Growing up as a theater kid outside of Chicago, Anthony Rapp became a successful stage actor at a very early age, including a long run in the original Broadway production of Rent. His many other credits include landing the role of Lt. Commander Paul Stamets on Star Trek: Discovery. We spoke this week as he was taking his 2-year-old son Rye to a snowy park in New York, and I asked him if he remembered that famous math equation from "Rent," how many minutes are in a year?
Anthony Rapp: Oh, that's an easy one! You could stump me harder than that. 525,600, of course.
Bob Barrett: You were born in the Midwest. How did you get to the New York theater?
Rapp: I had a wonderful director of community theater that I was doing. I did like four or five shows with him, in a suburb of Chicago near where I grew up. And he encouraged my mom to take me to Chicago to try to get professional work. And, you know, we didn't know anything about show business. It was pre-Internet, pre-social media, so there was, not a lot of easily accessible information. But thanks to him, his name is Ray Bradford. he's since passed away, but he was really instrumental in making that happen. And then, you know, in a smaller city like Chicago, I think it's a lot easier for people to try to start out, especially for kids, because there aren't as many kids trying to do it. So I don't know, it just made the opportunities that much more accessible. From Chicago, I got cast in a New York show that led me to a national tour that led me to another New York show eventually. And then down the road, I got a big New York agent and then got more work that way for film and television.
Barrett: When you first saw whatever proposal you saw for "Rent," did you know what was going to happen with that show and how it would change your life?
Rapp: Oh, not at all. What I saw was something that sounded intriguing, interesting, hopefully, a fun, creative experience. But yeah, it was just a 10-performance workshop. It was a 10 performance developmental production, at a small downtown theater called the New York Theater Workshop that I was aware of but had never been to. I knew the director, Michael Greif, and I was an admirer of his. But beyond that, no, I was just excited to get to do something new and to get to do a musical. I hadn't done a musical professionally in a long time, so that's what was on my mind. I'd been out of work. I was. I was working at Starbucks. So, yeah, that's all I knew. I certainly had no idea that it would change not only my life but the lives of many, many people and the face of musical theater.
Barrett: Do you still consider yourself more a theater actor than anything else?
Rapp: Yeah, I mean, that it's my home. It's really like when I'm in a show, the rhythms of being in a show and on stage, that the eight shows a week rhythm, the fact that you have your day to yourself and then you come in and you put it all out there night after night. I don't know. I've done that so long from when I was so young that it's the most familiar, most comfortable thing for me. But I've also had some amazing experiences on film and television. I'm a very avid cinephile. So the fact that I'm a part of cinema and television, which television certainly has gotten to the level of cinema in many ways, that's very exciting to me.
Barrett: How did "Star Trek: Discovery" come into your life?
Rapp: It was dropped out of the sky, no pun intended. It was a gift from the gods. I was getting ready for bed one night and I just, you know, checked my email before I put the phone down for the night. And in my email inbox was an email from my representative saying, are you interested in being part of the new Star Trek show? And I had no idea that there was a new Star Trek show. And it was an offer. I didn't even have to audition. I was a fan from being a kid coming home from school and watching it on WGN in Chicago. So it was a part of my childhood, but I never imagined myself being in it myself. It's just one of those things. As a super fan of comic books and science fiction and fantasy, Lord of the Rings, all this stuff, I never really leaned into the possibility that I could be a part of it myself as an actor. So when it just came out of nowhere, it was such an incredible surprise and a huge gift.
Barrett: I always wondered this and I've spoken with a lot of cast members from different Star Trek shows. When you get cast in a new show like this, do any of the old cast members from old series, you know, contact you and say, here's what you're getting into, kid?
Rapp: Not directly, but we did then meet them pretty soon. I don't remember the first occasion, but there are events and conventions and all those things in the Star Trek legacy, and the family extends over these decades. So at our premiere, there were wonderful members of some of the original series especially. It was really meaningful to meet Nichelle Nichols, especially since we had the first Black female lead of a Star Trek series. So Sonequa (Martin-Green) and Nichelle got to meet each other. That was really meaningful. And then Jonathan Frakes, who was Number One from 'Next Generation,' he's also become a very prominent director and he directed a bunch of our episodes and he's become a mentor and a friend. So it wasn't like direct outreach. But when we then met them all, they all did say, welcome to the family. This is going to change your life forever. And this will be a part of, we will all be a part of each other's lives forever.
Barrett: It seems every Star Trek series after the first one has a recurring love story. And your love story in Discovery Just went in so many wonderful directions.
Rapp: Thank you, I appreciate that. I agree it was a very satisfying story to get to tell and I had a wonderful partner and friend in Wilson Cruz to help me tell it. And then our extended family in Blu del Barrio and Ian Alexander was just a little wonderful bonus to all of it.
Barrett: Did you work with Wilson in Rent?
Rapp: Yeah, we crossed paths briefly. The original Angel on Broadway, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, left in December of '97 and Wilson Cruz had been doing it on tour and he was brought in to replace Wilson Heredia. And before I left (the show) like three or four weeks later, our time and the show overlapped in a wonderful way. So when I was cast in Discovery and I heard, you know, that they were going to cast my partner and Wilson Cruz reached out to me and said that he was in the running and I really crossed my fingers he was going to get it because I knew we would have a really good time together and then I was very happy when he did.
Barrett: Since you joined the Star Trek franchise, how have the fans reacted to you? What have you heard from people when you go out to conventions?
Rapp: I've heard that they really do appreciate our love story. I also personally really enjoy when they say, 'Yeah, at first I wasn't sure what to think of you because you know, Stamets is pretty crusty in some ways, pretty flinty.' But then they talk about his growth and the way he softened. And that's an aspect of the character that I especially love. And I really enjoyed playing the kind of crusty, harder-edged versions of him because I think that's really important that people, you get to see people's growth. And that's one of the things about the new era of TV storytelling is you get to see characters grow and change. In the old days, they were a little more static because you spend time with these characters, you want to get familiar with them, you want them to always kind of be the same. So that's one of the nice things about the new era.
Barrett: I think you're the first Star Trek character who ever actually became a part of the Engine.
Rapp: Yeah, definitely. And all of that, I just think all of the really imaginative taking of real science, inspired by the real-life Mycologist Paul Stamets, same name as my character, led to some very fun and interesting and exciting new ways of exploring all kinds of themes. And, I was happy to be the beneficiary of that.
Barrett: Anything in the future you can talk about, are you going to pop up in (the new Star Trek series) Starfleet Academy? Once or twice?
Rapp: I mean, it's possible. I don't know at this point. I think it's very possible down the road and I'd certainly be happy to join.
