Jacob Young

Currently: Burning the candle at both ends: filming scenes during the day as bad boy J.R. Chandler on All My Children and playing matchmaking candelabra Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast on Broadway at night.

Hometown: "I kind of hail from two places: Tillamook, Oregon, and Roy, Washington." Young sang in every choir he could join through high school and moved to California at 17 with adolescent dreams of landing an easy and lucrative summer job in commercials. "It took about six months," he remembers. "Then the same week, I booked a national Pepsi commercial, a Nickelodeon show and The Bold and the Beautiful."

Lucky Star: The fortunate teen signed on as Rick Forrester on The Bold and the Beautiful, a "sink or swim" first professional acting experience that would lead to roles on two more daytime soaps: Lucky Spencer on General Hospital, for which he snagged an Emmy in 2002, and his current job on All My Children. He also recorded a self-titled pop album released on September 11, 2001, an unfortunate coincidence that he looks back on now as a blessing in disguise. "I don't think I'm cut out to be a pop star," he says earnestly, citing grueling touring schedules and his acting ambitions. Instead, more than a year ago, Young began talks with Disney about taking on something completely new: the Great White Way.

Very Versatile: "This sort of production is foreign to me," Young says of being part of a lavish Broadway musical. Still, he had his eye on the stage while building a name for himself on daytime TV. "I worked on some musical theater pieces at the Beverly Hills Playhouse in L.A.," he says. "The class gave me an understanding of what [theater] was about, how to put it together and finding a character. And I really wanted to challenge myself that way. I wanted to do it for real and let people know that I'm not just a one-dimensional actor—that I have flexibility and I can handle anything that's thrown at me, whether it's some rough-and-tough hood rat or a French candlestick."

Do It Yourself: The charming actor enjoys the challenge of full workdays and jumping back and forth between dissimilar characters, but admits he was startled by the inherent differences between TV and theater. "There's really no glamour on Broadway," he says. "The glitz and glamour are what you see on stage. You have nobody, like, pampering you. Not that we're pampered in daytime, but we have people putting our makeup on. We have the hair department. We have cushy little dressing rooms. Here, it's just an old theater. It's damp and dark. I'm doing changes in the stairwell." Despite the toughness, Young appreciates that for actors who work on the stage, "There's such a love for it. You really have to have that driving force to want to do it."

Wick-ed Hot: That love of the craft isn't just mental for Young; it's also physical. Each night, he dons a 20-pound candlestick costume and hikes up and down Beauty's grand staircase singing "Be Our Guest." "I like to consider it my own personal Coleman sleeping bag...that happens to be super-tight," he says wryly. To create that signature Disney stage magic, Young's costume is equipped with Butane packs, a gas line running up each arm and levers that allow him to set his "candlehands" ablaze. "To ensure that it's going to ignite, it actually has the same wattage as a police taser," he explains. "We try not to shock our dressers."

Early Retirement? The Tarzan question is inevitable for this blond and buff Disney leading man, and Young admits he's thought about what it would be like to take on the title role. For now, he's got all he can handle juggling two jobs and spending time with his new fiancée, model Christen Steward. But he's definitely interested in coming back to Broadway after his run in Beauty ends on August 20. "I'd like to do more of a gritty role, something like a dark comedy," he says. "That's my next ambition—to be a part of the creative process from the ground up." But will the busy actor ever take a break? "There's nothing like now to do it all," he says simply. "Seize the day. Get it done and retire when you're 40!"