Because even close friends must be tired of hearing 37 year-old Anthony Rapp say, "Remember the time I was in RENT…" over and over again, the one-time Adventures in Babysitting star is back, in a "farewell tour" of RENT, opening in Cleveland this month, playing the 24 year-old proto-hipster protagonist. RENT's like the Cher of musicals and we're pretty certain we'll see Rapp when he's 50 playing Cohen in the 15 minute Vegas-version of the show, which will play next to the buffet line at Caesars.
Rapp tells Spangle Magazine that:
"Mark Cohen’s issues are also Rapp’s, as he explained in his 2006 memoir, Without You. “… I knew once again that I shared Mark’s ability to avoid dealing with pain in his personal life by pouring himself into his work,†he writes.
I asked if that’s the same, now that he’s more than a decade older.
“I feel that I’m less that way with the newer people in my life,†Rapp says. But with friends and family who have been in his life longer, he says the old patterns occasionally emerge.
Tackling the character of Mark Cohen as a 37-year-old, instead of a 24-year-old, isn’t so different, Rapp says. He’s still a “young man trying to make his way in trying circumstances in New York City at the turn of the millennium.â€
“What I hope has happened,†he continues, “is that I’m a more seasoned actor so I don’t have to work so hard in showing things. … “I imagine that some of the things that I’ve been through in the past 10 to 12 years come through.â€
The actor also explains how he's working on turning his memoirs about RENT into a one-man show with songs, a feat that promises audience's meta-pretension and overwrought self-involvement at once, all set to song. Wait, didn't we see that show already?
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Oh snap.
@MW: Why are people so mean? What goes around comes around.
Random input:
"Snap" has become really big this year…
and I was watching the box set of AbFab we got for Christmas…and in Series 2 (which was HOW many years ago), Bubble says "Snap" to Patsy.
so it took a decade to cross the pond, LOL.
Is this talented man just a one trick pony or has his being openly, loudly gay limited his opportunities to Rent and nothing more.?
@Qjersey: What are you talking about? What rock have you been living under?
1) He's got an adorable baby face. He could play 15.
2) He's got loads of talent.
3) He's got other frying pans in the fire, including a rock band.
So why the bitchery?
@Qjersey: Totally different context. I know the episode you're talking about: "New Best Friend" where Bubble was headhunted by Vogue. "Snap" here is something like "you got served" whereas Bubble used it as something to clear a brainfart.
@hardmannyc: 15? He's a cutey, but he looks every bit his age. It's hard not to w/a complexion like that. I'd still hit it, though.
rent, oh gross;
i don't blame that actor for "rent".
ps
it's time for an irreverent parody/update that reflects Our world a little less condescendingly.
pps
that kind of sub-"hair" broadway "rock" has been out of style since 1989 and "rent" didn't even come out until the 90s!
if i have to hear one more chorus of earnest assh*les singing "seasons of love" at the top of their cloying, fake vibratos…
jonathan larson has been dead for years and i'm still mad at her!
Back in the day, I really thought Anthony Rapp, along with Adam Pascal and Daphne Rubin-Vega, would emerge from "Rent" as the next generation of Broadway stars. I even thought Pascal and Rubin-Vega might even go on to be major pop stars.
But even with all the hype surrounding "Rent," it didn't happen for them. (All three eventually returned to Broadway, but not in major starring roles.) I wonder how that happens–Bad representation? Expectations that exceeded their actual talent?
(I don't think Rapp's sexual orientation, as suggested above, has anything to do with it, especially on Broadway.)
It's kind of sad that their careers are still so centered on a single success from the mid-90s.
@Qjersey:
IN the UK, snap is a card game. Two players put down cards at increasingly speed. When two cards are the same, the first person to shout 'Snap!' wins.
Who cares if he does Rent again? It's not like he's 60 years old. The role is not age specific and he still looks young.