Jonathan Drew Groff (born March 26, 1985) is an American actor. He began his career on Broadway, rising to prominence for his portrayal of Melchior Gabor in the original production of Spring Awakening (2006-2008), for which he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical, becoming one of the youngest nominees for the award, at age 21. He returned to Broadway to portray King George III in the original production of Hamilton (2015), for which he earned a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. For the original cast album of Hamilton, he, along with the other singers on the recording, won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.
Branching out into film and television roles, Groff made his film debut in Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock (2009), and became a recurring guest star in the Fox musical-comedy series Glee (2009–2015) as Jesse St. James. He voiced the roles of Kristoff and Sven in Disney's Frozen franchise, including Frozen (2013) and Frozen II (2019), two of the higher-grossing films of all time, as well as the short films Frozen Fever (2015) and Olaf's Frozen Adventure (2017). Groff starred as Patrick Murray in the HBO comedy-drama series Looking (2014–2015), the network's first TV series centering around the lives of gay men, as well as its subsequent television film, Looking: The Movie (2016), and portrayed FBI Special Agent Holden Ford in the Netflix period crime drama Mindhunter (2017–2019), produced by David Fincher, for which he won a Satellite Award. In 2021, he received a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Anthology Series or Movie for his performance in the Disney live stage recording of Hamilton.
Groff starred in the fourth installment of the Matrix franchise—The Matrix Resurrections (2021)—as Smith, replacing Hugo Weaving from the original trilogy. In 2022, he executive produced the HBO documentary film Spring Awakening: Those You've Known, which saw the 15 year reunion of the original cast of the musical, and voiced the lead role of Ollie in the Netflix series Lost Ollie. He stars in M. Night Shyamalan's apocalyptic horror film Knock at the Cabin (2023) and will return to Broadway in fall 2023 in the first revival of Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along.
Early life and education
Jonathan Drew Groff was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to Julie (née Witmer), a physical education teacher, and Jim Groff, a harness horse trainer. He has one older brother, David, who is President and COO of WebstaurantStore. He is a first cousin of singer James Wolpert, a semi-finalist on the fifth season of The Voice. Groff is of German descent. His father is Mennonite, and his paternal grandfather, J. Wade Groff, was a Mennonite minister. Groff's mother is Methodist, and Groff was raised in the Methodist faith. He grew up among Amish communities in Ronks, Pennsylvania, spending his teenage years driving around his Amish neighbors, who were not allowed to use electricity or drive cars.
Groff's roots in theater and acting began at an early age. When he was three years old, Groff fell in love with Julie Andrews' performance as Mary Poppins, and growing up, he and his brother put on childhood home productions, such as a performance of The Wizard of Oz in his father's barn, where he played Dorothy. Groff credits Sutton Foster as one of his greatest influences and idols, and as a young aspiring actor, he would wait at the stage door after her performances to get her autograph. Groff joined his middle school and high school drama departments, and it was there that he became inspired to start a career in theater.
In his adolescence, Groff took part in many community productions in his hometown of Lancaster. At seventeen years old, he directed and starred in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown at a high school theatre festival at the Fulton Opera House, for which he won a community award. He also performed in The Sound of Music, Ragtime, Cyrano, Evita, My Fair Lady, Peter Pan, The Pirates of Penzance, and Rags at the Fulton Opera House, as well as starring as Edgar in Bat Boy: The Musical and Ugly in Honk! at The Ephrata Performing Arts Center.
Groff graduated from Conestoga Valley High School in 2003 and intended to attend Carnegie Mellon University, but he deferred his admission for a year when he was cast as Rolf in a Non-Equity national tour of The Sound of Music. After the tour, Groff decided to move to New York City instead of attending college and begin his career.
