Jonathan Groff on Having Sex in Looking, Dying in The Normal Heart & Dreaming of Being a Broadway Gypsy

Jonathan Groff has been stealing hearts and taking names for a while now. He earned a well-deserved Tony nod when he originated the role of Melchior Gabor in Broadway's Spring Awakening, charmed our clothes off as Claude in the Shakespeare in the Park production of Hair and made us accept our affinity for bad boys as Jesse St. James on FOX's Glee and Ian Todd on Starz' Boss. Yet, the star is showing no signs of slowing down. Groff will soon be seen in HBO's new series Looking, the TV movie version of The Normal Heart and heard as the rugged mountain man Kristoff in Disney's animated feature Frozen.

According to an interview in Out magazine, Groff, who stars in HBO's Looking as Patrick, a gay video-game developer, is counting on the "beautiful" sex scenes he's shot for the new comedy also coming across as "authentic." "I hope that our sex scenes are sexy—and I think that they are—but I think even more than that what we’re trying to display is a reality of gay sex as opposed to the salaciousness of gay sex," he told the magazine. "Some of our sex scenes are very emotional and very beautiful. Some of our sex scenes are awkward. We’re trying to get as close to reality as we possibly can." 

Groff revealed that reuniting with Glee creator Ryan Murphy on HBO's adaptation of Larry Kramer's Tony-winning play The Normal Heart was an "amazing experience on so many levels." In the TV movie, which will air in 2014, Groff plays Craig Donner—the first character that dies of AIDS. "[Kramer] said that when this person died that it was right at the end of summer, and it happened so quickly that his body was still tan," he said. "I came in for about a week in total for the movie. I got to do all the fun scenes at the beginning when we are on Fire Island, and then I die very quickly."

Groff is quickly becoming one of Hollywood's go-to actors for playing the devilishly handsome (obviously), quick-witted, outspoken and sensitive types. He recently earned accolades for his performance in C.O.G., a film based on a David Sedaris short story from his book of collected essays, Naked. But Groff admitted to the magazine that the stage stole his heart from an early age. "I always wanted to move to New York and be a Broadway gypsy. I wanted to be in the ensemble of a Broadway show—that was my ultimate dream growing up."