The Last Five Years' Jeremy Jordan Talks Anna Kendrick and More

What did you bring in those final auditions that you think sealed the deal? Or was it chemistry reads with Anna?

Jeremy: No, we didn't do anything like that, actually!

You could have hated each other.

Jeremy: Yeah, we could have completely hated each other. OK, we hate each other. [Laughs] No, I'm kidding. I came in and did "Moving Too Fast," which is the big vocal powerhouse song, to show that I can sing and am energetic. Then I had to do "If I Didn't Believe in You," which is the dramatic number and kind of an argument, fighting thing. They loved all these things, but at the end of the day, they were like, "Is he a funny guy with comedic timing?" I don't have a lot of stuff on film to show them with that sort of thing, so I had to come in and do "Shiksa Goddess." I tapped a little bit into our director Richard [LaGravenese]'s energy. He's a little goofy energy ball, and I started experimenting with that. As soon as I found that energy, that became early Jamie. Just bright-eyed, everything's exciting, can't wait for whatever the future's gonna hold. Jamie has an energy in sort of wanting to please everybody, and eventually I think people take advantage of that and he gets sucked into a different kind of role in a different kind of world. Because he's so open and kind of a "yes" man, it takes him to different places as he matures.

Compared with some of the other versions of Jamie, you seemed to bring a goofier, funnier personality to him.

Jeremy: I'm a total goofball too, so I wanted to bring the personality of my own into it because I relate a lot to Jamie in a lot of different ways. I also understand all the choices that he makes and why he makes them.

__We don't really see Cathy and Jamie's actual meeting. The first thing we see from his perspective is the sex after they meet… __

Jeremy: [Laughs] Yeah! I'd say that's like third or fourth date…

What did you imagine as their meet-cute story?

Jeremy: We imagined that they had just met at a party through friends, and Jamie was a nobody at this point and just moved to New York. Cathy had been in New York for a while… I think they just met at a party, and he was cute and personable and she was kind of cute and self-deprecating in a fun kind of way. And they just hit it off!