'Jersey Boys' Star John Lloyd Young Sings in Spanish, Talks Inspiration and Time in Venezuela, Spain [Exclusive Video]
"Who loves you, pretty baby?" For Tony and Grammy Award-winning actor John Lloyd Young, it's Broadway, where he's seen his name in lights and where he's emulated The Four Seasons' Frankie Valli in "Jersey Boys" — one of the most exhilarating feelings for a talented thespian dedicated to his craft.
Now the professional crooner with a stellar falsetto is getting a new kind of thrill in a film adaptation of "Jersey Boys," directed by the legendary Clint Eastwood.
Eastwood's film adaptation of the Tony Award-winning musical tells the story of "four young men from the wrong side of the tracks in New Jersey" who became the iconic rock 'n' roll crooners of the '60s known as The Four Seasons. The band's hit songs include "Sherry," "Big Girls Don't Cry," "Walk Like a Man," "Who Loves You" and "Oh, What a Night," featured in the film and on the soundtrack.
The main cast is made up of Young, Erich Bergen, Michael Lomenda, Vincent Piazza and Christopher Walken.
"Three of us [Young, Bergen and Lomenda] have done the stage productions, not together, but across the world of 'Jersey Boys,' so we knew the 'Jersey Boys' stage setup very well. Each of us individually had done it more than a 1,000 times each, so we were happy to come together because we knew it from the stage. Vince Piazza was the wild card, he hadn't done it before," Young told Latin Post.
Piazza was a welcome "wild card" indeed. Young, who had worked with Piazza in the past, was thrilled to reunite with the "Boardwalk Empire" actor. The two actors played best friends for a reading for a screenplay written by Chazz Palminteri.
"I remember what a great actor [Piazza] was and how excited that I was that he was getting the movie," Young added.
There was a strong camaraderie on set, which translated to the big screen.
"The unifying factor was the fact that we were all making our major studio film debut and that it was for Clint Eastwood. We were really happy that he had chosen us, and we felt so privileged to be there," Young said.
Eastwood, 84, who is known for his signature mannerisms on film, acting chops and his directing skills in films like "Million Dollar Baby," "Mystic River" and "Gran Torino," among others, created a comfortable environment for the actors on set, Young said.
"Clint is well known for these very stoic kind of intimidating characters. But he's an actor, and you can't be a good actor without also being a sensitive artist. ... There is something energetic about when you meet Clint, and you're an actor too, you know that he's one of you, but he's your boss. The thing about him being an actor though is that you know that whatever problem you have, he is going to be able to communicate with you and help you solve it. He was there for us entirely," Young said.
"His fearlessness and his no-nonsense approach, I think that was what I took from him the most. ... Bring your best idea to that first take, and I think that made things really spontaneous."
This approach also helped Young bring his vulnerability to the film because, "Clint has a very quiet, calm and safe environment that he creates for actors because he is one, and he knows what you need," Young said.
While Young was taking notes from Eastwood, whose acting career spans over 50 years, he also had enriching experiences in the world outside of acting as a young adult. Young's fascination with Latin culture took him beyond the borders of his native Plattsburgh in upstate New York. After graduating from high school, he spent a year as a Rotary Club International exchange student in Caracas, Venezuela.
Young went on to flourish in the arts and graduate with honors in theatre arts from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Still hooked on learning more about Latin culture, he spent his third year of college at the University of Salamanca, Spain, as a student of world and art history and Spanish language and literature.
"I am in America, and if you want to be a good citizen, you should know Spanish," he said. "So I started studying Spanish and then really started loving the idea of speaking another language and communicating with a whole world of people. ... Now, I have friends at home in Los Angeles who are Mexican, and it's wonderful.
"If you don't speak Spanish in America, it's like going through life with one eye closed," he said. "There is a whole other world of people that you get to be friends with — a whole hemisphere of people."
Young got another lesson in Spanish from a Latino crooner: "I learned the subjunctive by listening to Luis Miguel."
Young, who was also appointed by President Barack Obama to the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities and sworn in by Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan last year, has been inspired by Latin political artists and musicans as well, including the late Victor Jara.
A Latin legend, Jara was a Chilean teacher, theater director, poet, folk singer-songwriter and political activist whose songs were about love, peace and social justice. Tragically, he was tortured and brutally murdered in 1973 after the Chilean coup that brought Augusto Pinochet to power. This terrible act transformed Jara into "a symbol of struggle for human rights and justice worldwide."
Last year marked the 40th anniversary of this dark and violent chapter in Chilean history. While on tour in Chile, Bruce Springsteen (with the E Street Band) addressed the audience in Spanish and covered one of Jara's last songs, "Manifesto" in Spanish, according to Rolling Stone.
"It's a sad tragic story, but in terms of someone who loved his art so much that he sacrificed his life for it, it's Victor Jara," Young said.
Watch John Lloyd Young sing in Spanish during Latin Post's exclusive interview below, as well as the official trailer for "Jersey Boys," which hits theaters today, Friday, June 20.
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