Things have worked out pretty well for Leslie Odom Jr., but the Broadway star and actor had a plan in case a career in show business didn’t pan out.
Odom rocketed to stardom after playing Aaron Burr in the original Broadway production of “Hamilton,” a role that earned him a Tony Award for best actor in a musical and a Grammy Award for best musical theater album. Now, he’s returning to the part that launched his career, having reprised the role of Burr in “Hamilton” on Broadway beginning Sept. 9 and continuing through Nov. 26.
Odom has become a force in the industry, but he was prepared to go in another direction.
“Shortly before ‘Hamilton,’ when I was going to quit the business, when I was looking for something else to do, I was thinking, you know, what do my skills — what might I apply that to?” he told Willie Geist during the Sunday Sitdown episode that aired Sept. 28.
“What can I do with this, what do I do beyond singing and acting? And I went to hotels. I was applying to work in the hospitality industry. I thought I would start at the front desk, and then in a few years I’d be running this hotel.”
Odom has kept quite busy since “Hamilton,” successfully transitioning to the big screen with an Academy Award-nominated performance in “One Night in Miami…” He’s also starred in “Murder on the Orient Express,” “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” and “The Many Saints of Newark,” while also making appearances on TV shows “Person of Interest,” “The Good Wife” and “Abbott Elementary.”
The multifaceted actor also released five studio albums, wrote a memoir called “Failing Up” and a children’s book with his wife called “I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know.”
Odom, who left “Hamilton” in July 2016 — the same time as fellow stars Phillipa Soo and Lin-Manuel Miranda, who also created the musical — says he has an innate understanding of how to help people in the hospitality field, which he asserts isn’t that much different from what he does in the smash Broadway production.
“Because I care about the guest experience,” he said. “If you are in front of me, if you are in my space, I just care deeply about the experience that you have, that you feel seen, that you feel valued, that you feel listened to. And I want to take care of your experience, right?”
He continues, “And so when I think of that, and I thought about my responsibility in this show, about Burr’s responsibility in this show, really I host this evening. It’s my responsibility to introduce you to my friend, Alexander Hamilton, played by my friend, my brilliant friend Lin-Manuel Miranda.”
Odom is certainly excited to once again be part of the show, giving credit to producer Jeffrey Seller, whom Odom first worked with 25 years ago on “Rent” and later asked him to come back to “Hamilton.”