What goes up must come down; I’m not going to be in ‘Hamilton’ forever. Everything I work on won’t have this kind of success. – Leslie Odom, Jr.
We want to pull out songs from the American song book, and we want to make them palatable for a modern audience. – Leslie Odom, Jr.
When I step on the stage and sing ‘Wait for It,’ I’m singing that for everybody. I don’t mean I’m singing it for them; I mean, you are their voice. – Leslie Odom, Jr.
I’ve spent a long time learning my way around a stage as an actor, but this I don’t know as well. Humbly, I’m excited to get with a band and perform regularly as an artist and see what I can learn and how I can grow in that space. – Leslie Odom, Jr.
When we go and cheer Cynthia Erivo on in ‘The Color Purple,’ it’s because we’ve elected her to be our voice. She sings ‘I’m Here’ for all of us. – Leslie Odom, Jr.
I don’t have any control over the offers that are going to come to me or not come to me. But I can’t go backward, and so that’s what’s tricky. – Leslie Odom, Jr.
There was a lot of the ‘Hamilton’ experience that was like a locomotive. It was a hurricane, so the apartment often looked like a hurricane. There were clothes and shoes all over. We were getting more things in than we had room for. We had to figure out how to make space for all the blessings and goodness coming toward us. – Leslie Odom, Jr.
Josh Gad was in my class. Katy Mixon. Griffin Matthews. Josh Groban – he ended up leaving to become a huge star, but he was in our class in freshman year. I remember Josh was this nerdy kid in a turtleneck with a voice from heaven. – Leslie Odom, Jr.
I think I spent most of my childhood, and my early years as a performer, in student mode. And I think that’s OK – I mean, it led me to where I am. – Leslie Odom, Jr.
I was a good student; I was a good boy. I got A’s, and I did all the papers right. – Leslie Odom, Jr.
I have a great foundation, a great training foundation. But it took me a long time to let the training go. – Leslie Odom, Jr.
You hear a song like ‘Wait For It,’ you hear a song like ‘Dear Theodosia’ – if you get one of those songs in a musical – one – it’s worth dropping everything to sing that one song. – Leslie Odom, Jr.
The only reason to keep talking about history is if you are juxtaposing it with the world that we live in today, if you are learning something about our world by looking at the way they shaped their world. – Leslie Odom, Jr.
Until you make a name for yourself, they’re like, ‘Be a little more Denzel,’ ‘Be a little more Wesley Snipes.’ – Leslie Odom, Jr.
People are coming to you at their most vulnerable; they’re showing you the parts of themselves that they’re afraid to show: the parts that they’re not so sure about, not so secure in. And so it’s a really holy profession I think, teaching. If you do it right, it can change somebody’s life. – Leslie Odom, Jr.
I think for a lot of us, you know, what ‘Hamilton’ gave us the opportunity to, what it gave me the opportunity to do, was to go, ‘Here’s what I’ve learned in 35 years.’ – Leslie Odom, Jr.
I studied at Carnegie Mellon. I went there with a bunch of really, really talented kids. – Leslie Odom, Jr.
I’m in no way running from ‘Hamilton’ or its success or these beautiful songs that I’ve been blessed to be able to be the one to introduce them. I certainly won’t be the last to sing them, but to be the first, I feel very lucky. – Leslie Odom, Jr.
I know what it’s like to be ignored; when I got to L.A., I longed for somebody who looked like me to show me the ropes. – Leslie Odom, Jr.
I grew up in Philadelphia in a time where we took it for granted that we were supposed to be young and gifted and black. It was a culture of excellence – and all my friends were more talented than I was. – Leslie Odom, Jr.
