Jonathan Groff on LOOKING, Dating & His Favorite Drinking Buddy, Lea Michele

In a new interview with Elle, Jonathan Groff opens up about leading the cast of HBO's LOOKING, his eventful first date - and who his favorite drinking buddy happens to be.

On the awkwardness of his character, Patrick, Groff says:

"Yeah. I feel like I've been in enough social situations to know pretty much how to behave. But Patrick, in some ways, is actually what I'm feeling on the inside. When you meet him in the pilot he's getting a hand job in the woods, and it's clearly something that he's really uncomfortable with. He says to Dom in that episode, 'Why do I keep going on bad dates?' and then, predictably, he has another horrible date. But by the end of the season, he finds himself in this sort of love triangle and he's opened himself up to Richie and he's sort of, indirectly, opened himself up to his boss. Patrick has a lot of growth throughout eight half-hour episodes. What I love most about him is, it feels as if he's ready to wake up and deal with his shit. And that's the process of what you're seeing. We all, hopefully, have that moment where we're like, 'You know what? I'm gonna stop these patterns in my life and try to pull my shit together.'"

On an eventful, recent first date, Groff says: "

I was on a date and we both got pretty drunk and then, I don't smoke, but he was smoking a cigarette, and I was so drunk that I thought it looked so sexy. So I sort of took it from him, smoked some, gave it back to him, and projectile vomited everything I had for dinner. The combo of the booze and the smoking and the lasagna. Why did I eat lasagna on a first date?"

So, who is Groff's favorite friend to drink with, then? You can probably guess.

"Lea Michele. She's not a big drinker, but we, like, laugh. The hardest I've ever laughed was with Lea Michele," he said. "Just like wine with dinner or a cocktail now and again. It's not about what we're drinking, it's about the giggling that happens."

Groff currently leads the cast of HBO's drama LOOKING, and is coming off of Disney's always-popular FROZEN, which also featured Idina Menzel and Kristen Bell. Besides SPRING AWAKENING and GLEE, Groff also appeared in the Shakespeare in the Park productions of HAIR and THE BACCHAE, the off-Broadway plays THE SINGING FOREST and A PRAYER FOR MY ENEMY, Ang Lee's TAKING WOODSTOCK, in the Starz series BOSS, alongside Kelsey Grammer.