let's. talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want. a little. on larry king now or on broadway would tony nominees suck to foster a what is what is violet all about ultimately a story about forgiveness and putting down except ends and the true miracle of the two healing is when now i have young people who consummate stage who are and they look at me and i'm like they're like i want to be just like you and like them ok ok but i'm i'm still don't know what i'm doing you see the bad review. many so many so then it's just best to not know anything and then call there's so many parallels to my own life and career you know finally getting the shot rocky's all about get that shot use the voice throw up a trial run to use it at home oh i did i was walking the dog or the you'll boo boo no more over here rocky is really one of those things where if you want to stand up

at the end of the show and scream your your lungs out because you're on such a good time for rocky someone to come see i'm getting the impression you are loving this i'm loving it's absolutely giving plus and you have a forty year old i'm talking on. you tube i know right and look at that it was really about this. all next on larry king now. where the beautiful paramount hotel in new york city the official partner of the twenty fourteen tony awards our special guest there's something false there she's a six time tony nominee a two time tony award winner as one of broadway's brightest stars she's known for her roles in thoroughly modern millie anything goes shrek the musical and the drowsy chaperone one of the funniest shows is it you can currently see her playing

the title character of roundabout the it is production of violence and you'll be able to see her on your t.v. screens this fall in t.v. land's new series young guns in graduations on the to me nomination thank you so you get old hat. no i think i think it would be. i hope that it never gets old hat it's nice to practice my tony award speech when i was fifteen in my mirror when i was growing up and doing you want to be on broadway but i think i don't know if i knew that that it was possible like the concept of actually making a career in broadway but i used to like practice and i would you know dedicate my tony to mean kids who would make fun of me in seventh grade and would you grow up troy was born in georgia and then moved to michigan when i was thirteen so i was troy outside of detroit what was your first break. my first break i guess i was seventeen years old i was a senior in high school and addison for the national touring company of

a show called the world will rogers follies and yeah and i held auditions in detroit michigan and i went and they flew to new york for a callback and i had to shoot for tommy tune in cycle and then and then the next thing i knew i was touring around the country as a season as a show girl but always was a broadway rule in new york you ready for was closed it was great to be out there i did a i did a series called bunheads on a.b.c. family that was in los angeles for two years and it was awesome i loved it out there is a toy it's a different world i sort of feel like i'm about. yeah and like here i feel like i've i've been working really hard and and i'm more established in there feel like i'm at the beginning and sort of getting my things you have to do with. sure if someone gives me a call and once we read a movie. oh what is what is violet all about you're getting rave reviews i've got the playbill here i'm wearing violet yet. how did this come about violet is

its journey into stories first musical gene why she would throw them out a million tracks musical you've collaborated with many times we did a one night only concert last summer at part of encores at city center and she asked me to be a part of it and we started working on it and it just felt clear that it seemed like it was time to bring it back it was originally done off broadway seventeen years ago and we started getting momentum and buzz and roundabout stepped in and decided to produce it and now we're on broadway so it's this first time on broadway it's about a young woman who has a. a disfiguring scar from childhood of her an accident from her father we don't see the scar we don't see the scar we just leave it up to the audience's imagination we figured people's imaginations are stronger than anything we can ever depict so she decides to go on a journey to visit a televangelist to be healed she feels if the scars gone and she will be beautiful

she will be loved. it's ultimately a story about forgiveness and letting go and acceptance and finding like true the true miracle the true healing is when is it a departure role for you completely and probably most known in new york as. singing dancing comedienne. anything with sequins or false eyelashes. and violet is definitely a most stripped down most vulnerable most exposed character i've ever played you keep from breaking up doing the drugs each of that happened me i don't think i've ever left harder in the theater i think housing is probably my most favorite it was just such a special show the crack up. well i was i was trying to be the rock but people to try to take me down but it was just it was so delightful and we had moments where we had to freeze on stage while things were antics were happening and those were the most are those are the hardest how did you because this is well known story i guess about how you became merely. a thoroughly modern millie was my big break as

originally cast as the understudy. of the understudy takes but it was an it wasn't there was no venom or or you know marbles down the stairs or anything just through a twist of fate i ended up taking over the title character when we were out of town . california and i played the part of millie out of town and then when the show came where they asked me to push the time you were young when you got a stage for the broadway my very first first broadway show i was twenty one years old i think what was that like for a little girl from troy michigan it's. yeah i think i still you know i still have moments of. not believing that this is my you pinch yourself yeah of course i can't believe that you know i have now i have young people who come up to me at the stage door who are doing millie or shack or drowsy and in their high schools

and they look up to me and i'm like they're like i want to be just like you and like well ok ok but i'm i'm still don't know what i'm doing still i figured it all out but it's. yeah i can't believe it i can't believe that i get to do what i do especially there was a time. two years ago where my brother and i my brothers are probably a performer he's in bridges of madison county on broadway and we were he was my date to the kennedy center honors at the white house and we're sitting in the white house and i'm looking at him and i'm like how did this happen my two kids from the boonies you know ending up at the white house like how did we how did we get here so there's a stroke we should always keep that i think so right things are tough doing eight shows a week is the hardest thing that i've ever done this show. has a week period is the hardest thing ever it's it's a twenty four hour job i wake up every morning even though i you know i have a ever show tonight that all day it's about preparing for this to those two hours

where you when you read a review you get nervous i decided to suffer reading reviews i read them after thoroughly modern millie and i remember the good ones and the bad ones and then you're just like and and i find that none of the words are useful because i have to keep going back out there and doing the show so even the good ones you're like oh i really like this part here comes or the bad ones oh gosh i should try to do something different and then if you try to view the bedroom he of you oh many so many oh yes really larry so that it's just best just to not know anything any impellor treat you for ever yeah there was one where i think they said it was terrible and he said this is early on they were like and then when she came out to do her eleven o'clock number all i wanted to scream was get the hook. that horrible i thought i put on a t. shirt. and that until we once he was reviewed by walter curve famous critic in new york who wrote he he acts under

a delusion of adequacy. is that what you would your first show you do with your brother i may very you do grease grease grease their arrival increase my very first probably. my very first bow on a probably stage in my i was standing next to my brother so we were like we were holding each other's hands why. has he done hollywood to he he actually has gone more he hasn't done as much television. set he's actually a brilliant writer so he's really been doing a lot of writing and working for more in that area did you go easy from theater to boneheads. i think i felt safe because i was working with amy schumer palatino who created bunheads and she i just felt really safe in her hands everyone knew that this was my first foray into television especially like starring in

a television series so every day i found the d.p. and like everybody on set was would give me lessons and tell me because i'm going to be that different from the stage totally different project differently rigid yeah it's just a totally different environment and pace you know on a i would find myself like wanting to be on and ready like twenty four hours not like i'm going to exhausted so i was like just figuring out how to sort of pace my day and everyone was giving me lessons you hyper hyper you know and i was when i was a kid i guess i had my moments tell me by doing. this we started filming in august what is above younger is a new t.v. series on t.v. land and it's about a forty year old mom who gave up her career and you have forty you and thirty nine you cute i know right i look good it was really about this act. but the firm is good so it's a forty year old mom who gives up her career to raise her kid and then her husband

divorces and cheska back in the workplace but she's having trouble getting back into the workforce and so she decides to reinvent herself as a twenty six year old so it's like to see but with age it's a comedy it's a comedy. maybe a broadway show the pressure of that it's intense especially with something like violet. my name's over the title i feel like people are coming to see me on the show. it's a very it's a huge responsibility i want to and i want to be my best and you know i had a cold over the weekend and it's like you know i wake up every morning and i'm and if i end. but i'm also here a human i'm human which just sucks because i want to be like super human and be sort of you know invincible but it's a it's a big responsibility but it's also a you know it's a dream it's a dream to be able to make something happen ever forget a line of course i have i had a moment yesterday where i went up on

a line and i finally going up yeah like yeah going up yeah so and i'm literally thinking in the after crossing me slip staring at me and i'm reaching for i don't even know what i'm reaching for but something just for some type of word but yeah it happens but what they told me with veteran actors do is say something say something most of the time most of the time if you're really in the moment the exact words might not come out but something really simple come out so you can sort of think you're right there and you need the other guy yes moment to yes no have you ever wondered over on stage with etobicoke told me when he did a show for a long time he was on stage and some of the music in the middle of singing abel was he was thinking the leave a note i have person of the house and then he quipped i mean yes they've got a show yes it's an interesting thing because it is a job you know what it's like and we do eight shows

a week and. the goal is to try to make each performance fresh and new and real and alive is the first time they've seen exactly and it's also it's a challenge it's a challenge as an actor to be able to and then you get an opportunity to sort of recreate and rediscover but then there does reach a point where you're thinking about what you're going to eat for dinner and whether or not you left the stove on and said the time then does most most the time yet because you want to keep you want to keep it alive and it's not fair for anybody who suffered as you are the audience the word using the name that surface yesterday actually was our wednesday matinee and we had a student students our entire balcony was filled with students and it was delightful they like to clap a lot of clap there's a lot of clapping along which i think is which is fun but they amazingly are selling gauged in the show and they just are so with it and love it and that that i've i find incredibly inspiring here

a singer who acts on earth to loosen actor who sings. first and yes always a delight thank you want to thank and gradually my guests up in foster make sure you get this tickets to see her on broadway in the roundabout theaters violent look for her in the new series younger free marrying this fall on t.v. land she said nancy are social media questions make sure you go to my blog at king's things dot tv when we get back tony nominee and we call.

it was a. very hard to take. to get along here. that that would make her feel it's. going to. appear.

forcing. them to finish line a marathon. not a. hearing. for. our special guest antique car one of the beautiful paramount hotel in new york city the official partner of the twenty four team tony awards and he known for his roles in such broadway productions as saturday night fever the mystery of edwin drood with good legally blonde the musical and jersey boys he's at twelve twenty fourteen tony nominee was outstanding for twelve rocky balboa and the broadway musical rocky now playing at the winter god you know i knew about this in advance because sly stallone is an old friend oh yeah and his daughter and my son go to high school

together so i had a feeling you guys know each and he told me that he loved you and he had he he picked you and he did he you know we they videotaped a lot of the auditions and and i came in there and i really wanted this role and i'm just honored to take that you know that gauntlet as far as the disrobe all in particular it's such an icon for so many people including myself and also to step up and play this role takes takes a fine line of you know playing playing with the icon but also keeping a very honest and i think you know he saw something of what i was doing that would take care of the role how does it work as a musical it works fantastic you wouldn't have thought that i don't obviously know i was this is i been involved in the show for about three years now we did you know preliminary workshops and readings of it before it got to broadway you know it even opened in germany with i don't speak a german but there's someone over there who's doing it right now they've done this

over the years it's taken twelve years for stallone to get it made into a musical and he it was his idea which. shows you how smart this man is only to end to have a ho nice to say i want to take this movie which still plays now on t.v. every week there's marathons of rocky he could have not touched it and been fine but he wanted to bring it you know to life again putting it up on stage make it into a musical when you watch the film it's this independent film it's got a lot of emotion a lot of heart in it and as far as musicals go left that you know they offer them money if you would and then they give two hundred fifty thousand as well we'll just buy the script i mean they kept giving him offering money like here's this will tell you but not you and we you know and he didn't have any money at the time either he won over the universe he was broke and to turn down i think he ended up getting a final offer somewhere close to three hundred thousand dollars in the you know at

that time in seventy five this is your first leave this is yeah it's my first original originating lead i have originated in shows not as the lead i've taken over in some shows like jersey boys as you mentioned and i've i've been able to play some leads but this one is it was all on my shoulders to you know take on this first leading role and there's so many parallels to my own life and career you know finally getting this shot and rocky's all about getting that shot and as a movie nominee it's fantastic had known he's right i made myself know my wife got a tony nomination so the house is you know we have your wife is over faye and we both did we did legally blonde together on broadway she was a saturn f.t.v. where i met her is thirteen years ago now and we've been married for thirteen years and she she got a nomination about five six years ago and now i got one l m two you ever known as your box in a jungle boxed iced when that three years ago when i started the rocky people said

we're putting you in some boxing training because you have to learn the fundamentals i don't know if you. interviewed a ton of boxers or even many many i mean a better hollyfield came to see the show the other day on oil go back to marciano oh marciano who's the inspiration for four rocky in the in the whole show and you know watch and i've seen some clips of marciano how he fights low and slow and he gets under he can and for you know pretty small guy for and we. never beaten and you know that's so i had to understand that i had to go to boxing training and understand how to take a punch how to give punch if you know everyone is talked about and i can't wait to see if that last scene yet own that run she's in the box the scene is about twenty minutes from start to finish there's the introduction or walking down the aisles in our you know robes and they bring them into the only names ring this ring this ring that is the most spectacular thing you've ever seen the ring is actually used throughout the show as for it's pitched on its side to show like movie screens it's

the ceiling of my apartment at one time and then it hits the floor and then is taken out over top of the first eight or nine rows of the audience and those people move up on stage so we're in a three sixty view of an incredible fight which makes it harder for the choreographer to have choreographed this fight and it's hard for us to make every punch you know look like it's really even hurt oh yeah i mean we're making full contact so you are yes i'm getting hit in the head every night so it's one of those things where you know shake it off and some punches come a little harder than others the guys playing apollo creed terence archie is a big guy so big muscles and he was fighting. is a band playing all the yeah we mean that's what makes it sort of choreography is that the band drops in and gives us a beat so we know you know i got a punch on five and six seven eight you know and it's but it's unaware to the

audience the audience really doesn't connect the fact that we're doing it on the. beat and there are some times where we're just hauling off on each day the fight ends with the with that's our big end of our show the cast come out singing and then we and then we adrian and i kiss at the end i'm screaming adrian at the top. end and everybody's cheering the audiences are eating it up it's fantastic it's the most incredible theatrical experience i've ever had to be on stage watching people up out of their seats just cheering for rocky like they did with the film why do you think it captures people packed the house to go see it when everyone knows a story that's that's the fantastic part about it is that we ride this this icon which is you know rocky is now six films and i hear they're making a seventh one you know it's everybody knows this character so well for me i treat rocky as though he's a real living breathing person so i've taken on

a little bit of the you know the voice a little bit of the characteristics something about keeping it honest as well but there's rocky is the heart and soul of humanity you know he's he's the guy that he's the underdog story and he he's comes from nothing he comes down and out box or he's got nothing going on you know everybody in the world can relate to that at some point where we have to step up and try to be something better than ourselves i mean i'm sure we've all had this sort of shit you have that story about like you know how can i make myself better and when you're given the opportunity what do you do with it and that's very parallel for much for me personally as well did you do use those voices did you take that voice or use your regular stuff i started not doing it at the very beginning before the show up and previews and my wife came to see it she said you have to do the voice come on you've got to do the voice of the ego about religion. so. for me it's very it's very comfortable now but it's

one of the things where like am i going to i don't want to do a better person nation but at the same time this icon of a movie this iconic role everybody knows it if you don't let them in at least let the audience know that you know i'm rocky and i talk low and slow and i'm going from the shoulders and. it's something about existing in that character which existing in his shoes and i think stallone says something on some interview that was very similar to how i feel it's something about he can get into that character and you know he can say no wrong he just sort of lives lives there and so i'm doing them within the same thing will do if hillary clinton used to do which is we'll take it home and use the voice throughout the entire run of using that homo i did i was walking the dog. over here one no no let's go home i was doing all the time because i wanted to get used to how that fell it's a really interesting vocal think because now we're doing

a musical and i have to speak this low i have a couple of songs that are you know. yeah so i have a swan my first song that i saying is called my nose ain't broken which is all basically you know that's how rocky exists in his life is you know one thing and it's sort of this you know you're getting a flavor for the voice later on as the show exists i start going into power ballads that are coming from my heart i think that's what lynn air and steve flaherty did so well about writing the score a day have these songs come from this character's hearts i'm getting the impression you are loving this i'm loving it's absolutely you can may i mean it's a lot of how about the matinees they're tough they've won the s a day and then in the evening show later they're very tough and we're doing you know right now is award season so every morning i'm getting up at like eight in the morning to impress jock and then going over to to do the matinee but at the same time i'm just writing this tremendous wave of. something that i truly believe in

and rock is such a great piece for everyone to know about you know the human condition so some having a great time it's a big big difference in being believed in the show yeah well this is one of it's a killer is a lot i'm on stage ninety five percent time and doing eight shows a week i'm running upstairs i'm drinking eggs i'm pond you know you guys i'm drinking the eggs i'm doing. i don't love them now and it never this role. i mean you need a lot of aging i ate eggs all the time i go home laid eggs oh my god love eggs. you gotta lay eggs to be rocky have star this comes with tara tell me about the running a film urine oh thanks for asking that's that's another you know here's another layer of a good friend i just went to his chaplin award the other day where they had so many great i mean that was the best elementary this is called and so it goes and it's

with michael douglas dying keaton basically michael douglas is sort of. a bitter man a bitter real estate guy whose son gets in trouble has to go to jail and he has to take his son's daughter in and he's not very nice to anybody including my character romantic comedy he falls in love with dying and i'm my character is ted westberg i'm a real estate agent that works with michael douglas and he just says horrible things to me and my grandmother the great my baby is a very great guy and rock the camera loves that guy has put a camera on it like well maybe one of the classic movies of princess bride my favorites come on when harry met sally spinal tap i mean these this is a that's the kind of comedy that was killed my father prepared to prepare to die. rocky and on him so i do want to do movies. i've done i did that movie last summer that i'm becoming on july. i and i have another movie called joyful noise

with dolly parton a few years ago and i had a great time i kind of want to now with the whole rocky thing and me just hitting the gym all the time i want to become a superhero i think that's. the next thing something i don't care what it is i can shoot fireworks out of my fingers do you look at the opposition do you think about it yeah but i think what's great about rocky and all the other shows that are on broadway right now there's a a you can go see whatever you like whatever your taste is i mean rocky's really this really heartfelt human nature love story that builds into this epic fights or you know you go see hedwig which is a revival of you know of a great off broadway show that i i loved when it came out it or it's a rock n roll show or you go see if then or violet i know something foster is offended because it she's i mean there's so many whatever your taste is that night but rocky is really one of those things where if you want to stand up at the end of

the show and scream your your lungs out because you haven't such a good time rocky someone to come away to see you thank you so much on thanking gradually my guest and because you see i've been rocky at the winter garden theater on broadway and made sure to visit my blog and kings things not horrid on t.v. for a game of you only new pussy and i just. well . science technology innovation all the latest developments from around russia we've got this huge you're covered. i think that that. a society. and big corporation kind of can. do

and the bankers try to get all that all about money and i was fascinated that for a politician right the boss and what's the tax rate. coming up. there is just too much is it a. top look at. least underline the knowledge base you know the. pleasure to have you with us here on our team today i roll researcher.