Jonathan Drew Groff born March 26, 1985 is an American actor and singer known for his performances on stage, screen, and television. Groff is the recipient of a Grammy Award and has been nominated for two Tony Awards.
Groff rose to prominence in 2006 for his performance in the lead role of Melchior Gabor in the original Broadway production of Spring Awakening, for which he received critical acclaim and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical. He returned to Broadway in 2015 to play the role of King George III in Hamilton, a performance for which he earned a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. He also appeared on the cast recording, for which he received the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.
Groff is also known for his roles in television and film. He guest-starred as the recurring role of Jesse St. James in the Fox musical-comedy series Glee (2009–2015) and was featured on four of its soundtrack albums, also making a special appearance in the concert tour Glee Live! In Concert! in 2010. He voiced the roles of Kristoff and Sven in the Disney animated films Frozen (2013) and Frozen II (2019), two of the highest-grossing films of all time. Groff starred as Patrick Murray in the HBO comedy-drama series Looking (2014–2015), often credited as one of the network’s first gay TV series, and its subsequent series finale television film, Looking: The Movie (2016). Groff is also known for his starring role as FBI Special Agent Holden Ford in the critically-acclaimed Netflix period crime drama Mindhunter (2017–2019), produced by David Fincher.
Groff’s upcoming projects include The Matrix 4, that is set to premiere on December 22, 2021 on HBO Max, as well as Invincible, Molly and the Moon, and Lost Ollie.
Early life
Jonathan Drew Groff was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to Julie (née Witmer), a physical education teacher, and Jim Groff, a harness horse trainer. He has an older brother, David. Groff is a first cousin of singer James Wolpert, a semi-finalist on the fifth season of The Voice. Groff was raised in Ronks, Pennsylvania. He is of German, English, Swiss, and Scottish descent.
Groff’s father’s family is Mennonite; of his upbringing, he has said: “My mother’s side of the family is Methodist, which is how I was raised. It was conservative in that I had strong values – sitting down and eating with the family every day, listening to authority and going to church every week and having perfect attendance at Sunday school. But at the same time, my parents always encouraged my brother and me to be happy with what we were doing. …they never pushed my brother and me to be anything we didn’t want to be.”
Groff’s roots in theater and acting can be traced to an early age. When he was three years old, Groff fell in love with Julie Andrews’ performance as Mary Poppins, watching a video of the movie over and over, and dressing up as the character for Halloween in a family home movie in which he also sang a song from the film. Growing up, he and his brother put on childhood home productions, such as a performance of The Wizard of Oz in his father’s barn, where he played Dorothy. Groff joined his middle school and high school drama departments, and it was there that he became inspired to start a career in theater.
In his adolescence, Groff took part in many community productions in his hometown of Lancaster. He performed at the Fulton Opera House in The Sound of Music, Ragtime, Evita, My Fair Lady, Peter Pan, The Pirates of Penzance, and Rags and The Ephrata Performing Arts Center as Edgar in Bat Boy: The Musical and Ugly in Honk!.
Groff graduated from Conestoga Valley High School in 2003 and intended to attend Carnegie Mellon University, but he deferred his admission for a year when he was cast as Rolf in a Non-Equity national tour of The Sound of Music. After the tour, Groff decided to move to New York City instead of attending college and begin his career.
Career
2005–2009: Career beginnings and Spring Awakening
Groff earned his Actors’ Equity Association card in 2005, with the musical Fame at the North Shore Music Theatre. That same year, he made his Broadway debut as an understudy for the lead role and a swing for the musical In My Life by Joseph Brooks.
His breakout performance occurred in 2006, when Groff originated the lead role of Melchior Gabor in the Broadway production of the rock musical Spring Awakening. The musical tells the story of repressed adolescents in late 19th century Germany navigating their sexuality, adapted from Frank Wedekind’s original 1891 play by Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater and directed by Michael Mayer. He first performed the role in the original Off-Broadway production with the Atlantic Theater Company from May 19, 2006 through August 5, 2006, before moving to Broadway. On Broadway, Groff played the role from its debut on December 10, 2006, through May 18, 2008, when he departed the production with his co-star and best friend Lea Michele. The musical was ground-breaking at the time, garnering 11 nominations at the 61st Tony Awards and being awarded the Tony Award for Best Musical, Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical, Tony Award for Best Original Score, and the Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album, which the Grammys did not award to vocalists at that time. Groff’s performance was also met with high acclaim. He was nominated for a Drama Desk Award and a Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical for his performance.
In 2007, Groff played the recurring role of Henry Mackler for eleven episodes on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live. His character’s storyline about a school shooting was cut due to the Virginia Tech shooting in April 2007. From July 22 through August 31, 2008, Groff played as Claude in the Shakespeare in the Park production of Hair. Groff was cast in the FX series Pretty/Handsome directed and written by Ryan Murphy and filmed a first episode, but the pilot was not picked up. He appeared as Michael Lang in Ang Lee’s comedy-drama film Taking Woodstock (2009), about the 1969 Woodstock Festival. Starting November 14, 2008, Groff next appeared in the Off-Broadway production of the play Prayer for My Enemy by Craig Lucas. In August 2009, Groff performed in The Bacchae as Dionysus, as a part of the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park. For both performances, Groff received an Obie Award.
2010–2015: Glee, Frozen and Hamilton
Groff in 2010
Starting in 2010, Groff appeared as a recurring guest star in fifteen episodes of the Fox musical comedy-drama Glee as Jesse St. James, lead performer in rival glee club Vocal Adrenaline, alongside Lea Michele. In August 2010, he made his West End debut in Deathtrap as Clifford Anderson, at the Noël Coward Theatre, directed by Matthew Warchus.
From August to October 2012, Groff appeared as Ian Todd in the second and final season of the Starz series Boss. Groff then portrayed Ken in the Center Theatre Group’s production of the play Red, alongside Alfred Molina. The show ran from August 1 through September 9, 2012. In March 2013, Groff and Molina reprised their roles for six more performances of the play, this time in the L.A. Theatre Works. These performances were recorded for broadcast on radio.
In 2013, Groff starred in C.O.G., a comedy-drama film adaptation based on a short story written by David Sedaris in his book of essays, Naked. In the film, Groff plays David, loosely based on Sedaris himself, a young repressed gay man who moves to Oregon in search of a new purpose. The film, directed and written by Kyle Patrick Alvarez, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2013 and was released in theaters on September 20, 2013 to mixed but mostly positive reviews, with critics citing a “meandering” plot. As Dan Callahan from RogerEbert.com wrote of Groff’s performance, “Groff has an innate sweetness and likability about him no matter what he does, and …. brings a yearning to his role that steadily makes this semi-amusing tale of a fish out of water into a serious and often surprising drama”.
In 2013, Groff voiced Kristoff and Sven in Disney’s animated feature Frozen, alongside Idina Menzel, Kristen Bell, and Josh Gad. Kristoff is a rugged mountain man and love interest to Anna, played by Kristen Bell, and Sven is his reindeer. The film premiered on November 19, 2013 and later won an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and BAFTA for Best Animated Feature. Following the film’s massive commercial success and its ranking as the highest-grossing animated film of all time, the fifteenth highest-grossing film of all time, and the highest-grossing film of 2013, Groff reprised his role in the short film sequel Frozen Fever, which premiered on March 13, 2015.
Starting from January 2014, Groff starred as Patrick Murray, a gay video game developer, in HBO’s comedy-drama series Looking. The series revolved around a group of gay friends navigating relationships in San Francisco and was praised for its representation of LGBTQ+ characters and experiences, although common criticism was a slightly boring and disjointed plot. The series received two seasons but was cancelled by HBO on March 23, 2015, with the network greenlighting a television film to conclude the story. The film premiered on HBO on July 23, 2016. Groff’s performance was well received by critics, with one critic from The New York Times calling Groff’s performance “excellent … Mr. Groff always made his tics, inconsistencies and operatically scaled mistakes believable.”
In May 2014, Groff played Craig Donner in The Normal Heart directed by Ryan Murphy, the film adaptation of Larry Kramer’s play The Normal Heart, which depicts the New York City AIDS crisis in the 1980s. The Normal Heart won the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Movie and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Movie. He returned to the London stage on May 19, 2015, to star in a one-night-only concert of the musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, at the Royal Festival Hall.
Groff starred in a production of the musical A New Brain as Gordon Schwinn, a composer who suffers from arteriovenous malformation, based on the real-life composer William Finn, presented as part of the New York City Center’s Encores! Off-Center staged concert series. The show was directed by James Lapine and took place from June 24 through June 27, 2015, with Groff performing alongside Aaron Lazar, Dan Fogler, and Ana Gasteyer. Groff was praised for his performance, as one critic from the New York Post says, “Though the musical is uneven, Groff effortlessly keeps the production together with his supple voice and low-key charm.”
On March 3, 2015, he joined the cast of the hit musical Hamilton, replacing Brian d’Arcy James in the role of King George III. He held the role for the remainder of the show’s off-Broadway production, through May 3, 2015. He reprised the role in the Broadway production, which started performances July 13, 2015. Theater critic Ben Brantley of The New York Times called Groff’s performance “delicious … His is the voice of vintage Britpop, rendered in a leisurely, ironic, condescending vein to a distant population he regards as savages.” Groff, along with the rest of the cast, won a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album for appearing as a featured performer on the original Broadway cast recording. He was also nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical.
2016–present: Mindhunter, Little Shop of Horrors and Frozen II
In October 2017, Groff starred in the Netflix series Mindhunter, executively produced by David Fincher and Charlize Theron. In the series, Groff portrays Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Holden Ford, a serial killer profiler in the Behavioral Science Unit interviewing and investigating real-life serial killers and murder cases. His character is loosely based on the real-life John E. Douglas, one of the first criminal profilers in FBI history. Groff also starred in the second season of the series, which premiered on August 16, 2019. The series and Groff’s performance were critically acclaimed, with Collider calling his performance “exceptionally affecting as Holden. Groff has always had a talent for making his characters empathetic.” Season 3 has since been put on hold indefinitely as Fincher continued with other projects, although he may one day revisit the series.
In July 2017, Groff starred as Jase in the first podcast musical, 36 Questions, based on The New York Times article “The 36 Questions That Lead to Love”. The podcast follows the story of an estranged husband and wife trying to salvage their marriage with the titular set of 36 questions. On July 23 2017, Groff performed in a one-night only symphonic concert production of Sondheim on Sondheim at the Hollywood Bowl. In January 2018, Groff starred as the titular character in the Off-Broadway production of The Bobby Darin Story, a three-day concert and biographical retelling of the life of 1950s singing icon Bobby Darin, presented as part of the Lyrics & Lyricists series at 92nd Street Y and directed by Alex Timbers.
In October 2019, Groff starred in the Off-Broadway revival of Little Shop of Horrors as Seymour Krelborn, a florist who raises a plant with a thirst for human flesh, alongside Christian Borle and Tammy Blanchard and directed by Michael Mayer. The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Groff was “never-better … hilarious, endearing and in tremendous voice” and that he “disappears into a role he was born to play.” Groff was nominated for the 63rd Grammy Awards for Best Musical Theater Album as part of the cast recording of Little Shop of Horrors.
In November 2019, Groff reprised his role as Kristoff in Frozen II. He sang a solo song for the movie, titled “Lost in the Woods”. In January 2020, Frozen II surpassed the first installment, becoming the highest-grossing animated film of all time. Groff also reprised the character in the 2017 short Olaf’s Frozen Adventure and the video game Kingdom Hearts III in 2019.
Groff’s Broadway performance of King George III in Hamilton has been featured in the film production on Disney+ as of July 3, 2020. In 2021, the film of the musical received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture of a Musical or Comedy.
In December 2019, it was announced Groff would join the cast for The Matrix 4, the fourth installment of The Matrix franchise, alongside Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. It will be released on HBO Max on December 22, 2021. In November 2020, Deadline announced Groff would star in Molly and the Moon, a musical film alongside Kristen Bell. In December 2020, it was announced Groff will be joining the cast of Invincible as Rick Sheridan, an Amazon Prime adult superhero animated series based on the Invincible comics created by Robert Kirkman, with the first episodes expected to be released on March 26, 2021. In March 2021, Netflix announced Groff would star in the live-action/animation hybrid series Lost Ollie directed by Peter Ramsey based on William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg’s book Ollie’s Odyssey, with Groff taking on the title role as Ollie, a lost toy searching for the boy who lost him.
Personal life
Groff publicly came out as gay during the National Equality March in 2009 and was romantically linked to actor Gavin Creel that same year. From 2010 to 2013, he was in a relationship with actor Zachary Quinto. Since early 2018, he has been dating New Zealand choreographer Corey Baker, whom he met while both were teaching at Christchurch International Musical Theatre Summer School (CIMTSS). Groff has taught master classes in acting and musical theatre with the New York Film Academy, Broadway Workshop, Temple University, and the National YoungArts Foundation, among others.
Sharing his experiences coming out and as a gay man, Groff has said, “I came out because I was in love initially. And I thought – because there’s this weird stigma of, like, if you come out, will it affect your career? … And I thought, you know what? I would rather be in love. This feeling of love is so great and so deep. I would rather be in love than worry and obsess about my career.” He initially was hesitant to accept the role in the gay television series Looking, citing insecurities around being typecast in gay roles, but he found the experience incredibly rewarding, saying, “Getting the opportunity to spend those three years expressing myself as a gay man and … talking about gay issues was truly life-altering for me and made me so much more comfortable in my own skin in a way that I didn’t anticipate when I said yes to the show.”
Groff was diagnosed with melanoma in his early 20s and underwent surgery for removal.
In April 2015, Groff was honored by the Point Foundation with the Point Horizon Award honoring a “trailblazer who has taken a leadership role as an advocate” of LGBTQIA communities. In December 2015, he was honored by Equality Pennsylvania with the Bayard Rustin Award, which “recognizes a Pennsylvanian who is continuing the work to ensure that the LGBT community will be visible, accepted, and celebrated in our society.” In 2017, Groff was named Out100’s Entertainer of the Year, celebrating impactful LGBTQ+ public figures.