Andrew Rannells
Andrew Scott Rannells (born August 23, 1978) is an American actor. He is best known for originating the role of Elder Kevin Price in the 2011 Broadway musical The Book of Mormon, for which he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical and won the 2012 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. He received his second Tony nomination in 2017 for his performance as Whizzer in the 2016 Broadway revival of Falsettos. Other Broadway credits include Hairspray (2005), Jersey Boys (2009), Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2014), Hamilton (2015), The Boys in the Band (2018), and Gutenberg! The Musical! (2023). For his performance in the Off West End production of Tammy Faye, he was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award.
Andrew Rannells
In the 2010s, he began working as a screen actor; most notably, he starred in the 2012 NBC sitcom The New Normal and played the recurring role of Elijah in HBO's Girls (2012–2017). In 2019, he began starring in Black Monday on Showtime. He has accumulated numerous voice acting credits since the beginning of his career including, currently, Matthew MacDell on Netflix's Big Mouth and William Clockwell on Amazon Prime's Invincible.
Early life[edit]
Rannells was born in Omaha, Nebraska, to Charlotte and Ronald Rannells.[2] He is the fourth of five siblings, with three sisters and an older brother.[2][3] Rannells attended Our Lady of Lourdes grade school in Omaha, and then Creighton Preparatory School,[2] an all-boys Roman Catholic school in Omaha.[3][4] He left the Catholic Church upon graduating as he was sexually abused by a priest at his high school.[5] His family lived in the Hanscom Park neighborhood in Omaha.[2]
As a child, he took classes at the Emmy Gifford Children's Theater and performed at the Omaha Community Playhouse and the Firehouse Dinner Theatre and the Dundee Dinner Theatre.[2][6] Rannells was 11 when he acted in his first play. He did community theater with fellow Omahan and Creighton Prep alumnus Conor Oberst.[7] He did voice-over work and commercials, including a 1996 Grease spoof with Amy Adams.[3]
Rannells moved to New York City in 1997 after high school, studying theater at Marymount Manhattan College for two years before he started auditioning full-time and began landing roles.[8]
Career[edit]
1994–2002: Early career and voice acting[edit]
Active in community theater, Rannells got his start as a professional actor as a teenager through voice acting. In the mid-1990s, he found work with the animation production company DIC Entertainment through an Omaha casting call. He was subsequently cast in a number of their television productions in main voice roles.[9] He continued to work in the medium for a number of years while pursuing theater. Rannells worked with the New York City-based production company 4Kids Entertainment from 2001 to 2004 and did voice acting for several English dubs of anime series such as Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh!,[7] in addition to serving as voice director for the dubs of Kirby: Right Back at Ya! and Sonic X.[2]
One of his first theater roles was as the character James in the touring production of Pokémon Live! from September 2000 to August 2001. When asked about his experience in 2014, he jokingly said that he would have rather starred in a porn film or snuff film instead and that he only took the job for the pay.[10][11]
Before winning his first Broadway role, Rannells had parts in a number of regional theater productions, including Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Miss Saigon, and Thoroughly Modern Millie.[12] For his turn as Hedwig at the Zachary Scott Theater Center in Austin, Texas, in 2002,[13] he won best actor in a musical at the B. Iden Payne Awards in September 2002, which honor outstanding achievements in Austin theater.[14]
Personal life[edit]
Rannells is gay.[35] Rannells has said he has known he is gay since high school.[3] He came out to his family when he was eighteen, but he stated that "by that point, no one was surprised".[36] He also came out to his theater friends, but not his all-boys Catholic school.[3]
Since 2019, he has been in a relationship with actor Tuc Watkins.[37] The two met the year before while playing a couple in the Broadway production of The Boys in the Band.[38] They reprised their roles for Netflix's film version of the show and also worked together on Black Monday in 2020.[38]