From the moment Harry Connick, Jr.'s, singing was heard on the soundtrack to 1989's When Harry Met Sally, audiences fell in love with the sultry vocalist.
Connick was recently in Chicago to promote the affable romantic comedy New In Town. The film stars Renee Zellweger as a city girl transplanted to the harsh winter snows of small-town Minnesota ( complete with outsized Fargo accents, dontcha know ) . Connick, naturally, plays the requisite dreamboat.
Windy City Times: You've had some extraordinary leading ladies, so where does Renee Zwellweger fall on the leading-lady scale?
Harry Connick, Jr.: I have. I was talking with my wife about that not long ago. They're all extraordinary, and Renee is no exception. She's very unique. I haven't met anybody like her before. I mean, she's incredibly smart. She approaches acting from a different place. Life isn't about acting for her. It's really about art in general, and acting is the way she's found her success. She's one of those people who would probably be great at anything she did.
WCT: You and Renee would be great in a remake of the Pajama Game, which you did on Broadway.
HCJ: That would be fun. I'd like to do it, but to get a movie musical made is very, very, very difficult. It is something I'd like to do; it's something I hope I'll be able to get to do but there's just a lot involved in making a musical. Hopefully I'll get a chance to do that because I mean, that's what I do. You know, as an actor/performer, you think it's just a matter of picking up the phone and saying, "Let's make it happen," but it's really pretty complicated.
WCT: You're the father of three girls, one about the same age as your daughter in the film, 13. So have you had that scene with a prospective young suitor like the one in the film?
HCJ: No. My daughter would kill me. She would absolutely kill me! I don't think I'm going to be in that type of situation. It would be extremely difficult to deal with a lot of the situations that I'm dealing with as a dad without my wife to sort of balance the dynamic out.
WCT: You have done so many different kinds of roles, is there a role on film that you haven't done? A certain kind of character?
HCJ: Well I'd like to do a musical. I think that would be a lot of fun but I don't really think about the type of role. It doesn't matter. If it's a bad guy, good guy, superhero, nerd, love interest in a romantic comedy, whatever. What I do like is the variety of it, the surprise of it.
WCT: Will & Grace, one of your great successes, solidified your big gay heartthrob following. You must be pretty used to that by now, right?
HCJ: I grew up in New Orleans, where everyone's pretty much cool with everyone else and it's just not something I think about, you know what I'm saying? I've never really been a guy that really thinks "gay" "straight" or even "Black" or "white." I grew up in such a multicultural environment that being gay was a part of our lives as much as being straight or being Catholic was. I mean you're talking about a city where the biggest celebration we have, Mardi Gras, is based on the church and up until midnight on Mardi Gras night it's the most. … I mean, you can't party any harder than that. So things coexist, and it's been interesting to me as I've moved around the world to see where things like homosexuality have been an issue for people. Like, it never computed to me. That just never made any sense why that even comes up in conversation. You know what I'm saying?
Read the entire interview with Harry Connick, Jr., at www.WindyCityMediaGroup.com .
