To Kill a Mockingbird's Nina Grollman on Playing Both Scout and Her Pop Alter Ego Softee

Nina Grollman has come a long way from her second grade production of The Magic School Bus in Fargo, North Dakota. She graduated from Juilliard in the spring of 2017 and less than a year later, the 25-year-old actor made her Broadway debut as Margie in the Denzel Washington-led revival of The Iceman Cometh. Now she’s in another classic work; she is playing one of literature’s most iconic heroines, Scout Finch, in Aaron Sorkin’s Broadway adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird, alongside Ed Harris as Atticus. Broadway.com sat down with Grollman to talk about how she identifies with Scout, her pop music alter ego and more.

Mother Knows Best
Though Grollman seldom leaves the Shubert Theatre stage in Mockingbird, she did not always take to the spotlight with ease. It was not until second grade that she started performing, and even then she had to be pushed into it. “My mom was like, ‘I enrolled you in a theater class,’ and I was horrified because I was a pretty introverted kid for the most part at that point,” Grollman recalled. “I remember walking into the first day of the theater class and making an active choice to be extroverted. I don’t know if I would have found theater if she hadn’t done that.” Her first stage stint? A second grade production of The Magic School Bus. “I had, like, one line. It was like, ‘Look, a whale!’ My mom was obsessed. She was like, ‘She’s got presence! That kid’s got it.’”

Behind the Emerald Curtain
Once Grollman became enamored with the theater, she developed an affection for the Great White Way—though it might be more fitting to call it the Great Green Way. “Wicked was the first Broadway show I ever saw and that really shaped my obsession with theater,” she explained. But it wasn’t what happened during the show that stuck with Grollman; it was the curtain call. “Everybody was bowing, and Fiyero turns to Elphaba and is like, ‘One down, one to go’—I saw him mouth those words. It just hit me like, ‘Oh, this is a job. They are living the dream.’”

Scout’s Honor
Grollman first read Mockingbird in her ninth grade English class, and even then, she felt an affinity for Scout. “I do remember at the time really identifying with Scout,” she said. Like the character in the book, “it was my first exposure to the justice system and the racial injustice in America.” Getting to play Scout now, Grollman is reconnecting with her “childhood self” and tapping into the feeling of having to learn, “overwhelmingly difficult things at a young age. It's a lot to go through every night, but it's also a privilege to go through and try to embody this spirit of a child, living through events of the Jim Crow South,” she said. “To do that truthfully and meaningfully and honor Scout, honor Harper Lee is a real privilege.”

Full Circle
Stepping in for an original cast member brings its own kind of pressures, but it can be especially intimidating when you’re replacing a Tony winner. Grollman took over for Broadway stalwart Celia Keenan-Bolger, who received a Tony Award for her own portrayal of Scout. She recently met Keenan-Bolger for the first time but she’d been following the actor for years. “I really looked up to her growing up,” Grollman explained. “I listened to The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee cast recording day and night. I played Olive in high school. Roles she’s played have played a really crucial part in my life.” The two talents met up at Cafe Un Deux Trois, where Keenan-Bolger put Grollman at ease. “She gave me advice about how she approaches the role but also what it means to be a woman in the industry,” the actor said. “She's everything I would hope she would be—such an amazing, generous, humble, kind person.” 

New ‘Do, New You
With her overalls, short blunt cut, and spunk, Scout Finch is often described as a tomboy. For Grollman, it’s been freeing to portray a character that isn’t confined by gender. “I was very gender fluid as a kid,” she said. “From K through seventh grade, I dressed like a boy. Every other day, kids would ask me, ‘Are you a boy or a girl?’ Depending on my mood, I would say boy or girl.” But when middle school came around, Grollman found herself trying to fit into stereotypical gender roles, remarking, “It was a world I didn't want to be in necessarily. This role is getting me back to my childhood self, and that feels really good.” That is why she plans on keeping Scout with her. The actor cut her chest-length hair short for the role and when she finishes Mockingbird, she won’t be growing it out again. “After I'm done with Scout, I think I'm going to cut it shorter to a young Leo DiCaprio—like a Titanic vibe, ’90s heartthrob thing,” she remarked with a smile.

Alter Ego
Though Grollman does not sing in To Kill a Mockingbird, music is another passion of hers. She has a pop music alter ego named Softee. Yes, like the ice cream. And Grollman describes her music as being similarly pleasurable. “I make pop music—fun, bouncy, bubblegum, psych pop,” she said. Grollman has performed as Softee all over New York City and at The Troubadour in London. Last year, she released an EP called Slow Melt. And from how she describes it, Softee seems to be the polar opposite of the soft-spoken Grollman. “I put on weird outfits and become the freer, more sexual part of myself that I'm not when I'm just me. I don't really thrive in subtlety even though it's an easy place to retreat to. I think the most beautiful work, the most beautiful people are the people that really put themselves out there.”

Photos by Caitlin McNaney | Video directed by Kyle Gaskell and edited by Mark Hayes