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Video: JoJo Takes the Stage as the New Leading Lady of MOULIN ROUGE!
May 17, 2024
Platinum-selling singer, songwriter, and actress Joanna 'JoJo' Levesque is currently making her Broadway debut in the role of 'Satine' in Moulin Rouge! The Musical. JoJo just met the press at Broadway's Al Hirschfeld Theatre and BroadwayWorld is taking you inside the special day in this video!
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Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World. Platinum recording artist Joanna Jojo Leveque is making her Broadway debut
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stepping into the role of Satine in the hit musical Moulin Rouge, and I caught up with her here at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre
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Welcome to Broadway. How does it feel? It is exhilarating. I... Not exaggerating, I'm having the time of my life. So this is... this is everything
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Has it always been a dream to come to Broadway? Always. I'm from Massachusetts and my mom and I would take the Bonanza bus from Foxboro or Providence and
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come to New York City for musical theater auditions and to, you know, for other types of auditions
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And I've, you know, just been in entertainment since I was a little girl and this has always been a dream
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So to do it in this way is unreal. Okay, so you found out you're coming to Broadway as Satine in Moulin Rouge
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Like who did you tell? How did you feel? I was on an early morning walk with my dog
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with my good friend, and we were in a residential neighborhood and I start shrieking, bloody murder
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I was just so hype and they were like, okay, okay, I know you're excited
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And I told everybody. I told everybody and like not everybody because I know that I wanted it to be a secret for
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for some of my friends who had been and and you know fans and so
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yeah, I told my mom though and she cried. She was excited. Okay, so Tuesday night, Broadway debuts are so magical. They only happen once
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There must have been so much going through your mind. Like what was Tuesday like for you before you like came down in the swing
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Oh, you're saying it's magical and it was magical, but it was terrifying. I was so
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scared. Especially because of the way Satine makes her entrance in this show. It is pretty spectacular. So I was
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preparing for that entrance and I was I had like a frog in my throat and then I
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hear the applause from the audience as I'm descending, you know into the theater and I was just like
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having to really talk to myself and remind myself that I'm not Joanna. I'm not even Jojo. I'm Satine and this is my house, you know
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And to really inhabit that that she closes the show. Everyone's here for her and just get into that mindset of like you're exactly where you're supposed to be
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Just because people have been doing this for so much longer than you doesn't mean that you
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aren't exactly where you're supposed to be. So I'm having all that self-talk before that moment and my family came out to visit me
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They all stayed in my little apartment and it was so meaningful to have my family, my friends, a lot of fans in the audience. It was
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like I couldn't have dreamed up a better night. So when you took your bow Tuesday night, that first bow, was it out-of-body experience? Like what was it like
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I just couldn't believe we made it to the end. Nobody got seriously injured or died. Like there's so much going on in this show, not only on the stage
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but behind the scenes, sprinting back and forth, quick changes, like a lot of
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backstage choreography that I was just like we all made it and I get to do this again and it's just gonna get better and
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so by the time I was taking the final bow, I forgot what the bow was supposed to be. So I like
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it was just it was so fun and just to let it flow felt great
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Every star that I've spoken to who has done this has had the same reaction you had. You're up there and you hear all these voices in your head saying
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oh my gosh, this is it. Here it comes. And then you take your bow but you seem like you made it from the heart, your bow, which I think is really nice, you know
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You know, I do everything from the heart and it almost hurts sometimes how much I come from the heart and
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I'm just I have so much gratitude for this experience, this opportunity
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and I think you could probably feel that in my bow because I was just like
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this cast, this crew, this company already means so much to me
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Yeah, some incredible musical numbers you get to sing. Like what was it like learning the music and just singing these songs
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It was really exciting because I'm such a fan of music and pop and all the different genres we get to play within this show and
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even before I got the confirmation that I, you know, was gonna be playing Satine, I already learned the whole show
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I was like, I'm coming in like I like it's mine. And so I just like listened to the soundtrack over and over and over again and I was
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just excited because we're singing some of pop music's most iconic hits and
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that's what's really one of the beautiful things about this show is that you come in, you know all the songs, you know
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It's just it's a good time. It's a sing-along almost. Okay. Satine has such an incredible look, such
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beautiful costumes and the hair and everything. The first time you saw yourself made up in the mirror, makeup, costume and everything
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like what do you remember? I was just like what a baddie
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It's nice to not be myself. It's just a really exciting departure actually and
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I had already dyed my hair red before I knew that my Satine would be a redhead as well
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And it's just really giving, especially with my curves, it's really giving Jessica Rabbit
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It's giving, you know, a showgirl who is just va-va-voom and it's fun because I get to do my makeup every night backstage and to put that on and
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turn myself into this woman is so so fun. The first time you walked by the theater. Yeah. You saw your pictures out there like, oh my god
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the marquee. I'm coming to Broadway in Moulin Rouge, like what went through your mind
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I just couldn't believe it, you know, and not all the theaters have that type of marquee where you know your
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face is right there and you can take pictures near it and stuff. And the first thing I saw was like my aunt and uncle going and taking their picture and I'm just like, look at me
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just a little girl from south of Boston on Broadway. It's just, it's wild. It's a dream
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Enjoy your run here. There's nothing like it
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#Acting & Theater
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