To borrow a line from Shrek, Brian d’Arcy James is like an onion. He has layers. Every time this guy takes the stage, peels back another one: Currently, he’s belching and tooting up a storm as the everybody’s favorite flatulent ogre. Before this, he wore a sweater vest and furrowed brow as sympathetic husband Dan in Next to Normal’s off-Broadway premiere. Last summer, he played the pathetic, G&T-guzzling Dermot—complete with mustache and modified mullet—in Conor McPherson’s collection of monologues, Port Authority, at the Atlantic. In Broadway’s Apple Tree revival, he proved his leading-man mettle in three mini-musicals—and held his own against scene-stealer Kristin Chenoweth no small feat!. He hit the road with the song-and-dance extravaganza White Christmas, channeling his inner Bing Crosby and crooning old-fashioned Irving Berlin ballads like “Blue Skies.” He earned his first Tony nod as a conniving press agent in the 2002 flop Sweet Smell of Success. Onions have layers. He has layers. Get it? Good. So what have you been dying to ask the Tony-nominated Shrek star? The handsome baritone beneath Broadway’s heaviest makeup awaits your burning questions.
