[EsmeraldaDaae]

George Hearn was being interviewed on Broadway.com Buzz....and this came up...

Did you work with [director] Joe Mantello?
A little bit. When I came in, I said, “You know, I'm not Joel Grey.” I'm a great admirer of Joel's, but everything about us is totally different. I'm not a nimble fellow; I'm an actor/singer, so I told them, “If you've got a lot of dancing here, this is going to be a disaster.” Not because I'm perversely refusing to dance, but it's not a facility of mine. They told me that they wanted to rethink the part with me, so I said, “Let's go from the [movie Wizard] Frank Morgan point of view.” I thought Frank was fantastic, and that's a more interesting approach for me. I also think the Wizard can be a little more formidable and scary.

Well, we know from Sweeney Todd that you can be scary!
It scared me sometimes, too. [Laughs]

I treated myself to a double feature the other night of you and Angela Lansbury in the filmed version of the original Sweeney and then you and Patti LuPone in concert version.
You took a beating that night! [Laughs]