He Wouldn't Be Here Without 'Les Mis'

Neil Patrick Harris is currently starring in one of the hottest shows on Broadway, the revival of the Tony-nominated rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, but his heart forever belongs to a show playing just a few blocks away: Les Misérables. During a roundtable chat with some of his fellow Tony nominees (including Of Mice and Men's Chris O'Dowd) for The Hollywood Reporter, Harris discussed how seeing Les Mis as a young boy changed his life forever and made him a bona fide Broadway fanatic.

Now, the 40-year-old-actor has never been shy about expressing his love for the sweeping musical based on Victor Hugo's novel. (Remember when NPH and his How I Met Your Mother co-star Jason Segel belted out Jean Valjean and Javert's “Confrontation” during their visit to Inside the Actor's Studio? Of course you do. It was only the greatest thing ever.) But during the Tony talk, Harris explains why his love for Les Mis, and Broadway in general, runs so deep.

A movie producer flew a young NPH and his family to see a Broadway show and, as fate would have it, they saw Les Mis, a musical the actor was already in love with. Harris, who hailed from a small town in New Mexico ("Where theater is done in gyms"), said he remembers the experience "vividly."

I remember sitting in the back row of the orchestra with my family and watching Les Misérables and it was so grand and so epic. [I] still gets goosebumps from it ... I remember at the end of Act One... My jaw was literally wide open as the house lights came up. I had no idea it could be like that.

Harris, who said after seeing Les Mis he would visit New York City every year "and see 15 shows in 12 days," that from that fateful trip to see Les Mis he "held Broadway to this massive standard." Now, plenty of movie stars and TV stars make their way to the Great White Way, but NPH is not only someone who truly loves Broadway, but someone who cut his teeth and earned his place there. Before HIMYM hit it big, Harris starred in stage shows like Rent, Cabaret, and Assassins. (Sadly, NPH hasn't starred in Les Mis...yet.) But there's something so endearing about a star as popular as NPH still being, at his core, just a geeked-out Broadway kid.

You should definitely watch the entire clip (which includes Act One's Tony Shaloub and Rocky's Andy Karl, among others, reminiscing about their own Broadway experiences), but the Hedwig star's story begins around the 3:45 mark. Good luck trying not to get distracted by his piercing blue eyes and matching blue nail polish, though.

And, just because this never gets old, here's NPH and Jason Segel putting on their own little production of Les Mis.