Wild Card with Rachel Martin - Jonathan Groff lost his faith while spelunking

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

Jonathan Groff has brought his killer vocals and Disney-hero charm to Broadway hits like "Spring Awakening," "Hamilton" and "Merrily We Roll Along." He's nominated for a Tony award for his latest Broadway show, "Just in Time," a musical about singer Bobby Darin. He talks to Rachel about responding to criticism like a 7-year-old and realizing he didn't believe in God at a Youth for Christ camp. To listen sponsor-free and support the show, sign up for Wild Card+ at plus.npr.org/wildcardSee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Hey, everybody. Just a heads up. This episode contains a little bit of cursing. What makes you irrationally defensive? Oh my God. So many things. So many things. When I'm learning something for the first time and it's a new thing, I get irrationally defensive when criticized. I'm Rachel Martin, and this is Wildcard. The game where cards control the conversation. Each week, my guest answers questions about their life. pulled from a deck of cards. They're allowed to skip one question

and to flip one question back on me. Our guest this week is Broadway superstar Jonathan Groff. At that time in 2006, whether it was spoken or unspoken, coming out was limiting your career as an actor. And so that idea of like fame or success or whatever, I said goodbye to that when I came out. When I was growing up, my parents talked a lot about purpose. They wanted my siblings and me to find careers that were satisfying, yes.

But really, they wanted us to find our purpose, the thing we were put in the world to do. And that's the idea that came into my head when I was thinking about how to introduce Jonathan Groff. Because Jonathan is a mega talent with a long list of Broadway credits, including Spring Awakening and Hamilton. He won a Tony for his role in Merrily We Roll Along. and now he's nominated for another Tony for his new musical about singer Bobby Darren called Just in Time. But when I watch Jonathan Groff perform, it is more than just watching a person do what they love. It's watching a person live out their purpose. It's like he could not do anything else if he tried.

And watching him on stage doing his very special thing is just a complete joy. I am so happy to welcome Jonathan Groff to Wildcard. I don't know if an intro has ever wanted to me. make me cry like that before. That was so deep. Thank you for that. That was not my purpose. But I'm glad to appreciate it.

That might have been one of your purposes is to give stellar intros because I'm like, whoa, that was really profound. What you said. Thank you for that. I really appreciate that. You're welcome. The interview's over. That's just the experience. I tell you how great you are.

That was it. Yeah. Wrap. Okay. Are you ready to play the game? Let's effing go. I think that means you're ready, my friend. First three cards, Jonathan Groff.

One, two, or three. This is the memories round. Two, please. Two. Where would you go when you needed to escape as a teenager? Hmm. Okay. I am in my childhood bedroom.

I am with like this big, kind of, remember those boom boxes? Remembered them? Yes, I say, up to buy one, yeah. My parents got my brother and I each the same, like, giant boombox for our bedrooms one year for Christmas when I was a teenager. And I remember sitting, and it took up the whole, like, on the dresser with, you know, where all the clothes are. It took up the entire top of it. It was, like, blocked half the mirror.

It's like hanging over the sides. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I would go there and I would put on musicals. So I was a huge musical theater nerd in high school. And when I think about it now that I'm 40, I wasn't even really tapped into, I mean, I knew that I was gay, but it seemed like such a way too scary to even dip my toe when I was in high school.

So in my teenage years, I'm feeling things as we all do. and I'm in my childhood bedroom. And I would listen to lots of musicals. I would listen to Britney Spears. I would listen to the soundtrack of the movie Can't Hardly Wait, which I was really obsessed with in high school. But the one that's the one, like the first memory that's coming to me when you asked me this question, where would I go,

is listening to this recording of a Bill Finn musical called A New Brain. And what's notable about it for me personally is that there was a gay romance at the center of that musical. And so that's where I would go to like escape and feel romantic and be in love in my childhood bedroom. How did you even have an awareness of that musical? I mean, where were you getting it from? Did your parents listen to a lot of this stuff? They didn't.

It was sort of, you know, it was still dial up internet days when they were. that would make that sound when you'd sign on it. Sound effect was amazing. I was like, is he vocalizing? No, he's the internet. I was being the internet. I was playing the role of internet in 1999. And like if somehow, I don't know, I was on AOL, I don't even remember what the search engine.

It was like, Ask Jeeves, maybe, or I don't know what the search engine was. I applied to work at Ask Jeeves. That's a whole other conversation. Oh my God, okay. I'm just saying not so random to me. But yes, please proceed. Okay, so it was something like that. And I would order CDs off of the Internet.

And I was just like, and so the Internet, it was still kind of like earlier, like less accessible than it is now, but it still was existing when I was in high school. And so I would type in about, you know, musicals. And I don't know how I found myself to a new brain, but I did. Yeah. Okay. Three more cards. Okay. This is still memories?

Yeah, this is still memories. It's what it sounds like R2D2, by the way, that internet. Yeah. Could I do number three, please? Yes. What have you learned to appreciate about your hometown over time? I love this question because I love my hometown so much. I'm from Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

and it's a conservative community. And so for me, at least, I really wanted to be an actor. So I left home when I was 19 to move to New York to do that. And what was happening, the layer under that was coming out of the closet and owning my sexual identity and accepting that. And moving to New York helped me to, help that part of myself come out literally. And in 2019, I bought a house right near my dad's horse farm. My dad trains and races horses for a living. And because I wanted to spend more time at home.

And I have this dream of turning his horse farm into an artist retreat. And so as I've gone back home over the last like five or six years i have i have learned to be myself and be home at the same time there's still a lot of like dissonance and challenge in that but i've i've it's been great to sort of um be able with open arms to embrace to to answer your question uh the the like physical beauty of the farmland of pennsylvania because the amish don't use electricity. And so the way that they like till the soil and plant the corn and the tobacco, it's like when I look out the window in the backyard of my house, it's like all Amish farms. And it's like the beautiful, gentle touch of man on the farm. It's these like rolling fields that have

been cultivated. So there is the touch of man, but there's something extremely natural and beautiful about it as well, which I love. And then I've also, in the fall, got introduced for the first time to the LGBTQ plus community in Lancaster. And now this community feels like there's love in your homecoming. You feel some degree of love and acceptance by the broader community there? Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I still, you know, I still am close with all of my conservative family members and love them. And to know that there's also thousands of people in Pennsylvania that are, that are like full support of the LGBTQ community. It's like I have two communities now that I get to come home to, which is really awesome. That is a lovely thing.

I'm so glad. Yeah, thanks. Okay. Last one in this round. One, two, or three. I got to go with one because it's the number I haven't chosen yet. Oh. Oh.

Well, what is something your parents are? taught you to love. Oh, wow. Okay, so the first thing is like, my mom is a gym teacher, and my dad trains and races horses for a living. And when they were sort of making their way into the world after high school, they, in a very kind of, like, radical way, decided to pursue their passion as opposed to sort of fall in line with what was expected of them. So my dad was the oldest of the brothers of his family, was four of them. And he was supposed to take over the dairy farm.

He grew up Mennonite. My grandfather was a Mennonite preacher. And he was supposed to take over the dairy farm, but he didn't like cows and the work of cows, but he loved animals. Professional liability. Exactly. And he loved horses. And so he ended up taking a kind of left turn and started his own business with the help of his family and became a horse trainer. And that is what put food on the table for my family for the all 18 years that I lived and grew up in Lancaster. And so he ended up making his passion his life. And my mom similarly will talk about like when she was in high school, she, was so passionate about sports, which in like the late 60s, early 70s in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, it was like female sports was not a huge deal. And she would like wake up at 3.30 in the morning when no one was awake and go running in secret

because she was embarrassed because women at that time weren't like training like they were years later, at least in at least in Lancaster. Yeah. And it was, she always says, like, teacher or nurse or secretary were her options. And so she pursued, like, a physical education track for herself and made it a point to become a field hockey coach because that was what she really wanted to do, which was, like, play sports and be involved in that. So they taught me from a young age that that pursuing your passion was something worthwhile. And even though they didn't really understand how or why I was interested in the arts, they, They really understood in a very profound way.

We're going to drive him to play practice. We're going to let him be Mary Poppins when he's three years old because they recognized the passion that I had and really fanned the flame of that. We're going to step back from the game for a minute and talk about just in time. I don't know why I'm singing for Jonathan Groff. I love it. It's singing. Please sing it.

Just in time. Just in time. That's not even a song. It is a song. Is it? Is it? Is it? Is it?

Really? This could be the start of something big is the very first song. And then I go, Just in Time. I found you just in time before you came. My time was running low, which is Julie Stein, one of my all-time favorite songs. A song that I know from Judy Cune's album called Just in Time back to the boom box in my bedroom. There you go. This was one of the things I, one of the things I, one of the.

CDs I had ordered online as a teenager. And it's a beautiful album. It's her singing all Julie Stein songs. Oh, my God. That's a lovely bit of synchronicity. Yes. So of all the shows of all the stories you could have told, of all the shows you could have headlined. Why Bobby Darren? Oh, my gosh. So eight years ago, this month, May, eight years ago, my friend, Ted Chapin said, I think I'm not doing this night of Bobby Darren. Do you know, do you know a lot about him? Because maybe it would be great. We could center it around you. You could sing a lot of his songs and we could invite other people to sing and whatnot. And I went home that night and I fell down a Bobby Darren YouTube rabbit hole. I watched him that night and I, my mind was blown.

I just felt an immediate connection to him. There was something really primal about the way he performed music. He had this like drive and presence and ferocity and passion that I really connected to. And so we did this night at the Y and Alex Timbers, incredible visionary director, came on to direct it. And so I asked Alex Timbers, if we ever thought this could be a musical somewhere, could we turn a space into a nightclub? and that idea really turned him on. But the other question I had, in addition to the nightclub, concede, when we started developing it, was, could I begin the show as myself? Because I want to try and evoke the spirit of Bobby Darren by connecting with the audience, which he was famous for. And I can become Bobby Darren as the story goes along.

And so that... It completely works. I did not know who Bobby Darren is. And I mean, Bobby Darren was not who I went to go see this show for, you know, and that will be the case for some people who are coming to see you, Jonathan Groff. And then you serve as this beautiful bridge between like, yeah, you know me. Trust me. I'm going to take you into this man's life and you're going to be compelled. You're going to be moved by the story that we're about to tell.

It was so good. Oh, I'm so happy you had that experience. That's like, that's the dream. That's really the dream because one of the, because he was so magical. I mean, this is why it also, to me, made so much sense to tell his story as a piece of theater, because there's something really sacred and special and profound and in the moment about what happens in live theater that feels in line with what Bobby's magic was that he was bringing to the world and why it makes sense to me that we've forgotten about him a little bit as a culture at large because his master. was in that live performance.

And you're just, you're having so much fun, Jonathan. I know you're a good actor, but there's just like no way that you're that you're faking the amount of fun that you're having on that stage. From the get-go, from the jump, you're having so much of you are a sweaty mess. And there's a lot of spitting. And people who are your long fans know that this is just part of the deal. This is the package of Jonathan Groff. You're a wet man, as you say, in the show. But I wonder if it did take a level, do you have to be at a certain point in your career where you can just be like, I'm owning this? This is what is happening. All of my secretions are here for you.

This might be the moment that where I'm finally owning it. And our co-book writer, Isaac Oliver, joined us this summer. And when we did a big, a big huge workshop of the show. And he delivered this monologue on the second or third day of rehearsal that was like, I'm just generally extremely very wet when I do this and I'm sorry in advance is the line that Isaac wrote for me. And he really cracked that thing of announcing that at the top of the show, which now feels like, you know, I came out of the closet 23 years ago to my to my friends and family and now I'm really coming out in a major way as just, this is what you're getting, folks. I can't help myself. I'm gay. The second one was I'm a Wet man.

This is just what's happening and I'm owning it and I'm not apologizing it. Yeah, I do apologize for it. Actually, I'm sorry in advance, but declaring it. Yeah, stepping into it. That's right. Slipping into it. I mean, the irony of there's a song called Splish Plash as well, it's like really, this is the moment when you're talking about the parallels.

Yeah, right. It's an excellent show and I've been recommending it to everyone going to New York. Congratulations on it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, you feel like doing more of this? Always. Okay, round two.

Insights. Okay. Insights is the name we've given to this. Here's a quick pause question. Yeah. Is there a tissue? Because I'm just like working out some phlegm from the back of my... I'm just going to make a really gross sound, which you might want to keep in.

Here comes a really loud nose glow. Yeah, I got it. Okay. Okay. Okay. See, now that's not going to come out. You know, so like later when I'm singing beyond the sea, now notes are going to come out. And then that friend is not going to appear.

So thank you for that. Exactly. We're helping you. All right. One, two, or three? Three, please. Three. What makes you irrationally defensive?

Oh, my God. So many things. So many things. Yes. Okay. What's like the, what's the, okay. So the first thing that's coming to my mind is, So I've learned how to play the piano for Just in Time.

So Andrew Resnick, our incredible music supervisor, arranger, music director. I've known him for 10 years. And he will like, so, you know, when you're doing a show, you get notes from every, like, from the choreographer, from the director. You know, it's often, you're constantly being made better by other people telling you from the outside what looks good and what looks bad. Right. And it's an art to be able to take notes and not, like, become defensive or, like, take it personally and through decades of acting, saying to myself, these are, they're not coming

for me. This is not criticism. They're trying to make the show better. They're trying to make you better, Jonathan. Like, chill out. So I've gotten to the point now by the time I'm 40. where, like, I can, I actually love notes. Like, let's, yeah, please, help me.

Give me notes. But? But as a piano player, I'm like, I'm like a seven-year-old because I've only just started learning in December. That's right. You're fragile. Yeah. I'm really fragile. And it's been really hilarious and confronting when Andrew is like, so Jonathan, when you were playing, like, what?

When I played what? What? What did I do? Like, what, like, I know that it's wrong. know that I played it wrong. Like, I know that it's the wrong thing. But I am so defensive. And I get, like, full of rage.

And it's like, the seven-year-old version that feels like they're, like, so good at playing the piano, but they're not. It's, it's like, beginner. It's the humility of beginner energy. It's like whenever you, especially when you get older and you're learning something for the first time. and I feel like I should only speak for myself, not say you. When I'm learning something

for the first time, then it's a new thing I get irrationally defensive when criticized. It's hilarious. What? I'm so, well, you know, I'm just like, I have to play cold.

You know, like, normally, I could like practice and like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, grove, relax. I can hear my editor, like, thinking out loud. What? Rachel, you want to time in on a minute?

I never get irrationally defensive when you give me notes. Never, never. I'm feeling defensive about it now. I'm sweating. I'm sweating. Oh, my God. I hope it's a good sweat. No, it was a rationally defensive sweat.

It's like, that's the sweat from like, what? Right. Oh, my God. We're all basically six years old. We are! We are. Some of us just mask it better than others. Yeah.

Okay, three more cards. One, two, or three. I'm going to go with number two. Number two. What weight did you have to shoulder before you were ready? I mean, the most, yeah, the, I'm trying to think if there's, like, the one that, the obvious one that's coming to my head is like, when I came out of the closet. And the acceptance of that is now it helps me with every other version of that in my life. knowing that I was gay from as early as I can remember and compartmentalizing it, putting that aside

because it would have made the other people around me, meaning my family, the community I grew up in, feel uncomfortable. So, like, putting that away and I guess like shouldering that or holding that, like, dead weight. and then ultimately like through sort of like moving to New York and 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 compartmentalized part of myself out of my mouth like to really like bring the truth to my throat a little bit more and then falling in love with Gavin Creel, RIP,

who just passed last year, and feeling that feeling and going, oh wow, this is way better than anything. And so this, that was like the final, like, kick in the ass that I needed to like, fom, fully express it and talk about it and release that weight.

But then it took another, I would say probably like six or seven years to kind of embrace the parts of me that were still affected or weighed down by that, the effects of that weight. I'm so, in retrospect, looking back, so grateful that someone didn't like rip that truth out of me, that I was surrounded by such loving people. 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 ever really pushed me to declare who I was. It was like, they just like held me with love and allowed that weight to come to the surface.

That's so interesting. I assumed that someone who had so much success so young that the answer would have dovetailed into something about, you know, the weight of fame at such an early age, the weight of early success in a life. But I hear you saying that maybe we're able to manage those things because there was this fundamental weight in the not being your full self that. that you had to experience the releasing of that and coming into your own. And maybe that helped with all the other burdens of young fame and in your young professional life. It's interesting. There's something related to it, though, like what you're talking about with fame, because part of why I wasn't coming out when I, yes, it was the conservative community and the sort of innate, like innate homophobia that I had inside of me from growing up, from being born. born in 1985 and then growing up in Lancaster, PA and all of that. Thank God for willing grace. But why was I not coming out when I moved to New York when I was 19 or during Spring Awakening when I was surrounded by people that loved me?

Part of it was at that time in 2006 coming out, whether it was spoken or unspoken, coming out was like limiting your career as an actor. And what happened when I was with Gavin and I came out was I decided to not care anymore about that. What I was feeling with him and how he was living his life and was so inspirational and such a beacon. of what could be possible, that the idea of being famous or being in movies or being on television, suddenly that those ambitions became so much smaller when I felt love. And so that idea of like fame or success or whatever, I said goodbye to that when I came out. Wow. I'm so sorry about Gavin, by the way.

huge, huge loss, but it's so, it's such a privilege to be able to talk about him and, and, and, uh, keep his memory and his spirit alive. He was one of a kind. And what a gift he gave you in that, oh my God, beyond. In that relationship. Yeah. Jonathan. Okay. Last round. Okay. Beliefs. Beliefs. Three more cards. One, two or three. I want to do three. Three. What's a belief you chose to let go of. I believe I chose to let go of. I would say like from as early as I can remember to when I was 18, I went to church. I grew up in the Methodist, yeah, in the Methodist church.

Even the word belief, the first thing that comes to my mind is religion and belief and belief and believing. And so growing up religious, every Sunday, going to Sunday school, perfect attendance, by the way, all the way through 18. Of course he did.

And I remember being in youth for Christ camp when I was in middle school and going like, okay, at this point I'm knowing that I'm gay, at this point I'm getting into theater. And now, but I'm still like at Youth for Christ camp. And I remember we went splunking.

This is kind of like... In the caves. Yeah. That's what splunking is, right? Like in caves? Yeah. Okay. So this was like kind of an L.O.l moment of being like, all right.

We're in what's called the birthing canal of this one particular cave. Where it's like dark and you can't see it. And I'm like shimminging through the birth canal. And the whole thing was like, think of Jesus. Like when you're, when you're, like, think of Jesus when you're, like, he's going to, like, help you. Yeah. And the thought of Jesus was not helping me. So I was like, I think I might not be religious.

Like, that was the first, like, that was really the first thing was in that cave. And when I went to see. It was not giving you comfort. It was not going to be comfort. And when I went to see the incredible revival that's on right now with Floyd Collins, starring the phenomenal Jeremy Jordan who is so amazing in the show and he was going through these caves

at the beginning I was like, oh no, oh no, I was having a lot of PTSD about Youth for Christ's camp. So that was like the first moment of like, I think I'm not religious. I think that this is, and then we were like, there was like performances or something

and I felt like, and this is just my, you know, all due respect to people that are religious and this is just my own personal journey. so not making a declaration about religion at large, but just for me personally, I was sitting in these events where people were performing and singing

and I felt like, oh my God, it's all theater. I really was like this, the way that music is making people cry and the meditative aspect. And so that's really when I, like, theater became my spiritual, my spiritual, home and I let go of that specific Methodist belief. I understand what you mean.

And theater, correct if I'm interpreting what you're saying wrong, but you're not implying that it's all fake necessarily, like a performance, like like artifice, but it is it is performance of emotions. It is it is the collective experience of feeling something that that, that ecstatic experience of feeling something together and that's what the unseen like like i go see as an audience member i go like for example floyd collins i've just because i'm just talking about it they started singing the riddle song at the end of act one i think it is and i burst into tears i just like could not stop crying and that's belief i i like i know that these are actors on stage

And I know, you know, like, this is not real life. I know that I'm not really in the cave. Also, why am I getting agita from watching Jeremy crawl through the cave? But that's like, that was the belief. I was like, oh, it's storytelling. It's like, because the feeling I'm feeling is cathartic. And it's making me feel things. And that I believe in so deeply.

And that's the, to me, the power of performance and theater. And that, that I was like, oh, well, that, it's, it's, sent me from the church into into theater. Yeah. I'm never going to go splunking and... I'm going to think of you every time I'm splunking, which is not often, I've got to say. I'm not a big splunker. Okay.

Last one, Jonathan. One, two, or three. One, please. Is there anything in your life that feels like praying? Why does that make me so emotional? The show, the show that I'm doing right now, just in time, it's like, it's spiritual. It's like, there's something happening in that theater, and there's something happening with this music, and there's something happening with this company, and I look into the eyes

of Michelle Pock, who plays the character of Polly, and she, sings, that's all. And I feel a, I feel another energy. And there's a kind of like love affair between performer and audience that is in the air, in this show that's like a prayer in that it's like, it's like, it's like there's something deeply that feels like about community. and about seeing each other and about finding each other's eyes and about expressing joy and love and saying to the audience

trying to give them the time of their lives and then at the end saying I love you that feels like a prayer just like a prayer your voice can take me there was a real emotional pivot for me because I was like on the verge of Christ

but I do want to say one more thing on that because there is a card we have in the deck. It didn't come up today. But it's about strangers. And when has a stranger made you feel loved? And I think that's your whole show or that's your whole career is making that intangible connection with a person you have never met. You will most likely never see again. And what a high. What a sacred thing to connect with someone that way. And to do it every night is... Oh my God, it's everything in that when we were finding with our co-book writer Isaac, the end of like, what do we want to say? What do we say to them at the very end? What's the last sentence of the whole show?

We end with music, of course, later on with whenever we're bowing. I love you. It felt like the only possible thing to end with. And that love is real. And it's like, it's, you can get it and you can receive it and you can give it to people that you don't know. But you do know somewhere deep down. We all do know each other. It's that, it's that all-knowing love and, like, respect for, for, in the context of our theater,

oh my God, you fucking came to this show? Like, oh, that, like, thank you. such a love you and thank you. We end the show the same way every time with a trip in our memory time machine. Okay. You pick one moment from your past to relive. It is not a moment you would change anything about.

It's just a moment you would like to linger in a little longer. So what memory do I want to linger in? Ooh, this is so great. I'm going to go back to childhood is where I want to go. And I want to go back, can I change something or I can't change something? No, that's the thing. I can't change it, okay. Can't change anything.

But I'm going back as myself. So I'm going back, it's sort of like in a Christmas Carol. Like I'm going back in time and I'm not becoming my child self. I'm like, okay, so I would go back to March 25th, 1990. was my 10th birthday party. It was a Saturday night. And my grandfather, Wade, died the next day on my 10th birthday. Oh, my God.

And there was a moment that I can remember where we were all the whole family, like my dad's side of the family and my mom's side of the family. We were all sitting around the kitchen table, like eating, and he was there. I remember asking him to whistle. I was getting into whistling and he was a really good whistler. And I remember my dad telling me to ask Wade to whistle and him not doing it. He was like, I think he was like, no, I can't do it right. And I'd be like, what?

And then realizing he was like struggling with his health in that moment that maybe he couldn't get enough breath or something because he died the next day. But I would, yeah, I would go back and live in that moment. That was lovely. I have my editor in my ear saying that that math doesn't add up for your age, which is, I understand. It must have been 91 then, if that was my 10th? 1995, right? Like, 1999. If you were born in 19805.

This is so mortifying. This is all going to go away. This is, no, you can keep this. Keep this in. Because really, you're like, thank God he's an actor. If I put the wrong thing in the time machine, oh, my God. Oh, my God. If I put that in the time machine, it's like it back to the future.

And then I ended up like on a Saturday night, the night before my birthday, and I'm asleep. Right. I'm like six years old, five years old, and I'm asleep. Why am I in my childhood bedroom and I'm asleep? I'm looking at my five-year-old self asleep in a bed. I would have been so pissed. Jonathan Groff. It has been such a pleasure to do this with you.

Thank you so much. Congrats on everything. Just in time is on Broadway right now. Go see it. the story of Bobby Darren, starring the inimitable Jonathan Groff. It has been such a pleasure. Oh, same. Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you. If you like that conversation, go back and check out my episode with Chris Pine. Chris and Jonathan are both known for their leading man energy. But beyond that Disney hero charm, they're both really introspective and refreshingly honest about how they see themselves. This episode was produced by Summer Tomad and edited by Dave Blaine. entered. It was mastered by Patrick Murray. Wildcard's executive producer is Yolanda Sangweni, and our theme music is by Romteen Arabley. You can reach out to us at Wildcard at npr.org. We're going to shuffle the deck and be back with more next week. I'll talk to you then.