Exclusive: Jordan Fisher on Changing the Face of Gaming and Searching for Authenticity
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Plus a very important piece of trivia: his favorite ice cream flavor.
Jordan Fisher wears many hats—from Broadway star (you may remember him from Hamilton or Dear Evan Hansen) to gamer to ice cream lover to, perhaps most recently, dad, but those roles are far from all-encompassing. Still, the latter is surely his favorite.
When Fisher sat down to speak with Parade, he’d just hopped onto Zoom after putting his nearly-three-month-old son, Riley, down for a nap. I couldn’t help but jump right in and mention a recent photo of the baby that Fisher shared after his two-month checkup, showing off a full head of hair looking rather windswept; a bit like Johnny Bravo.
“Yeah, he does look like Johnny Bravo,” Fisher laughs. “He’s a little less misogynistic than Johnny, but he’s like a little anime character, he’s so cute.” Fisher describes little Riley as the easiest first baby for new parents. “We hit the jackpot, because he’s just so chill.”
With a priority list at least 12 items long, mandatory chill time, and a freezer full of ice cream to get through, that’s certainly a lucky lottery win. Considering Fisher’s aforementioned number of hats, we're delighted he was able to fit us into his jam-packed schedule!
So how are you adjusting to parenthood? What’s something about being a dad that you didn’t anticipate?
Well, it’s been my dream for forever, honestly. I’ve been a nurturer and a caretaker my whole life. I grew up around kids and babies and I taught dance for a long time so, from a pretty young age, I knew that I was good at kind of just handling kids. But that’s very different than bringing one into the world, and it being yours, and being completely responsible.
I think that for me, the recognition that I’m not going to do everything right has been the biggest transition, like, the hardest challenge. Just being okay with the fact that like, even though I have an idealized way of doing things, it’s not correct. Because it’s person to person, baby to baby, kid to kid, and he communicates; he lets us know what he needs, and then all of the plans go away.
The thing that I didn’t know was that my satisfaction, my peace of mind at night—as a father—when my head hits the pillow is knowing that my son knows that he is loved and provided for, and he’s not questioning where his next meal is coming from. He’s surrounded by people that care about him [and] love him. As a parent, that’s really it. You’re doing your job right if your kids are happy and know that they're loved. All of the other stuff that you mess up on as a parent, that’s just part of it! It is what it is. We keep moving on, and he’s fine. We’re all learning together.
It’s scary, the idea of having a kid, because you think that you have to be completely ready, but you don’t. You don’t have to be completely ready. You have to want it, and you and your partner need to want it mutually. When that happens, everything else is just kind of like, ‘Figure it out. Just give it a go.’ Because you’re mom and dad, and you know best for your kid. You’re going to do the absolute best, so just do that. And that’s the job, and we love it. We’re having the time of our life, truly.
So obviously that’s keeping you very busy these days. Between that, your film projects, and getting back into streaming, how are you finding ways to chill out these days?
Oh my God, well, yeah. I mean I’m running a production company, I’m part owner of an esports organization now, my production company’s partnered with a multimedia conglomerate, I’m on the board of original IP for Fourth Frame Studios now, like, there has been the most transition and the most change that could happen for me in terms of one year. This time last year we were living in LA. We live in Florida now. We were not pregnant, we have a three-month-old son now. It’s been the craziest! So finding the time to chill is a constant workout, I think.
There’s a muscle in your brain that you have to strengthen to essentially allow yourself to [breath out] at the end of the day. My day ended at 2 a.m. last night because I was handling production fires that needed to be put out. Only I could do that and it needed to happen then when I could have, should have been sleeping, but I love it. I love needing to put my brain towards things that need to be created and to be able to do that from home most of the time now and travel when I need to if I’m filming something. [For example,] we’re headed to D23 in a couple of weeks and taking the family; we’re going to do the parks for a couple of days.
That’s my lifestyle now, work and family. It’s the best, so finding that chill time is really as you get it. 10 minutes here, half an hour here, a day here. I’ll block out a day every week where I don’t have any responsibilities, other than just living. Because I work to live, I don’t live to work—even though I like all of my jobs! I love all of the hats that I wear and the things that I do. Now doing so much more creatively—that’s 80 percent of my day now, is developing things—developing shows, developing films, working to package things, pitch them, sell them, and then turn them into something. The scripts I’m really excited about I’m like, ‘Alright, I’m gonna jump in that…I wanna be in that one,’ and to be able to have that creative freedom and flexibility—while also being able to lend myself to the work—allows me to have more fun.
So when I come home from work, I’m done with the day—like today, we’re doing some interviews, I’ll have a long stream, and then we have some friends coming over tonight, because that’s what we need to do on a Friday night. Order pizza, throw our kids in the pool, smoke a couple of cigars, and go out and play putt-putt. That’s life. That’s why we do what we do—so we can come together and chill.
One of your projects in pre-production is Field Notes on Love, which is being adapted by Lauren Graham. Were you a big Gilmore Girls fan? Are you excited to work with her?
So I wasn’t a big Gilmore Girls fan, but my wife was and is and always has been. One of my closest friends that I grew up with—Brooke, back in Alabama—was the person that introduced me to Gilmore Girls in the first place. I had started meeting with Amy Sherman-Palladino [the creator of Gilmore Girls] for another show at one point in time that ended up not happening, and I fell in love with the sequence, the way that they talk, and how much information they can all get out in one episode because of the speed at which things happen.
Lauren is so captivating, and she’s one of the most intelligent people that you’ll sit down and speak to. In terms of an adaptation, you want an actor/producer/director to take a book and be like, ‘I know how to make this work for actors.’ And then as a producer, I get to breathe! I know that between Lauren and Jen[nifer E. Smith, the book’s author], the material is going to be chef’s kiss, because they’re best friends. She wrote the book, she’s adapting it, they’re doing it together. From a producorial point of view, I get to take a deep breath and just look forward to the next draft.
But we’re early days in it, we’re nowhere near even pulling the rest of the cast together and getting into production just yet, but we’re thrilled and it’s going to be a dream. Lauren’s just wonderful.
Your most recently released project, Netflix’s Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between, had one of the more realistic endings that genre has ever seen. It was left open-ended; the assumption is that there will be no sequel, and with only one book there would be nothing to base it on, but if there ever were to be a sequel, what would you want to see happen for Clare and Aidan?
Well, for safety, we filmed the ending four different ways. You just never know. You never know what it’s going to be as you’re testing it. You test films, you get a bunch of people in a room and they watch the film when it’s early on, and then they all make notes and you take that back and you look at these notes and you’re like, ‘Okay, what’s working? Why are things not working? What needs to be better? What needs to be changed? Okay, cool. We need to do some reshoots, we need to go gather some new material, put this into the film, [and] test it all again.’ We did this time and time again until eventually, we were like, this is real life. Everything about this movie is about humanity.
The reason why I wanted to produce this film, the reason why I wanted to be Aidan in it, is because we haven’t seen the most real-life version of a YA rom-com, and the way that people talk to each other. Even these awkward dastardly situations that are real, kind of, you know, two smart kids in high school who are like, I guess we’ll have some fun our senior year, then you know what, we’re 17, we know everything, we’ll fine, right? That question stays in everyone’s mind, even into your adulthood, 20s, 30s, you go like, ‘This should be fine! It’ll work out.’ And then if does, great, and if it doesn’t, it’s whatever. But I think that leaving it open-ended there at the end, especially without another book, to me is just honest.
The film is about a human experience in a really specific moment in time. It’s not even really necessarily about Clare and Aidan falling in love, it’s about how it’s navigated. It’s about how the friends play a big part of it, and how influential people in your life can be, and how scary transition can be, how awkward change is—especially when you like what you had and you know that it’s inevitably going to change, like, there’s a part of your brain that thinks that the world’s gonna kind of end a little bit, and you’re gonna be in this post-apocalyptic place because there’s no more joy—none of that is true. None of that is honest in these kinds of stories, right? I was really excited to be a part of something that is about a human experience rather than really specifically romance. Yeah, it’s a romantic comedy in terms of the genre, but hopefully, honesty is what people got out of it.
Andrew Rose
When you’re working on these book-based projects, what is it like originating these characters that already have followings? How do you find that balance between staying true to what the author originally wrote and what the audience already loves but also making it your own?
I think that that’s a really nice dance between the writer of the film, the director of the film, and the actor—if the actor has done the research. Any book adaptation that you do, it’s just the right thing to do to read the book before you start. I think from a general sense, understanding what fans are going to want to see and want to hear and feel when they’re watching the film, that’s the thing that I really want to make sure—I can only speak for me here—but that’s what I am focused on during those points of adaptation, especially in the development period. Like, okay, I know the fans are going to want to feel this moment here, how can we make that happen? I think that taking it from that angle, especially when developing a character that no one has seen or heard speak before—they might have an idea in their head of what they look like or sound like or feel like, especially if they’re a fan of the book—but the first time that Clare speaks is the first time that breath gets to be spoken into this character that’s just been words on a page up to this point.
How you lay the foundation for that is in the prep work. So I think that just talking, and this is something that a lot of actors need to know, too, I think that we’re conditioned for many many years to think that once you book the job, you’re just working for the people that booked you for the job, and that’s not the case. They booked you because you have a take and it’s worth something to them. If you talk to the director, you talk to the writer and you work these things out, you’re transparent with your cast, you’re transparent with the creatives, the material will hopefully take care of itself.
Making sure the fans feel Aidan has a lot to do with what the screenplay does in comparison to the book. Often times the screenplay is [significantly] shorter than the book because you’ve got an hour and a half rather than an eight to ten-hour read, and figuring out how to truncate all of that and get as much life into Aidan and as much life into Clare, etc. as possible, you’ve just got to prep. It’s everything.
Shifting gears a little bit, I know you just dropped a single for that film, but I’m sure fans would love to know if you have any plans for a full-length album anytime soon?
No full-length album anytime soon, but I am working on music again. I’m doing it in a very different location and in a very different way; it’s the way that I grew up learning music, and that’s how I’m making it again. It’s fresh and close to home and it’s the most truthful music that I’ve made for myself.
I’ll continue to write for other artists; I love pop, R&B, alt-rock, I love all of these genres and I’ll continue to build in that space for other people, but for me, I’m doing something different. I’m really excited about it, and for people to hear it when it’s ready. But it’s not a priority right now; I’ve got eleven other things on this board over here that need to happen before music.
You recently announced you were getting back into gaming streams. What led you to start your own gaming channels in the first place?
Yeah! So I’ve always been a gamer. I worked at GameStop when I was 16, [and] the first core memories that I have were playing Duck Hunt in my childhood bedroom with my mom and my dad. They would come in and play Duck Hunt with me, and Super Mario Bros., and then when the SNES came out I got Aladdin and the game with Mickey as a Wizard, I think it was Fantasia, and those are my first memories. Video games, and playing them with my parents that never really played video games but knew that I had a knack for them and knew that I loved them—like, loved them. I loved the way that stories were told, I loved the animation, I loved the tactics, I loved the strategy, I loved having a task to accomplish and working my way to beat it… So this continues and it’s super formative for me as an individual.
Growing up in Alabama, there’s not an esports scene down there, so I wasn’t really challenged by a lot of people. I would go to little tournaments here and there and just wipe the floor with everybody because there wasn’t access. Now there is. There are esport scenes kind of everywhere, and I’m doing my best to make sure that that happens, and that’s one of the big hats that I wear as part owner of Complexity, and [as] part of the GameSquare network ecosystem and Fourth Frame. My whole goal is to bring film, television, traditional entertainment, fashion, music, everything else that I work in to gaming, because it’s all the same stuff. That’s what inspired me to start streaming in the first place.
That, and the fact that Ninja and I were already friends. We’d made friends on Twitter and we started playing Fortnite together and he was like, ‘Dude, you’re actually really good and you’re already an actor, you’re already entertaining, get a camera and a microphone, bro. Just join us, come stream; it’ll be a fun little part-time thing you can do.’ It ended up becoming a full-time thing over the pandemic, obviously. The pandemic is really what solidified my space in the gaming industry. When Evan Hansen shut down it was, ‘What am I gonna be doing? I don’t know when things are gonna open back up, don’t know when I’m gonna be back on set, all productions that I’m a part of have halted, I gotta do something! I got bills to pay. I’m full-time streaming now.’ And so over the course of like a full year, every single day was streaming nonstop. [I] made a lot of great friends [and] built a lot of great relationships, so now I get to help change it all.
Coming from someone who grew up gaming but was scared to admit it because of the way a lot of people kind of looked down on gamers, what does it mean to you to potentially—but probably—be changing the way others are viewing gaming?
Oh, that’s what gets me up in the morning, truly! That’s what gets me excited to stream every day, to talk about it the way that we’re talking about it right now, right? There’s sophistication behind it. What everyone needs to get out of their head is like the fat dude that lives in their mom’s basement. It is not common anymore, that is a rarity, that there’s [someone like that] playing World of Warcraft all day. Matter of fact, two of the biggest World of Warcraft streamers are bodybuilders, and health and wellness experts, and they are two of the top World of Warcraft arena streamers in the world. That’s who people are seeing. These guys are playing and talking about all of the details within the game, and then someone asks them a question about their game, or about their diet, or anything along those lines and then they stop what they’re playing because they get excited about talking about health and wellness and whatnot.
It’s the educational process that has not happened yet where television, film, talk shows, [and] things like that are concerned, and I get to do that because I come from that space. People know me from that space, so when I talk about it they go, ‘Wait, really?!” and I’m like, ‘Mmmhmm!’ It’s a very big deal, it’s an almost trillion dollar industry. MLG [(Major League Gaming)] and esports have been around since 98, like, we’ve been doing this for a long time! But now because of Ninja, and Fortnite, it’s serious. People are like, wait, you can actually have a career? Parents are like, ‘Get in here and play games! What are you doing outside?’ You can build a career off of this if you show some promise there.
You’ve partnered with Brave Robot this summer. How do you choose which brands to work with? Why Brave Robot?
Love this question! Authenticity, always. If I like the product, I’ll do it. If they send me the product and I try it, I use it, whatever it is, and I’m like, ‘Dang! I’d have this in my fridge or my freezer!,’ if it’s easy for me to talk about and it's authentic, that’s what I do. I say ‘no’ to most things. The things that I say 'yes' to, I say ‘Yes’ to because they show promise, or it’s an honest thing. [With Brave Robot,] I tried the product, I tried all of the flavors, and I was like, these are all incredible. They’re creamy and real and good and I don’t feel bad eating it.
There’s a point in your career where you can’t say yes to everything anymore, and for me, I just want to work with good people. The Brave Robot team is great, and their product is delicious.
For anyone who’s trying it for the first time, what flavor do you recommend?
Oh, my gosh. I tend to like the creamier stuff…Let me go take a look in my freezer real quick and tell you which one is the most empty. Give me one sec…
…I just got into a very short argument [with] my wife; she says Blueberry Pie, I have two almost empty containers of White Truffle Raspberry in the freezer. But she’s like, uh uh—Blueberry Pie. No. No. Blueberry Pie is really good though, but that White Truffle Raspberry—that was the first one that I tried and…that was it.
I loved this real-time research, thank you so much!
She was out in the living room like, ‘What’s up?’ and I’m like, ‘I gotta see which flavors we eat the most.’ She’s like, ‘Blueberry Pie.’
Brave Robot is an animal-free ice cream brand. This summer, they’re rewarding consumers for switching to animal-free ice cream with a chance to win a Tesla Model 3 and solar charging station. Through September 19, you can enter to win by purchasing a Brave Robot product at Kroger or affiliate stores and entering your receipt code at hotbotsummersweepstakes.com.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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