Now that Hamilton is available on Disney+, fans can finally become familiar with Lin-Manuel Miranda's hip-hop musical, its quotable lyrics (so that's where "I am not throwing away my shot" is from), and the unforgettable cast. While Miranda's titular statesman, Leslie Odom Jr.'s Aaron Burr, and the Schuyler sister trio (Renee Elise Goldsberry, Phillipa Soo, and Jasmine Cephas Jones) have earned their deserved acclaim, Jonathan Groff's King George is also getting a new boost of attention after Hamilton's streaming debut.
The 35-year-old actor and singer's talents are noteworthy, no doubt—even if he recently went viral after Hamilton viewers noticed he spat heavily onstage during his performance. (Seriously, there are a lot of tweets about it.)
Yes, Groff is aware of his spattering stage habit, which he addressed last year in an interview with Variety: “I spit a lot onstage. I’ve always been a spitter … I start sweating. I just get wet when I perform onstage. It is just what happens.”
With that aside, a quick dive into Groff's resume may be necessary. Although the actor played King George when Hamilton opened in 2015 to 2016, there's much more to the stage and screen star.
He has two Tony nominations.
Groff was first nominated in 2007 in the Featured Actor category for his role as Melchior Gabor in the hit rock musical Spring Awakening, a stunning and provocative coming-of-age story about a group of German students in the late 19th century grappling with sexuality, identity, and authority.
Although he didn't take home a trophy, the role is widely considered his breakout performance (for fans outside of Broadway). He starred opposite Leah Michelle, who he with whom he later reunited on Ryan Murphy's Glee.
Groff's second Tony nod came years later in 2016, this time in the Lead Actor category, for his performance as King George in Hamilton. His other theater credits include Hair, A New Brain, In My Life, and more.
He also has a Grammy.
At the 2015 Grammy Awards, Hamilton took home the award for Best Musical Theater Album, defeating other nominees including Fun Home and Something Rotten!. Groff shares the win with his cast mates, who accepted the award from their home base, Richard Rodgers Theatre in Manhattan.
He stars in Netflix's Mindhunter.
On the thriller streaming series, Groff plays FBI Agent Holden Ford, who hunts down serial killers using deep psychological analysis. Apparently, his character is loosely based on the real-life FBI Agent John E. Douglas, whose novel Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit, provides much of the source material for the show.
The series first premiered in 2017 and followed up with a second season in 2019. Unfortunately, the future of the series looks hazy as Netflix put Season 3 on an "indefinite hold," Deadline reported in January.
You've also seen him on TV in Glee and Looking.
Rachel Berry's (Lea Michelle) hot musical fling from a rival high school, Jesse St. James? Jonathan Groff. The former Spring Awakening co-stars shared the screen between 2010 and 2015, showing off their vocal prowess again, on Glee. Shortly after his Glee debut, Groff starred in HBO's Looking, which follows the friendship of three gay men living in San Francisco, as a video game designer named Patrick. The show premiered in 2014 and ran for two seasons, culminating with a movie-length finale in 2016.
Groff's TV career goes as far back as 2007, when he had a recurring role on the soap opera One Life to Live.
He voices Kristoff in the Frozen movies.
Groff contributed his buttery vocals to Pixar's smash franchise as the ice worker Kristoff, a sweet introvert raised by trolls who spends most of his time with his pet reindeer Sven (also occasionally voiced by the actor) and later falls in love with Kristen Bell's Princess Anna. Some of Groff's hits in 2013's Frozen and the 2019 sequel include "Reindeer(s) Are Better Than People" and "Lost in the Woods."
He recently returned to the stage as Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors.
The beloved '80s musical from Alan Menken and Howard Ashman was revived yet again in October 2019, this time off-Broadway and with Groff as plant shop owner Seymour, who acquires and begrudgingly raises a carnivorous seedling named Audrey II. The New York Times praised his performance, with theater critic Ben Brantley applauding Groff's "major nerd charisma." The actor exited the role by January 2020.
He'll be in the fourth Matrix movie.
Groff's casting was announced in December 2019, but details of his character (and the film itself) remain secret. We do know, though, that he'll be joining original Matrix stars Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Ann Moss, and Jada Pinkett-Smith in the latest installment of the franchise, which will be directed by Lana Wachowski.
