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 grew up in Canada and was a huge Spider-Man fan, and never thought of Spider-Man as an American hero.
If I'm ever at a mall or some kind of place where there's a lot of younger girls, some people will recognize me from 'Degrassi.' But then it won't happen for a long time. It's funny - it happens more here in the States than it does in Canada.
I won the family lottery. I come from the best family in the world.
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.
I wanted to be a soccer player. And then I wanted to be a rabbi.
I was very spiritual as a kid. I think I felt and thought about things a lot more deeply than most of the other kids my age. I wanted to help people.
I'm always surprised at how many people remember me from 'Degrassi.'
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.
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.
I'm at the National Theatre School, which is like the Juilliard of Canada.
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.
If you'd ever told me that my Broadway debut would be playing Spider-Man, I would have laughed in your face.
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.
The dream is to originate a role in a show on Broadway. That's the ultimate goal.
