Top 20 Jake Epstein Quotes

My sis, Gabi, is also an actor and singer.

I came from a huge extended family of musicians.

For those that don’t know much about ‘American Idiot’ or Green Day, just know that it’s my generation’s The Who’s ‘Tommy’ or Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall.’ It was an album that really spoke to a generation. The theatrical show encapsulates that feeling and brings it to an even wider audience.

The longer I’ve been doing this, the more I’ve realized that you have no idea what kinds of roles are possible for you – dream roles can take you by surprise. That being said, I need to play Hamlet one day. I’d also love to be in a play that I have written myself.

Obviously, doing TV and doing theater are completely different because they’re two totally different mediums. On stage, you worry about your voice and how you move physically. On TV, something like an eye twitch is what they could be looking for from you because it’s so contained.

The dream is to originate a role in a show on Broadway. That’s the ultimate goal.

If you’d ever told me that my Broadway debut would be playing Spider-Man, I would have laughed in your face.

I’m at the National Theatre School, which is like the Juilliard of Canada.

I did ‘Degrassi’ for five years in Toronto, and I made the decision to quit the show to go to theatre school, which a lot of people thought I was really crazy to do, but it was one of those major decisions in my life that I haven’t regretted – hopefully I won’t! I really wanted to go to school.

I grew up reading comics. I was primarily an ‘X-Men’ fan, but I definitely dressed up as Spider-Man for Halloween when I was, like, 12 years old. Maybe younger than that.

I’m always surprised at how many people remember me from ‘Degrassi.’

I grew up in Canada and was a huge Spider-Man fan, and never thought of Spider-Man as an American hero.

I was a jock, hardcore sports all the way down the line, but I heard that if you auditioned for this arts school, you got time off school, and that sounded good to me.

In Montreal, there is a friend of mine at school who is a jazz pianist with an amazing voice, and we sort of have this fusion/soul/R&B/folk music kind of thing. We’ve been keeping it low-key and opening for some friends.

I really love young Tom Hanks. He’s just one of my favorites. He’s a great, quirky every-man. I also love Zach Braff. I really love actors that are quirky and interesting, that sort of try to portray ‘normal’ people.

When I was 12, I played the Artful Dodger in Cameron McKintosh’s production of ‘Oliver!’ when it came to Toronto. Just getting the role shocked my whole family, and I don’t think I realized until then just how much I loved getting up in front of people and performing.

My dad is a huge folk music fan, so growing up, there were always records playing in my house. Carole King, James Taylor, Simon and Garfunkel, the Beatles – I grew up with this music, and I was aware of how special this music was to a lot of people.

I was obsessed with X-Men as a kid, and I would have to go and play every last one of them. My sister was obsessed with Barbies. So we would create these X-Men-Barbie combos and perform weird musicals where they interacted with each other.

The kids all literally think I’m Spider-Man, and they ask me how I shoot my webs. It’s flattering and crazy, but it’s Spider-Man they’re in awe of, not Jake Epstein.

I’m a pretty upbeat person. I think I sometimes get cast as these brooding types because I bring light and joy, which hopefully makes them more likable.