Jonathan Drew Groff (born March 26, 1985) is an American actor and singer. He originated the lead role of Melchior Gabor in the award winning Broadway rock musical Spring Awakening, for which he earned a Tony Award nomination in 2007. He later portrayed Claude in the 2008 Off-Broadway revival of Hair and received critical acclaim for his role in the West End revival of Deathtrap in 2010. He regularly appears on the Off-Broadway stage and has earned an Obie Award for starring in two of Craig Lucas' plays, Prayer for My Enemy and The Singing Forrest. He is also known for his previously recurring role as Jesse St. James on the FOX series Glee. More recently, Groff starred in the first-ever screen adaptation of author David Sedaris' work, C.O.G., in which he portrayed a character based on Sedaris himself. He also voiced Kristoff in Disney's feature film Frozen, and is the star of the HBO series, Looking.
Groff was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to a Methodist mother – Julie, a physical education teacher – and a Mennonite father – Jim, a harness horse trainer and driver. He has one older brother, David. Of his upbringing, he has said "My mother’s side of the family is Methodist, which is how I was raised. It was conservative in that I had strong values—sitting down and eating with the family every day, listening to authority and going to church every week and having perfect attendance at Sunday school. But at the same time, my parents always encouraged my brother and me to be happy with what we were doing. My parents were athletes in high school; my mom and my dad were the stars of the basketball team, but they never pushed my brother and me to be anything we didn’t want to be." He graduated from Conestoga Valley High School in 2003 and was going to attend Carnegie Mellon University until he booked his first professional job in New York City, the Broadway musical In My Life.
In October 2009, Groff told Broadway.com during the National Equality March in Washington, D.C., that he is "gay and proud". Since 2010, Groff was rumored to be dating actor Zachary Quinto. In September 2012, Quinto confirmed that he and Groff were in a relationship. In July 2013, it was reported that the two had broken up.
Groff is a first cousin of singer James Wolpert, a semifinalist on the fifth season of The Voice.
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