At a certain point, I realized I’m going into great debt to get a [bachelor of fine arts] in acting. And I was like, what is that? What is that even going to be when I’m finished? So I just started auditioning and I got a couple jobs and got an equity card and joined the union and dropped out of school. And I thought, ‘Well, let’s just do it.’ Like if I had been really passionate about studying anything else, I completely would have stayed in college and I would have gotten that degree. But the fact that my passion was acting, and I was paying for college myself, I was just like, ‘I can’t justify going this deep into debt for something that might not mean anything. So I want to just try it.

— Andrew Rannells on dropping out of college to make it on Broadway and later went on to star in The Book of Mormon

After Andrew Rannells pitched himself for a starring role in NBC’s The New Normal, the show’s creator (Ryan Murphy) didn’t call for a month. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve completely overstepped — I’ve over ‘Oprah-ed’ this,’” Rannells tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. “I’ve ruined my chances of working with this man because I was too bold.”

— via Andrew Rannells:Gay and Serious in the new NBC series, The New Normal

Today: One of the boys from HBO’s Girls, Andrew Rannells. 

He starred in the Broadway production of The Book of Mormon and he’s now one of the stars of the NBC series premiering tonight, The New Normal.