“Just once I’d like to be able to say, ‘Yeah, I’m not feeling so good, my leg is haunted.’”

Hunter Parrish, Broadway Actor

To date, the actor Hunter Parrish’s biggest roles have been playing Mary-Louise Parker’s drug-dealing eldest son on the Showtime hit Weeds and portraying one of the rebellious, depressive teenagers in the Tony award-winning Broadway show Spring Awakening. For his next role, he wanted a bit of a stretch: Jesus Christ. This past winter, Parrish took on the starring role in the Broadway production of Godspell, a musical from the ’70s loosely based on the book of Matthew. The Messiah has proven an exhausting part. “I’m not surprised that I’m as tired as I am,” he laughs. “Yet there’s something invigorating about being worn down and in live theater.” Parrish grew up in Texas, but as a child actor had brief stints living in New York (he was 8 when he lived in SoHo, which he says was “less homogenized” then) and Los Angeles, where he spent most of his youth. Back in town, however, he sounds like a regular New Yorker. His favorite hot spots? “I found this underground Ping-Pong and shuffleboard club,” he laughs. “And have you ever been to the bowling alley in Port Authority? It’s kind of ghetto, and kind of cool. They give you towers of beer.”