You know Broadway’s Andy Mientus from his acclaimed performance as lovelorn French student Marius in that oh-so-awesome revival of Les Miserables, his hilarious Twitter presence or as Kyle Bishop, a Broadway devotee who rose to Tony Award glory, on TV’s Smash, but soon a whole mess of CW TV/DC comic fans are going to know him thanks to his groundbreaking appearance as Hartley Rathaway/Pied Piper, a hearing impaired, gay villain, on The Flash. BroadwayBox caught up with Mientus to talk about Marius, The Flash and his upcoming nuptials to fellow stage and screen star Michael Arden.
1. If you were Marius’ wingman, would you be pro Eponine or pro Cosettte?
I would probably be pro Cosette, even though I myself would go for Eponine, but if I were being a good friend I’d say, “She has too much baggage, her dad is going to slit your throat one day, she smells kind of funny and she’s obviously clingy. And Cosette, her dad’s creepy too but in a different way and not as aggressively." So if I were being a good friend I’d have to say Cosette.
2. You’re a pretty avid gamer; what’s your desert island gaming system and the game you would play?
My desert island gaming system is the PlayStation 1—the first PlayStation because those had all the golden age Squaresoft RPGs—and my game would be Final Fantasy VII, which is my favorite game ever.
3. I’ve never seen or read The Flash, so what do I need to know in order to hop in on January 27 and enjoy your arc?
You need to know that there was a group of scientists working on this device, and it exploded and made a bunch of people in the city superheroes and villains (Flash being one of them, me being another). They are really smart but they are also superheroes, so it's a bunch of nerds fighting each other with super powers.
4. How is wedding planning going? Colors? Suits? Tuxes? Ton of performances by friends?
We have several of those things. Definitely friends performing is going to be a big part of it. Right now, we are trying to pin down venues because it seems like there is possibly going to be different little satellite weddings in different cities, since we populate a couple of different places depending on what we are doing. We’re based in L.A., we have a lot of friends in the U.K. and obviously we’re here in New York a lot, so where is a big question right now and we are working on that actively before going into little details.
5. What’s a book that changed the way you looked at or experienced the world?
Just Kids by Patti Smith, her memoir about her early days in New York with Robert Mapplethorpe. It really shows that all you need to be an artist is the will and passion for it. They came to New York saying, “we’re going to be artists.” And not really being sure what that meant, but knew what they wanted and totally made it actual; I found that really inspiring.
Hurry over to Broadway's Imperial Theatre to see Andy Mientus as Marius in 'Les Miserables'.
