She’s Hot? He’s Hot? They’re Hot.
The question is not “Should I watch the Nicole Scherzinger and Jonathan Groff ‘Actors on Actors’ video?” The question instead is “Why has no one ever thought to put these two in a room alone for an hour until now?” The fourth episode of the first-ever Broadway edition of Variety’s “Actors on Actors” series features the stars of Sunset Blvd. and Just in Time acting out the “two delusional girls telling each other ‘Exactly’” meme for nearly an hour. Both Scherzinger and Groff have a penchant for earnest, woo-woo appreciation for the theater, setting them apart from the snarky sibling banter of Kieran Culkin and Sarah Snook or the wry gravitas of George Clooney and Patti LuPone. Not only are these two affirming each other left and right about discovering new parts of your body where music can come from and bonding over feeling like rock stars, they’re also slipping into bizarre, jokey asides that involve them repeating that the other is hot and mentioning their various genitalia way more often than happens in the usual “Actors on Actors” video. Example: Groff tells Scherzinger her long notes in ballads leave seats wet, requiring a mop and bucket. Example: They both discuss singing from their taint. Do you think you’re gonna get this kinda talk from Audra McDonald?
While many “Actors on Actors” videos pair up former castmates or performers of a similar type, this may be the best-ever pairing driven by energy levels alone. All at once, these two are flirtatious, sentimental, and so, so strange. When Scherzinger tells Groff that Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote “the music to her soul,” Groff nods with the sage calm of someone who has been alive for thousands of years and knows that Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote the music for Nicole Scherzinger’s soul. If you drank every time either of them said “gift” or “privilege,” you’d be going to the hospital.
Fortunately, that’s a good thing, as this is the type of chemistry that makes “Actors on Actors” so endearingly memorable. Groff and Scherzinger are perfect theater kids, never above the art in any way and endlessly grateful for the opportunities they’ve been given. So what if they want to talk about Scherzinger’s metaphorical balls for two minutes before Groff finally asks her how long it takes her to wash off the blood each night? (The answer: Not long!) They’re pouring their souls out every night, and seated across from each other in the Rainbow Room, it feels like either could burst into tears at any second. Hopefully casting directors are watching, because the raw chemistry between Scherzinger and Groff might make for a good onstage pairing one of these days. Is it too soon to bring back Sweeney Todd?
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