Photo Flash: Neil Patrick Harris Covers Time Out New York; Talks HEDWIG and More

Neil Patrick Harris just graced Time Out New York's cover and gave an interview on his return to Broadway in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Scroll down for a look at the cover image, check out some of his funniest quips from the conversation below, and read the full interview here!

Neil Patrick Harris on...

When he knew he loved theater: One of my favorite shows of all time is [1989 musical] City of Angels. I knew I loved the theater when that whole set turned from black-and-white to color in, like, five seconds. When that gave me an erection [Laughs], I knew that the theater was my home..... That's when I fell in lust with theater. I came a little. [Laughs] But just a little, because I was young.

Why he picked Hedwig for his big return to Broadway: I love the music-it's remarkable in its intricacy. It's punk, and the lyricism is super poetic. And physically, I'm intrigued by the process of transformation-having to become someone of a different gender. To be such a broken, fractured spirit, and to play with the idea of how that turns into recovery. It seemed like an odd, and yet appropriate, left turn from Barney Stinson.

How he's preparing to play the transgender punk-rocker: Throughout the last three months, I've been working with Spencer [Liff], the choreographer, on finding a physicality for the character that isn't gonna make me feel insecure when I'm stomping around. Because it's less about a polished piece-it'll be a little more free-form. We're trying to come up with a movement vocabulary that I'm comfortable doing, so if I wanna ratchet it up a few notches, it won't feel new and uncomfortable; it'll still feel like it's in Hedwig's body. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity-[to play] that overt a character on a Broadway stage. And it's not pretty. It's nasty and rugged and dangerous, and I think that's exciting for Broadway.

How he'll stay in shape, and survive a Broadway run without an understudy: I'm planning on hibernating in my off-hours and laying low so that I can brang it on the stage. It's funny, because the part is so self-destructive and hard-core, and yet it's not the kind of role where I'll be able to go out drinking afterward or be underslept. But that's actually gonna be kind of easy to do, given that we have a family and little kids [Gideon Scott and Harper Grace, both three] that wake up early. It'll definitely be a bipolar existence: being a family man with David [Burtka, his husband] and the kids in the day and being a super hard-core punk rocker in the evenings.

Photo Credit: Meredith Jenks, courtesy of Time Out New York.