To Kill a Mockingbird Tony Nominee Gideon Glick on Bringing Dill's 'Queer Narrative' to Light, Chicken Rockets & More

It's been 49 years since author Harper Lee released To Kill a Mockingbird, and now Gideon Glick is a Tony nominee for bringing the character of Dill to life on stage in Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of the acclaimed novel. "It doesn’t feel real. It feels like I'm living in this alternate universe," Glick said to Beth Stevens in a recent interview on Broadway.com's #LiveAtFive. "I never feel like a Tony nominee. I've been very reflective this past week. I feel emotional that Dill is being recognized. Yes, I'm emotional that I'm being recognized, but I feel like this couldn’t have happened before. All of a sudden, this queer narrative—that has been there all along—has come to the forefront."

Bringing Dill to life on stage has given Glick a sense of power that he didn't expect. "I'm pretty introverted and anxious, and he's not," Glick said. "There's something very freeing about doing it. I was nervous at first because I've been playing a lot of introverted neurotic characters. I naturally get very anxious as performer, and I've been able to utilize that with my anxious characters, but I didn't know what to do with Dill." The Tony nominee found his way to the heart of Dill by uncovering as much as possible about the man who influenced his character: Truman Capote. "There's this interview about Harper Lee and Capote growing up together and how they would think about swapping genders," he said. "Their vocabulary back then isn’t as nuanced as ours is now but I think that was their way of understanding this fluidity. That was very exciting to find out. I felt like a detective, an excavator."

While Glick's two most recent Broadway turns have been in plays, he made his debut in Spring Awakening. In a recent episode of Show People with Paul Wontorek, Glick was asked what show he would do with former co-star Jonathan Groff. While he didn't have an answer then, he's had time to think about it. "It hasn’t been written yet, but it is a musical," Glick said. "I want Jayne Houdyshell in it. Jon [Groff] and I will be ex-lovers."

One final note: After reading Glick's recent tweets about his mother, we had to ask about chicken rockets. "[My mother] was texting Perry [Glick's fiancé], and he sent that nail polish emoji. She was like, 'What are those, chicken rockets?' And he was like, 'What are chicken rockets?!' She never responded. Then I asked and she won't answer me. She's gaslighting all of us." His mother said only a special group of people get to know. Now we all feel special.

Catch Glick in To Kill a Mockingbird, now playing at the Shubert Theatre.

Watch the entire #LiveAtFive episode below!