did to feel better about myself,” he continued. “Luckily, I’ve had the chance to do both and I hope I continue to do so.”
When asked if he favors either singing or acting over the other, Groban acknowledged that music will always come first.
“I’ll always be the kid that sat at the piano and sang songs,” he said. “And I think music will always come a little more naturally to me than acting just because I don’t do it as much. But this means that every time I take an acting role, I really work at it.”
“Music will always be Number One,” Groban continued, before jokingly adding, “unless Manila would like me to go onstage and do monologues for two hours!”
Groban takes the Manila stage on February 18, with special guests Regine Velasquez and Martin Nievera at the SM Mall of Asia Arena.
