Ones to Watch: Brody Grant, Star of Broadway’s The Outsiders, Embodies Art at Its Coolest

Brody Grant is one of 15 Broadway debuts in the cast of The Outsiders—the musical adaptation of S.E. Hinton’s coming-of-age novel, written by Adam Rapp, Justin Levine and the Folk duo Jamestown Revival (Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance). The breadth of new talent calls to mind Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film version of The Outsiders, which now blinds viewers with its roster of rising brat packers including Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez, C. Thomas Howell, Rob Lowe, Ralph Macchio and Patrick Swayze.

Grant, who led the musical’s world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse last year, will star as Ponyboy Michael Curtis (played by Howell on screen) when the production begins performances March 16 at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre. Perhaps another 40 years from now, Grant and his castmates will look back on The Outsiders as the birthplace of a new generation of Broadway stars. For now, however, Grant feels a satisfyingly full circle moment just in his field trip to a vacant movie theater alongside Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek.

“I was such a little Broadway nerd,” Grant confesses to Wontorek on The Broadway Show. “You have your acting heroes like [Leonardo] DiCaprio and Paul Newman and James Dean. But then you also have your stage heroes like Aaron Tveit and Jeremy Jordan. And I would watch their interviews with you—often.” He emphasizes again—“Often.”

As a high school sophomore, Grant got to channel a bit of Tveit as Frank Abagnale Jr. in a school production of Catch Me If You Can, and throughout his teen years, he honed his singing by studying vocalists like Adam Lambert and Bruno Mars. “I would just go home, and in the dead of night, belt into pillows, ‘When I Was Your Man,’” Grant laughs. Still, he gives all credit for his musicianship to his sister, the family’s first singer who spurred Grant with jealousy of her ability to harmonize. “I spent so much time in the car trying to harmonize,” he recounts. “My mom would turn on the radio and be like, ‘Brody, you have to sing the melody.’”

Watch Brody Grant with Paul Wontorek on The Broadway Show.

Since his earliest years growing up in Northern Michigan, Grant sought creative outlets, even when they were hard to come by. “I lived in Kalkaska for nine years, and it is just not really a place that facilitates art,” he explains. “Even though I was born there, I never really felt in my body. I just wanted to draw. I would just draw and draw and draw and draw and draw.” At nine years old, his family relocated to Georgia, but the feeling of implicit resistance followed him there. “It’s not always cool to be artistic,” says Grant. “It's cool to be tough. It's cool to be macho.”

The irony isn’t lost on him as his own reflections bleed into his beloved character’s. “That's what’s beautiful about Ponyboy,” Grant adds, acknowledging their shared genetic material. “Even though he is born in this environment, on the inside, he's just an artist.”

Ponyboy is the narrator of Hinton’s 1967 novel, a sensitive 14-year-old boy who gets caught in the crossfire between rival gangs in Oklahoma. For nearly 60 years (with a boost after the release of the film), Ponyboy has been both converting reluctant readers and buoying young adults through the mud of adolescence, proving that poetry and masculinity are anything but mutually exclusive. “Even the people that don't know The Outsiders are like, ‘Stay gold, Ponyboy,’” says Grant, referencing the homage to Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” a poem that has become synonymous with Hinton’s story.

It’s no accident that the artist tasked with bringing this character to the stage is, in many ways, a Ponyboy himself. “It's the one thing I really love,” says Grant about performing. “I just want to do it for the rest of my life. I want to make music. I want to make cinema. I want to be on the stage. I want to do it all.”

After riffling through their favorite parts of Coppola’s movie, admiring its sentimental hues and scrappy young actors with big futures ahead, Wontorek sends Grant back to the more recent past with one of his old high school theater bios. From memory, Wontorek recites that the up-and-coming Broadway star at one time wrote that he “loves hanging out with his friends, playing guitar and being happy.”

“Nothing’s really changed, to be honest,” Grant admits. “I like being happy.”

GET TO KNOW THE ONES TO WATCH
Left to Right: NICHELLE LEWIS (The Wiz) | ALI LOUIS BOURZGUI (The Who's Tommy) | JOY WOODS (The Notebook) | BRODY GRANT (The Outsiders) | SHAINA TAUB (Suffs)

Watch the full episode of The Broadway Show with Tamsen Fadal highlighting all six of these rising Broadway talents. Also: Flip through the complete gallery of photos from our exclusive Broadway.com photo shoot.

The Broadway Show Credits: Directed by Zack R. Smith | Producers: Paul Wontorek and Beth Stevens | Senior Producers: Caitlin Moynihan and Lindsey Sullivan | Videographers: Born in Brooklyn, Shaun Copeland, Luis Ferrá, Eddie Lebron, Anton Ponomarev, Nick Shakra and Tyler Ward  Photo Credits: Photography by Emilio Madrid | Photo Assistants: Alan Padilla and Cooper Hammel | Location: Corner Studio. Styling Credits: Styling: Eliza Yerry | Hair: Monique Gaffney | Make-up: Angella Valentine and Eldo Ray Estes | Brody Grant: Black Tank: Abercrombie & Fitch; White Tank: Sunspel; Pants: Mavi; Shoes: Gola; Jewelry: Title of Work | Joy Woods: Dress: A.Potts; Shoes: Gianvito Rossi; Jewelry: Jenny Bird | Ali Louis Bourzgui: Top: Acne; Pants: Diesel; Shoes: Nike; Jewelry: Title of Work | Shaina Taub: Jumpsuit: Miss Selfridge; Shoes: New Balance; Jewelry: Jenny Bird | Nichelle Lewis: Jacket: Khy; Bodysuit: Wolford; Skirt: ASOS; Shoes: RAID