Rock of Ages' Rebecca Faulkenberry on Co-Starring With Constantine and Her Bermuda-Bred Identity Crisis

Age & Hometown: 26; Bermuda

Current role: Melting hearts and faces in her Broadway debut as Sherrie, a Midwestern sweetheart turned ‘80s L.A. rocker chick in Rock of Ages.

She’s Leaving Home: Growing up in balmy Bermuda, gifted singer Faulkenberry quickly exhausted the tiny island’s limited performance resources. “I did things like Hope in Anything Goes when I was 14 opposite a 32-year-old," she recalls, "which caused a minor stir!” At 17, she left for legendary Connecticut boarding school Choate (“you know, JFK and whatnot”), Indiana University and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Wary of being typecast after a stint in High School Musical on the West End, she landed a part in Wallace Shawn’s dark drama Aunt Dan and Lemon at the Royal Court Theatre. “I did fancy myself an actress when I was in London, and got hoity-toity about musicals for a second,” she says with a laugh. “I dyed my hair brown, because that meant I was serious, I guess?”

Livin’ on a Prayer: Arriving to New York with no master plan and no stateside management, Faulkenberry soon shipped out to star in the national tour of Rock of Ages opposite American Idol alum Constantine Maroulis. “I don’t know how he sings the way he does eight shows a week,” Faulkenberry marvels. “He's incredible, and he’s great to act against.” At first, playing the innocent ingénue seemed like “the complete antithesis of what I want to do,” Faulkenberry admits, “I have dimples and blond curly hair, so I get put in that category a lot, but I talk like I’m 30 years old! OK,” she amends, “40.” But her Rock role, she says, offers a satisfying range. “Sherrie's great because you get to start sweet and go through the whole stripper thing and back again.”

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes: Faulkenberry has quite a big voice for such a petite performer, with a background singing soul and gospel in Bermuda. “I—very seriously—thought I was black growing up,” she says. “At Indiana University I auditioned for the IU Soul Revue, not realizing it was in the African-American [Arts Institute], but I ended up getting in and I was the only white vocalist, and it was great.” She’s now lending her impressive chops to a Broadway brand of rock, but Faulkenberry has another fantasy scenario in mind: “Put on some red lipstick, have a piano and a microphone in a dimly lit room and sing some jazz,” she muses. “If you could still smoke, it would be really smoky and everyone would have wine. That’s the dream!”