BWW Interviews: Jillian Mueller a Young Giant in FLASHDANCE

Even though Jillian Mueller is still in her teens, she is already a veteran to Broadway and touring around the country. She has played in such shows as 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas,' 'Bye, Bye Birdie,' American Idiot,' 'Memphis' and her latest show FLASHDANCE playing the lead role of Alex. She shared with Broadway World some of her great moments on stage as well as the hard work she had to make it to where she is today.

How did you get started in theater?

It's something that I always knew that I wanted to do. There was no question. Ever since I can remember, I was dressing up and dancing and singing and acting. It was always a passion that I had and I started taking dance lessons when I was 3. Then I begged my parents, "Now I want to act." At 6, I started taking acting lessons and by the time I was 8, I was in singing lessons. I started doing Community Theater. I'm originally from New Jersey so I'm only about an hour out of New York City. I started when I was 11 I started asking my parents. At this point, I was doing Community Theater and all my dance lessons. I knew this is what I wanted to do. It was no questions asked, this was what I was going to do. I started asking my parents, "Can you take me into New York City to audition for big time stuff and I got my first part in a show when I was 12 and that got the ball rolling. I got my professional start when I was 12. I got my equity card in my first Broadway show and I was in it to win it. My first show was "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." I was a Who. I did that for 2 Christmas seasons. About a year and a half after that, I then did "Bye Bye Birdie" on Broadway. I did that with John Stamos and Gina Gershon. That was a totally different experience. It was awesome and very special. I did that and then I did the "American Idiot" Nation Tour just last year. Then I did 2 months on the "Memphis" Tour. Then 3 weeks after that, I started doing the "FLASHDANCE" Tour so that was a very, very quick turnaround.

Did you come through San Antonio with the "Memphis" Tour?

I literally just was in San Antonio the very end of February just this year. This is my 3rd National Tour within a year so it's weird, I will go to places again so it's only a couple of months after and it's very trippy.

What did you like about San Antonio when you were here before?

The weather. New York at the end of February, it was freezing. It's beautiful. For some reason, I love Texas. It's one of my favorite places to go on tour. I've been to Dallas before; I've been to Ft. Worth, I've been to San Antonio, and we're in Houston right now. I love it. First of all, we do the Riverwalk and all of that. It's just a great little area. I've only been in that area. The people are nice. The food's great. It's a lovely time, it's a lovely city. I'm super excited to go back.

So you have gotten your experience from being and shows.

I'm young so I technically would be in college now. I did not do the university route. I did the learn through experience route. I got my start when I was really young and I think it gave me a different kind of insight. I think I learned pretty early on that in life in general is figuring out what you want to do and then just doing it, working really hard to be really good at it then just going for it. Luckily I've been able to work and keep it up just auditioning constantly. But I think sometimes people forget that just because I didn't do the university route means I never trained and that's not true. I've always trained very, very, very hard. I was going to New York City almost every day to take dance lessons and singing lessons and trained at different acting conservatory programs. I made my own schedule as opposed to a regular university where they tell you when your classes are, who your teachers are, I picked what I wanted to do and where I wanted to learn.

What role has been your favorite?

One of my favorite parts was in "American Idiot." I was actually the swing. The swing is offstage. I wasn't onstage every night. I understudied 4 different girls. So I got to do 4 different parts. I was on call at any given time. There were times midway through the show where I would be thrown on. Just as a show, I love that show. It's special to me and getting to do that show was unbelievable. Also, I kind of had a quirky experience with that show. I got offered that show when it was on Broadway and 2 days before I was supposed to start rehearsals for it, they announced it was closing so I didn't get to do it. At the time, that's hard. It's not like when you are really close to a show and you get yourself excited and then you don't get it. No, I was told I was going to do it. I'd already gone through that. But, then, luckily, they were doing the national tour and they asked me to do it. So, I did it and when I was the swing at the time, there were definitely those moments when I was like, "I hate this. It's so hard. I'm on call at any second." Hindsight is everything because looking back on it; I wouldn't trade being a swing in that show for anything. It was such an important experience me and it's quite a whole other world to that kind of job and I'm glad I got to do it and to do it for that show. I love that show more than anything to be able to do 4 different parts in it is great.

When did you start with FLASHDANCE?

April 2nd (2013) was my first day of rehearsal. I'm a newbie because I'm in Houston right now and it's only my second city of performing. I officially opened with FLASHDANCE May 7th. I had about 3 weeks of rehearsals on the road and then I had 2 weeks where I was doing the 4 shows over the weekends like my own preview period. They wanted to ease me into because it's such a beast of a role. Then, I officially started in Costa Mesa, May 7th and started doing 8 shows a week. It's still very fresh and new for me which is great.

Tell us a little about your character. What are some of the things you have in common with Alex and what are some differences?

This part for me personally is very near and dear to my heart as cheesy as it sounds. It's about this girl Alex who is 19 years old and when she was 17 she picked up and moved. She had an alcoholic father and a broken home. Her mom wasn't around; she died when she was 10. She moved to Pittsburgh and started working at the steel mill. She had this desire and love and dream for dance and so at night she works at the nightclub. It's not a strip club. It's a nightclub kind of like a burlesque kind of feel to it. There's the bar, Harry's, where the girls are classy and it's about the dance and the presentation of it as opposed to the strip club across the street which is just about taking your clothes off. She works there and it's sort of her release or escape to live out her ambitions and dreams to dance. But, she has real dreams of being a real ballerina. So, there's a ballet school and that's her dream. So the whole show is about the pushing and pulling of self-doubt. In the process, she falls in love with the boss. She was a girl with the mentality of I'm not getting into that and there's all that. And that is her journey. For me, I've been told by our director throughout the whole process has been, tell your story. I went on my first national tour at 17 with "American Idiot." That was something that no one would ever expect. People were like, "No, you're too young." It happened and I felt very fortunate that someone believed in me enough to let me do it. I have this self-made independence I feel is very similar to the character Alex. She's very strong and she has a dream of going for it. I feel like there are so many strong ties to me and her which is great because that's what makes the part so fun to play and very rewarding. With the things like the self-doubt and I can't do it and I'm not good enough. She's not a professional dancer. She's never taken a class. Everything she learned has been on her own or from TV. When she compares herself to the other dancers, she feels like she doesn't measure up. And me, personally, being the young one in the room at auditions and especially with people who have gone to college that is definitely always in my head. "Am I even good enough? Can I even do this? Should I even be here?" So she kind of goes through the same thing.

What do other cast members teach you?

We have a really cool group of people because we people that come from a musical theater background and we have a lot of true dancers. We have girls that are prima ballerinas and guys that are very focused is dance. They travel the country and the world doing it. It's a mish mosh of people. They've been really great because the tour started in January and I joined in April and that's a very hard thing, especially stepping into a part like this. The people have truly been so lovely and so welcoming and I feel there is a team feel to it. Once it (the cast) starts breaking off and it's not like "we're in this together" I think sometimes there's issues and all of that and I truly feel that way. We're all on tour together which is a very cool thing. You have to work together, you have to live together and you socialize together. The relationship you have when you're on tour with them as opposed to if I was in New York doing a show with them, it's a totally different thing. I think it's amazing and it's something you'll never forget and your relationship with somebody is definitely a bond when you've been on tour with somebody. You know everything about them. It's a good group. We're all on the same page. And you know what's really cool about this show; you know it's a brand new show. It's not like this was on Broadway. They were still working on the scenes and writing while the show was still in rehearsals and before it opened. Shows like that can get very frustrating because they're rewriting stuff and everything's still up in the air, nothing's concrete and people can get frustrated and give up in those kinds of moments. Everybody's hearts are in it no matter what. No matter what the reviews are everybody's heart is in it. Everybody's committed to making this the best they possibly can and we also have a really good time doing the show. The show is such a fun show. And I think people get that when they see it, I hope.

Do you have any hidden talents?

This is kind of weird. I'm a black belt in Taekwon-Do. It's a special skill. That's what I call it.

If you had not become an actress, what would you have done?

This is cliché, but I'm no good at anything else. I don't think I would be an asset to any other industry. It's all I've known. I'm trying to think. I've always liked things that are personable like talking to people and planning things like event planning. But, I would have to say I would be a do nothing. I would just sit on the couch and do nothing. When I was wrestling with the idea of going to college and there were family members that were like, "Well you need a backup plan." But, you can't. There's no backup plan for life. You have to do something that you love to do and be in it. You can't brace yourself to have any down. No matter what you do in life you're going to have ups and you're gonna have the downs so you might as well pick something that you love so that way you can go through those ups and downs and know that you're going to get out on the other side as a happy person. Yeah, no plan B.

Do you have any advice for people thinking about getting into the business?

Persistence is key. You've gotta go for it. I also believe luck is when preparation meets opportunity. I think that you have to go for it but you also have to train really hard. You want to be the best at what you do so when the opportunity comes up you want to be prepared and you want to now that you can nail it. What was interesting about me getting this show was that the 18 years of all the hard work I put in and all of the training that I've had and all of my experiences with different shows I truly thought were wracked up to this moment of me getting this part and having this moment. And that was my luck meets preparation meet opportunity moment. I also always say for people that want to get into it. It's a weird thing but I say, "Don't listen to anybody." Because everybody knows everything and everybody also knows nothing. I know for myself if I listened to people; I started going in for auditions when I was young. I was going in for shows that were Broadway shows like "Momma Mia" to shows that I probably shouldn't have gone in for but I knew in my head that I knew that I had the ability and I knew that if I looked old enough, no one would question it. I just went for it and I never would have gotten "American Idiot" which I know people were like, "You booked that?" when I was so young. You just gotta do it because you really don't know. Somebody's always going to look at you and say, "You're not old enough, you're not pretty enough." Everybody always has something to say. You can't listen to it. You gotta follow your gut and you gotta do it. I say as long as you work hard and you go for it don't listen to anybody's stuff.

FLASHDANCE plays from June 18-23, 2013 at the MAJESTIC THEATRE in San Antonio, Texas. Tickets can be obtined by going to their website at majesticempire.com.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jeremy Daniel