Ethan Slater

The sort of stereotypical wrestling practice is that you're doing burpees, and the coach is yelling at you to keep going, and you feel like you're going to collapse, but you somehow make it through to the end. ”

In the room, when I'm playing SpongeBob, I'm optimistic and I'm happy, and I smile in the face of those who are upset in order to make them happier. You know, there's this overwhelming optimism. And I've been lucky enough to have that become a part of my life. I like to think that it's influenced me. ”

I would say that SpongeBob, at his core, is this optimistic, loving best friend. Getting to play him every day has sort of rubbed off on me and improved my life. ”

I was a wrestler in high school, and that was a pretty big part of my life. ”

I know that my father was a little nervous about me pursuing a career in the arts. ”

I grew up with SpongeBob - it came out in 1999, right before I turned 7. So it's been a part of my life and all my friends' lives and defined our humor, in a way. ”

Physical comedy and musical theatre were never actually in my main focus at school. I was more of a dramatic actor. I always thought I was better at that. ”

Making my Broadway debut was, in and of itself, just a dream come true. I've wanted to be on Broadway forever. ”

There's a social element of me that's pretty reserved. High school was when I was starting to come out of my shell because of the theater community. ”

It's inherently a part of my childhood and my development as a person and an artist, this childlike feeling knowing that something is missing but not quite knowing how to fix it. I'm always drawing on it. ”