Leslie Odom Jr. Returns to the Room Where It Happens

Excuse me, is that Aaron Burr, sir? Ten years after originating the role of Hamilton’s sly frenemy and ultimate assassin, Leslie Odom Jr. returns to the Broadway production on Tuesday for a 12-week run to celebrate the show’s 10th anniversary.

The milestone wooed Odom, now 44, back to the Richard Rodgers Theatre, he told Vogue via Zoom from his living room in New York. “There are incredible shows that open every single year, but if you spin the block 10 years later, almost none of them are still in that building.”

“Hamil-ten” festivities began in June, when the original cast reunited at the Tonys, and continued with the theatrical rerelease of Disney’s movie version last week. But Odom’s reprisal of Burr is conjuring a frenzy, including a record-breaking ticket race, not seen since Lin-Manuel Miranda’s historical rap opera debuted in 2015.

Despite its title, Hamilton has always belonged as much to Burr. And now, nine years after Odom said goodbye to the production in July 2016, he is reacquainting himself with what he calls Burr’s haunted soul—and a fresh, young cast led by Trey Curtis as Hamilton. Odom spoke to Vogue about being the new/old guy, how he and his view of Burr have changed, and whether he’ll be the only original cast member to resurface at the Richard Rodgers Theatre this fall.

Vogue: We’re speaking on the eve of your much-anticipated return to Hamilton. How are you feeling?

Leslie Odom Jr.: I’m pretty good. We had a put-in yesterday. That’s a run-through of the show with no audience, but you get full costumes, props, the lighting, the turntable moving. It’s for all the new cast members coming into a long-running show. I’m going in with five other new people. It was weird and cool and wonderful. It’s heady. I feel so lucky and privileged to have the opportunity to dip back into this thing that at first just meant a lot to me, but now has come to mean a lot to so many people. I made a bunch of mistakes, but I’m being very compassionate with myself.

Not that I’m asking you to tell us specifically what mistakes you made, but was it steps, words?

It’s so many things. Hundreds of actors have done the show all over the world, so it’s not frozen in amber. I wasn’t learning the exact same show that we did 10 years ago. People are standing in slightly different spots, and I’m apologizing, “I’m in your way.” The first time around, we got to know each other almost like a family. My family does the morning dance around breakfast where we’re not bumping into each other, and so I’m learning that with these new people, and, yes, messing up steps and entrances and exits every now and again, but I took a lot of notes, and I think that Tuesday’s audience will be really forgiving. I have a lot of friends and family coming to that first performance, and so I’m choosing to have the kind of grace for myself that I know they will.

You’re a new person, but you’re also an old person. You’re the original person! What does preparation look like when you know the character of Aaron Burr inside out but you haven’t played him in nine years?

The preparation looks like reacclimating myself with much of what I knew before: reading the Chernow book, remembering the history and the plot points. And then it looks like my process looked the first time, which is then you go deeper. Then I spend 12 weeks really mining and asking questions and being curious and pulling on every thread and seeing where it leads me. It looks the same and different.

How did the idea of coming back—this gift you’re bestowing on Broadway—come to be? Did the producers ask, or did you volunteer?

Me and Lin had been talking a lot. The world is getting to see so many things that are years in the making, like the rerelease of the film. I don’t think the Tony Awards thing was a last-minute thing. There was talk about a one-night-only concert, and there were really exciting places—Madison Square Garden or one of the big sports stadiums—but I think it was a scheduling thing, and it didn’t work out. I really wanted to make sure that I kept my schedule free for that, and then when it fell through, I had already kind of been preparing to play the role at least for a night.

The first Broadway show that I did, I was a replacement. I came into Rent, and I felt so lucky that I got to step into something that people already loved. [Returning to Hamilton] is sort of tied to that. At one point in my career, I came into a long-running show, and now I’m a part of a long-running show. And so I mentioned it to Lin, “Wouldn’t it be cool to do this?” And he was like, “Are you serious?” I think Lin texted [Hamilton producer] Jeffrey Sellers, and he texted [director] Tommy Kail, and Jeffrey called me the next day, and it was kind of done. That was back in January or February of this year.

Your two kids weren’t even born when Hamilton—and Hamiltonmania—first broke out. How much are they grasping it now, that this is who their dad is?

My daughter, who’s eight, is just starting to form her own opinion about the show and my involvement, and I think it’s a positive one so far. My son, he’s four, so I don’t think he’s locked in, but I had this wild realization, thinking about the decade and the fact that, yeah, my daughter and my son were not here 10 years ago. We weren’t even thinking about having children, and now they’re here and they’re very here. They’re very present in my life, and they have been for a few seasons now. And then in that same amount of time that’s passed, my daughter will be 18.

Speaking of that passage of time, do you see the character of Burr differently at all now, at 44, than you did at 34?

Well, I’m looking at a Hamilton that’s quite a bit younger than I. And there’s this thing, as a performer, that becomes a practice: Invent nothing, deny nothing. If I feel something, I’m supposed to not deny that. So I had this experience yesterday when I was watching this kid. I was just thinking that this is how Burr, my Burr, remembers his Hamilton. This whole evening is a conjuring of his, and so he conjures the kid that he met. So it works. It works for me. We’ll see how it feels for the audience. And then I also have the memories rushing back of all my compatriots, all the people that I did the show with—they’re still there. There’s a lot of ghosts on that stage, which is fabulous. If you’re playing Burr, the haunting of his soul is really rich for an audience to watch.

You’ve also changed, I assume, in the last decade. What are you bringing to Burr now that’s different?

Ten years ago, I was still grappling with hoping that I was enough. I just remember none of us had any real evidence that we were good enough, that we were acceptable. The business certainly hadn’t shown me that, and I hadn’t really been embraced by any kind of audience, not really. And so there was still an awful lot that I wondered about, just about my own value and worthiness. Thank goodness those questions are behind me. I owe a great debt to this show because it helped me answer those questions. It’s not professional achievement or hardware that helps you answer those questions. It was those 500 performances. I was good enough for me.

What about the rigorousness of this show and being back on Broadway? How are you approaching that this time around?

I’m going to be good to myself this time. A mentor told me, I think it was really good advice, she said, “Do not forget that it’s not the same body that it was 10 years ago.” While I don’t quite feel that yet, I’m going to act on that wisdom. I’m just making sure that I take a lot better care of myself with my warm-ups and all that self-care stuff—hot baths and massages. The first time, I didn’t give any care to that at all. What body?

I have found that long-term Broadway performers have a certain constitution that might mirror my own. There’re just some of us that like the athleticism, that blue-collar feel of it, where you come in, you punch a clock, you do your show. The physical nature of it does really good things for your mental health and spiritual life too. And you can take your kids to school if you can get up out of bed in time. You can have a lunch date. You can plan a life around it in a way that when you’re not in a show, you can feel kind of out to sea.

This is a question from my Hamilton-obsessed 11-year-old neighbor: What is your favorite song to sing? Has it changed at all between the first time and now?

My favorite song to sing used to be “Wait for It,” and, of course, it still is, right? I mean, every song is my favorite song to sing, but some of the most gorgeous vocal arrangements by [musical director] Alex Lacamoire, some of these choral moments, I had really forgotten, being away for 10 years. A song like “History Has Its Eyes on You,” a song like “It’s Quiet Uptown”—I just think Lin and Alex Lacamoire are at their peak. I really am so happy and honored to sing some of those choral moments.

Do you agree or disagree with the famed Aaron Burr line: “Talk less, smile more”?

I agree.

Why?

Because I learn a whole lot more from listening. I serve better when I listen more than I speak. And I hope to smile more as I get lighter and lighter in life. Talking less is a really good motto.

The fans are wondering and wishful thinking: Are you going to be the only original cast member returning to Hamilton this season? Are you recruiting anyone else to come back and join you?

Not yet, but I reserve the right. I got to get in there and really wade around so I can tell ’em, “Yeah, the water’s still warm. You’re good. Come join me.”

That Tony reunion with the full original cast: What was racing through your mind when you were up there with them for the first time in all these years?

I’ve learned that for those big award shows, for the audience at home, it needs to look and feel like a party. But for the performers, what it takes is seven minutes of extreme focus. It’s game day. I don’t want to forget anything because, especially with the nature of the internet now, this is going to live forever. We haven’t said anything in 10 years. This is the first thing we are saying, so we certainly don’t want this to be a blight on whatever legacy we have. And then, man, did we party. Kara Young won another Tony that night, and Darren Criss won a Tony. We went to three or four parties, and we stayed out all night.

When all of you, wearing your stark all black, sang, “History has its eyes on you,” it hit hard all over again. It makes you think about the state of the world back in 2015 and 2016, and now we’re in another moment like that. How does Hamilton speak to this particular time?

Today the message includes something like: Put a fence around the things you love. Put guardrails around the things that are important to you, that are special to you, and don’t let trolls or the creeping negativity that you may feel on the left and right invade and infect the things that make you smile, that bring you joy. I remember when I saw Tony Bennett, I think it was his 90th birthday at Radio City, and a bunch of us sang for Mr. Bennett—Michael Bublé, k.d Lang, and Diana Krall—and I got to sing a song. All of us showed up for Mr. Bennett, and that man stepped on the stage and wiped the floor with us. The thing that struck me about him was it felt like Mr. Bennett lived in a cocoon of joy. It’s irresistible, that kind of passion and joy. Whatever the Hamilton message is today, I think it’s something like that.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

This article was originally published on Vogue.com.