Jerry O'Connell Explains Why A Soldier's Play Is 'The Most Important Project' He's Ever Worked On

Jerry O’Connell is having a lot of fun on Broadway. “I can get a table at Bar Centrale these days!” the prolific television and film actor of Stand By Me fame laughed in a #LiveAtFive interview with Broadway.com's Ryan Lee Gilbert. “For those that don’t know, that’s the exclusive bar.”

O’Connell, who made his Broadway debut in Seminar (2011) and appeared in Living On Love (2015), is currently starring as Army Captain Charles Taylor in A Soldier’s Play, the Kenny Leon-directed Broadway debut of Charles Fuller’s 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about race during World War II. In the play, Taylor must oversee a black Captain's (played by Blair Underwood) investigation of a murder. The production closes its limited engagement at the American Airlines Theatre on March 15.

The play may sound intense but according to O'Connell, the hard part’s over. “What’s really funny about doing a Broadway show is that it’s not necessarily the hardest job in acting,” he said. “I work in television. I work in movies. Broadway’s not the hardest. But for the two weeks when we’re in previews and getting reviewed—it’s only about three or four shows that you’re being reviewed for—is the most stressful week. The whole job is about that week.” Now that A Soldier’s Play is nearing the end of its limited run, O’Connell can let his hair down, take tap dance at the Broadway Dance Center (“You’re supposed to do something that scares you everyday; failing in the beginner class was arguably the most embarrassing moment of my life”) and spend time at Broadway bars. “I’ve been in all of them!” he joked. 

It’s taken a lot of work to enjoy those spoils. Despite a long career on the screen, Broadway has been a place that he loves returning to. “I’m typically a basic cable television actor, you know?” he explained, underselling his resume. “I’m in procedural television shows. I play a cop on TV where I look at computers and go, ‘It’s a match.’ A lot of scenes in morgues. Nothing wrong with that, but I really wanted to get on Broadway.” A lot of auditioning and prodding his manager for meatier roles followed. “I was very anxious, calling up my theater agent. ‘What the hell’s going on?'" He then added, jokingly, "Why is James Van Der Beek in Bye Bye Birdie? Why aren’t I?”  

O'Connell auditioned several times for his first Broadway show, Seminar, which starred the late Alan Rickman. It was well-received but his second turn, in Living on Love, didn’t go so well, closing after 16 performances. “I've been in a production that closed pretty quickly after our review came out, and so I have a lot of gratitude when I'm in a play that’s doing well,” he said, before adding that for Soldier's Play, "capacity [is] almost at 100 percent, if you go to Broadway.com grosses on Monday."

The actor recalled how on the first day of rehearsal, Tony-winning director Kenny Leon, said, "My job is to make sure you guys get amazing jobs after this,'” narrated O'Connell. “Oh man, it was really emotional. I’d never heard someone I worked for ever say that. He was right. It’s been the most important project I’ve ever worked on.” 

Watch the rest of O'Connell's #LiveAtFive interview, where he talks more about failing miserably in his tap classes and watching Sarah Brightman sing on a swing.