The Liberal Arts have a special place in many people’s hearts. The Arts can be symbolized by one aspect of a theater experience: a set piece, a song, a musical tone, or a specific person who stole the show. For a lot of people, that person is Jeremy Jordan. Jeremy Jordan is a Broadway actor who has been in a lot of modern-day Broadway classics, such as “Great Gatsby”. Jordan is a symbol of what actors actually go through when it comes to rejection and hard work, rather than an actor who is born into wealth and fame.
Jeremy Jordan was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, on Nov. 20, 1984. Jordan grew up in a lower-income household, and at an early age, his parents got a divorce, affecting his early childhood. Jordan has two siblings named Joey and Jessa. He always wanted to do something with his life that involved theater, so later in high school Jordan was cast as “The Mute” in the musical “The Fantasticks” at age 17. After high school, he moved and studied the Arts at Ithaca College in New York.
In 2009, Jeremy Jordan was cast in a musical called “Rock of the Ages” where he was the understudy for Drew, Franz, Joey Primo, and Stacee Jaxx. Jordan’s experience “was amazing…I am essentially the person who covers all the roles of people who are sick or on vacation…I was really lucky to get something like that pretty quickly in my career”. Later in 2009, Jordan took part in the show “West Side Story”, where he shone in the role of Tony when he replaced the original actor.
Around 2012, Jordan started to gain some fame by doing more abstract and lead roles. One of Jordan’s first popular roles he took part in was Clyde Barrow in the musical “Bonnie and Clyde”. This was the story of a crime-fueled couple who were known for their crime and not being caught until they died in a car after being shot by bullets. After Bonnie and Clyde, he moved on to the role he is most known for in the theater community. He starred in the stage version of the “1992 Newsies” where he took on the role of Jack Kelly, who is a paper boy who goes on a newsie
s strike and does set paintings for the local New York theater. Jordan believed that in musicals, there are certain characteristics people unconsciously have in mind (singing, loudness, entertaining, dancing), and the show Newsies checks all the boxes. Those two musicals were recorded later on, around the same time, about four years later, so audiences can watch his work from home.
Jeremy Jordan got married to a woman named Ashley Spencer, an actress who was in “The Last Five Years” and “Russian Broadway Shut Down.” His career blew up a couple of months later in 2012, when he starred in a show called “Smash!” The TV show is about a small New York community theater program where they are assigned to create a new Broadway musical revolving around the actress Marilyn Monroe. Jordan took on the role of Jimmy Collins. This was the first
ever TV show Jordan starred in. It streamed on Netflix, which afforded Jordan many new viewers. However, Jordan received the “first negative feedback” of his career. Jordan spoke about going “down some dark paths listening to what people had to say about certain ideas and opinions about my work specifically or the show itself, it was hard”. “Smash” was a highlight but also had some negative feedback.
Later on in 2014, he starred in the musical/movie called “ The Last 5 Years” with his co-star Anna Kendrick. Jordan’s wife played the secretary in th
e musical while he played Jamie Wellerstien. The off-Broadway musical was about a couple who got married and divorced in the span of 5 years. The story was told through solo and duet songs. Kendrick’s songs were told from the end of the relationship
to the beginning, and Jordan’s songs were told from the beginning to the end, and they met up in the middle at his proposal. Jordan opens up about how he has “done complex stuff on stage but in film and television I haven’t been able to dive deep and do something that is
really intimate… So the second it came up on the radar… I was like I won’t stop until I get that [role].” This also put him on the map due to his co-star, who is a famous actress who won an Academy Award for best supporting actress.
“Jeremy Jordan got a career breakthrough by doing a popular TV show in 2015 called “Supergirl”. He was cast as the role of “Winn Scott”, the nerdy co-worker and best friend of Supergirl who knows her identity and helps her technological wise, with her costumes and equipment, and was a possible love interest. When it was running on CBS, the show gained over 3 million views.
After being on the show Jeremy Jordan took on a different type of acting titled voice acting. He did voice acting for “Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure” 2017. He took on the role of “Varian” who is a teenage alchemist. This brought attention to him from a younger generation that will be introduced to his work at a younger age, while his more serious/theatrical work would theoretically appeal to kids at a later age as well.
In 2019 (and on), Jeremy Jordan was a part of an adult cartoon show called “Hazbin Hotel”.
Where the people from hell have a hotel where they can seek redemption and move on to heaven before the angels annually murder the people of hell. Jordan voiced the role of Lucifer. Theater kids who watched this show saw him in a role that was lighthearted but also more adult. This was probably his most popular work yet and was introduced to young adults. On the premiere of the show, Jordan opened up on how he approached the character. The people working on the show gave him some free range on how to take it on (much so with the other characters), that it made sense that the most traditionally scary classic character would be weird and likable.
One of Jordan’s latest works was when he was the original Jay Gatsby in the new show “The Great Gatsby”, based on the cult classic book. Jordan has also returned to the Broadway stage. Jordan is an inspiration to thespians all over the nation.
*Some other smaller roles he took on were Dr Pomatter in Waitress, Seymor in Little Shop of Horrors, and Officer Paul Larkin in American Son
