Interview: Jonathan Bennett on His Broadway Debut: 'I've Dreamt About This Moment'

Jonathan Bennett's Broadway debut has been 25 years in the making.

He is currently appearing as Sir Robin in Spamalot, joining an all-star Broadway cast with James Monroe Iglehart, Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer, Ethan Slater, Christopher Fitzgerald, Nik Walker, and more.

After originally moving to New York City at 19 to pursue a career on the stage, Bennett's was quickly swept away to Hollywood, notably appearing as the original Aaron Samuels in 2004's Mean Girls alongside Lindsay Lohan.

BroadwayWorld sat down with Bennett to discuss his lifelong Broadway dreams, how Spamalot is similar to Mean Girls, working with the cast of the new revival, and more.

You're making your Broadway debut. How are you feeling?

I mean, it's a weird feeling when your dreams actually come true because I've dreamt about this moment since I was five years old and I get to step out on the stage this week and make my Broadway debut in Spamalot. You always hear of dreams coming true, but you never think that they would actually come true for yourself. this is a perfect example of that happening and saying, "Yes, they do."

And I know you're not a stranger to the stage, what was your theater experience like before this?

I grew up doing musical theater in high school and college. I've done everything from Little Shufflecoars to Joseph to How to Succeed to Damn Yankees to West Side Story. I've done them all growing up, but I actually moved to New York when I was 19 to pursue a career on Broadway. I ended up booking All My Children, the soap opera, instead. So I started working in TV and film. Then that led to Mean Girls, which then changed my trajectory to TV and film. I never got to pursue my dreams of being on the Broadway stage or performing live in front of an audience. It's been an itch that I haven't been able to scratch for 25 years and now I get to finally scratch it.

Spamalot is such a fun one to be a part of, too. What was your first reaction when you heard that this is it?

I'm a huge Monty Python fan and Eric Idle fan. It's so funny because I'm a huge fan of the movie, but Spamalot is the one musical that I knew very little about. I had seen it once in my life, but it's not one that I would normally put on Spotify and sing in the car.

So when I read the script for the first time and realized all the different characters that my track of Sir Robin gets to play, I melted because it's like you get to play the Tower Guard, Guard One, Brother Maynard, and Sir Robin, which are all just iconic moments in Monty Python.

Monty Python is also such a specific type of humor. What has it been for you like tapping into that kind of comedy with this show?

It's interesting doing something like Monty Python because it's almost the same as Mean Girls. Like everyone knows the Monty Python cadence. Everybody knows what these scenes sound like. Just like when I say, "That's why her hair is so big, it's full of secrets." You know what the cadence and what Daniel Franzese's voice sounds like when I say that sentence to you. You can hear it in your head. That's the same with Monty Python.

It's really a balance of making sure you deliver the Monty Python iconic sensibility and cadence while still putting your own brushstroke of a character over it. If you go too far away from the original, people will be disappointed because they come to hear it said a certain way. But if you do it too on the nose, it's like you're imitating the original. So you have to find this kind of great balance of the middle ground.

This revival, specifically, puts such an excellent new spin on that classic.

I think that's a testament to Josh Rhodes. Josh Rhodes made this one a party, as opposed to the original that took itself a little more seriously. This production is a little bit more of a party than the original is.

You have this showstopper in act two, "You Won't Succeed on Broadway." What is it like to just have this big production number in a Broadway musical?

Listen, you get to make your debut on Broadway and while you're making your debut on Broadway you get the 11th hour number in act 2, where the words are about being on Broadway. So it's life imitating art or art imitating life at this moment because I get to sing: "To get along on Broadway, to sing your song on Broadway, to hit the top on Broadway and not lose." Those are the actual words I say. I get to have a whole monologue about how special Broadway is and what a special place it is, filled with many special people.

You get to have that moment where it's almost like it feels like, I don't want to say closure because it's the beginning of my Broadway career, but there's this like satisfaction of getting to say those words in your debut when you've been wanting to do this for 25 years. The words just hit differently.

I know you've been around the Broadway scene a bit. What has it been like in rehearsals for you, on that Broadway grind with this cast?

Almost every principal character on that Broadway stage with me is either a Tony winner or Tony nominee and then Jonathan Bennett. When you work with people like this and you've been in these rehearsals with these people, they're all so talented and so good at what they do. This cast is the best of the best of broadway and when you get to work with them, it just elevates you and your performance. It just brings you up.

So I feel so lucky that I get to step on the stage during all these rehearsals and be elevated with someone like Charlie Sutton, our dance captain, who's been teaching the show, who's been in 10 Broadway shows, who was in the original cast of Aida and Kinky Boots and Wicked. To have someone that has that much experience be the one that teaches you the show has been such a rewarding gift.

It's really so exciting listening to what this experience sounds like to you and what it means to you. For the audiences that are coming to see you in this musical, what do you hope they take away from it?

This is an absolute joy-filled party. We aren't here to teach you anything. We are here to make you laugh and turn you off your brain and just enjoy laughter and comedy for two hours. That's what I want people to come and do. I want them to come, suspend reality, and just laugh. I think right now in the world, we all need a little bit of laughter, and we need joy, and that's exactly what this musical delivers. It's just pure clownery and joy for two hours.

Watch a preview of Spamalot on Brodway here:

Photos by Andy Henderson