By Dan Avery

Original cast member Anthony Rapp discusses Rent's journey from workshop musical to worldwide phenomenon to being the fall's most anticipated film.

Back in 1994, Anthony Rapp was just one of thousands of struggling actors in New York City when he auditioned for Rent, a daring new musical from a relatively unknown talent named Jonathan Larson. Adapted from Puccini's opera La Boheme, it told the bittersweet tale of an unconventional family of East Village bohemians trying to carve out lives for themselves against the backdrop of poverty, failed relationships, prejudice, and AIDS. Now, over a decade later, Rent has become a worldwide phenomenon heading to the big screen in time for Thanksgiving. Rapp, who originated the role of aspiring filmmaker Mark in both the show's off-Broadway and Broadway runs, is back in the role that made him a star.

"Even when we were workshopping Rent in 1994, I had a good feeling about it," says the strawberry blond native New Yorker, who still looks a decade younger than his 34 years. "The phrase I kept using was, 'I think it's gonna make a splash -- I think it's gonna be an event.'" Of course, not even Rapp could have predicted the runaway success Rent has had -- winning both the Pulitzer and the Tony, spawning countless road shows and a record-breaking Broadway run that continues to this day. "It was just more and more -- first we broke box office records, and then Vanity Fair was shooting us for their magazine, and Rolling Stone and Newsweek and MTV -- all these things happened very rapidly."

One of the reasons Rent was so groundbreaking was its forthright representation of same-sex relationships, as represented by lesbian couple Joanne and Maureen and HIV-positive lovers Angel and Tom Collins. Rapp, who is openly gay, is proud of how the show has continued to touch so many people, especially gay youth. "I think you can never get enough of seeing two men or two women love each other," he says. "Rent is a reflection of what's possible in being out and gay -- that you can have a fulfilling life. Even though Angel and Tom's relationship is colored by AIDS, its purity is not tainted by it. It's really important for that to be out there." Though Larson was straight, Rapp says he was very committed to telling the stories of people who were on the fringes. "He had many gay friends, and a lot of friends living with HIV and AIDS."

Larson's sudden death from an aortic aneurysm just after the final rehearsal for Rent's off-Broadway run gave the show's success a bittersweet tinge. "Jonathan's death tempered everything," says Rapp. "All that noise and hype didn't make us crazy because the reason for it was so personal." Rapp still recalls his relationship with the composer/director fondly. "It was the first time I worked with a composer who saw me as a collaborator and wrote with my voice in mind. I felt so honored."

Rumors of a Rent film have been circulating almost since the show's premiere on Broadway, but even when the talks became more solidified, Rapp had reservations. "I only wanted to be in it if it was done right. I wouldn't want to be a part of something that was a bastardization or not in keeping with the show's spirit."

When Chris Columbus (Home Alone, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone) was named as director, Rapp admits he wasn't entirely sure the film would be true to the play's vision. "I worked with Chris on Adventures in Babysitting, so even though I was a little concerned because of the kinds of films he had made, I knew how smart he was, how versed in film history and music he was, and what an edgy sensibility he really does have."

After discussing the film adaptation with Columbus, Rapp says he knew he wanted to be a part of it. "Within 30 seconds of meeting him and the producers, I felt 'This is right.'" Like Rapp, most of the original Broadway cast has returned for the film, with the exception of Fredi Walker, who was Joanne, and Daphne Rubin-Vega, the original Mimi. "Daphne was about to have a baby, so it would've been impossible for her to do it," says Rapp. "But she gave us her blessing, which I thought was wonderful."

In interviews, Rent's veterans have had nothing but praise for newcomers Rosario Dawson, who takes over the reins as Mimi, and Tracie Thoms. "It was easy for us to incorporate them into our 'family,'" says Rapp. "They were both very open and eager. Rosario grew up in New York -- she lived as a squatter. She's very authentic, and she's a really honest actor -- very committed."

Making the film was like coming home, says Rapp, but it was also a very emotional experience for a number of reasons, including the fact that his mother died of cancer during the show's original Broadway run. "She was very ill, but she was well enough to come to opening night. Making the film and returning to this character made me feel like I was reconnecting with her in a way."

As devoted as the cast and crew were to making the Rent film a reality, there were several hurdles to overcome. In the mid-1990s, Rent was very much a part of the cultural zeitgeist, but some critics had wondered if it was becoming something of a period piece in the new millennium. Rapp counters that the themes the show deals with are universal. "Death and dying can affect anyone at any age. There will always be outsiders, there will always be injustice, and there will always be love."

Surprisingly, no changes or cuts had to be made for the film to get a PG-13 rating from the MPAA. "Throughout the whole process everyone, including Chris, assumed we'd get an R," says Rapp. "But there was nothing we really had to change to get the PG-13, except for taking out a few 'F-bombs.'" Rapp says he's glad the film will now be able to reach a younger and broader audience. "This movie will be playing all across America. For $10, someone in a small town can see it and feel connected or moved. I think a lot of people who might be turned off by stage musicals will let themselves get lost in a movie."

And what does Rapp hope movie audiences take away from seeing Rent? "At it's core, the movie, like the stage show, forces you to ask yourself the question, 'Given how much time we have on this planet, what am I going to do with the time I have left?' That's the message of 'Seasons of Love' -- how are you going to measure the time you have on Earth?"

Which begs the question, what's next for Rapp? On the big screen, he'll have roles in next year's Ed Harris/Will Ferrell film Winter Passing and the upcoming heroin drama Blackbird, both directed by his brother Adam Rapp. But he's even more excited about his upcoming memoir, Without You, due out in February. "It sort of details my time with Rent and my mom dying and how those events crossed over and collided in all sorts of intense ways." Rapp says he's been working on the book for years, but with the Rent film coming out, he felt a new urgency in publishing it. "I really feel like I've come full circle," he says, mirroring Rent's optimistic vision. "Everything happens in its time."

Confessions of a Renthead

By Japhy Grant

One of the great experiences of being alive is to be profoundly influenced by a piece of art, to have it settle on your heart and become a talisman that you return to again and again. When I first met Jonathan Larson's Rent, I was 17 years old. My Dad bought the CD and that December the first touring cast came to Boston. I invited my fellow drama seniors by Xerox invitation and we trekked down to the Colonial Theatre at 7 a.m. on a frigid late December morning to nab rush tickets. Half of us waited in line, while the other half explored the anime stores and coffee shops of Harvard Square. Later in the day, we were joined by half a dozen other Rent fanatics vying for rush seats. We played drama games while sitting on the terrazzo tile of the theater lobby, dressed in mittens and overcoats. A junior at Emerson, wearing a varsity jacket for the national touring cast of Crazy for You, became especially friendly with me. Later, he would be my first real boyfriend, coming to my high school to help direct the first play I had ever written.

Seated in the first two rows, our new-formed family mooed so loud during "Over the Moon" that the late Carrie Hamilton, playing Maureen, jumped back in shock. During the intermission the lobby complained loudly about the people in the front rows who sang and danced along to "La Vie Bohoeme." During the second act, I watched as Kerry, the cold-hearted bitch of our club, gripped the hand rests to hold herself up; she was sobbing that hard. Here was a show that captured our collective adolescent desire to live! To know love! And pain! And curry vindaloo! It was a template of urban nirvana for suburban kids desperate to escape safety, parents and the confines of a world that suddenly seemed so small.

Then I was at NYU. The Life Café was in my neighborhood. I suddenly knew people living with AIDS. My friends and I tried drugs and occasionally rushed Rent at the Nederlander like Catholics in need of Communion. I met Anthony Rapp at the cast party for You're a Good Man Charlie Brown and was disappointed by the quiet, polite, and nervous guy in front of me. I interned at the New York Theatre Workshop and was embarrassed for Larson when they played one of the show's scrapped songs, a love duet between Joanne and Maureen called "I Want to Beat You till You're Black and Blue." When drag ironists Kiki and Herb derisively sang about "525,600 reprises" at Fez, I immediately decided that they were my new best friends. I got sick and tired of every fresh-faced kid I met loving my musical. I was like a jealous lover, sick of the same old routine, but even more furious that someone else was getting off on my former passion. It was proof that I was more commonplace than I cared to admit.

I was driving with my friend Jill a few years ago and the subject of Rent came up. She was there when I popped my knee socket out miming the line "to masturbation" at my 18th birthday party. I went off on the show like usual and she said quietly, but surely, "I still like it. It reminds me of good times." Watching the preview for the movie the other day, tears welled up, not for the film, but for all the memories that I've had over the years -- how Rent has become a measuring stick that I come back to year after year, to see how I've grown.