"The process of finding my voice as SpongeBob was to start by watching what Tom Kenny did, trying to do an impression of sorts, and then forgetting all about it and letting the voice become a second-nature thing."
"The whole cast and creative team were definitely aware of the 'This is the death of Broadway!' kind of thing about 'SpongeBob,' but we've been really ready to change people's minds. I'm really proud of being part of something that took the most creative route to a commercial entity."
"To be honest, it was a little bit of a surprise to me that my Broadway debut was a musical."
"I love Broadway musicals, but there's a lot that I want to do."
"Wrestling is a small, intimate sport."
"I've always been somebody who sort of throws himself, you could say, obsessively into whatever thing I'm passionate about."
"When the show starts, I am in my SpongeBob stance, and I walk like SpongeBob, and the first step that I take, I am SpongeBob."
"I was a wrestler in high school, and that was a pretty big part of my life."
"I've gotten to meet Sara Bareilles a couple of times. I'm just a such a massive fan of hers, from her albums to 'Waitress' to everything that she does. To be a fan of somebody and then find out that they have a good heart and are kind is really heartwarming."
"I start with a pretty yoga-based warm-up. I do jumping jacks and burpees, and I do a lot of dynamic stretching."
"I would say that SpongeBob, at his core, is this optimistic, loving best friend. Getting to play him every day has sort of rubbed off on me and improved my life."
"The magnitude of being able to make my Broadway debut as SpongeBob in 'SpongeBob SquarePants' really only started to hit me when we took it out of town."
"I would say I'm the normal level of 'SpongeBob' fan, which is that it's been out since I was a kid, and it's part of the zeitgeist."
"I've always loved the Marx brothers and Charlie Chaplin."
"Physical comedy and musical theatre were never actually in my main focus at school. I was more of a dramatic actor. I always thought I was better at that."
"I know that my father was a little nervous about me pursuing a career in the arts."
"I think I'm a little less naive than SpongeBob can sometimes seem to be."
"The sort of stereotypical wrestling practice is that you're doing burpees, and the coach is yelling at you to keep going, and you feel like you're going to collapse, but you somehow make it through to the end."
"You're always nervous about what critics say - about what anybody has to say, really."
"I look a lot like my mom. I'm the only one of my siblings with red hair, and she had bright red hair. I always have felt incredibly connected to her."
"My mother passed away when I was seven. She had a piano in the house that she was teaching my sisters how to play. That was where I first encountered music, through her."
"One of my favorite pieces of fan mail was a gift that I got. It was a jar filled with handwritten nice thoughts."
"There's a social element of me that's pretty reserved. High school was when I was starting to come out of my shell because of the theater community."
"The more you see somebody else's version of something, the harder it is to make it your own."
"SpongeBob has these qualities that I aspire to. Sure, he's a little naive, maybe, but he's so optimistic and is able to put his love of his friends and family above everything else."
