Darren Criss

Challenge is good for any relationship.

Hollywood is a strange, strange thing. I feel like I've been invited to a very exclusive ball and I'm just trying to make nice with everybody and hope that if they kick me out they'll at least give me a ride home.

As a composer and as a musician I'm a true believer - and this is not to be overly diplomatic - I'm a believer that there's artistry in everything from a lawn gnome to a desk chair to a symphony to an Andy Warhol painting. There's art in absolutely everything.

As a musician, I hear the harmonic value of everything - I just enjoy music.

For me, I think everybody with half a heart tries to do their best to do their part of good during the holiday season.

I've always loved Broadway, but I never thought I'd actually do it because I was never a full Broadway dancer. And I don't have a big, booming voice.

I think people love to attach themselves to the idea of an overnight success. That may be true about me.

I wish I was old Hollywood.

I play mostly guitar, and I played drums in my brother's band for a while growing up.

It's always important to recognize your situation and not take it for granted.

Fashion is about owning whatever you're wearing, regardless of if it's a high fashion statement or not.

I'm ambitious in the sense that I raise the bar high for myself.

When you're an artist, you have to hope for everything and expect nothing.

I always shoot for the moon in my work, so that I'm happy when I land on the roof.

I'm very specific and ambitious in plotting out my goals and never take no for an answer - so it's not like things just fall in my lap.

I mean, part of me would love to be a fat tenured professor of theater someday.

I'm this goofball. I look at myself in the mirror, and the person that I know doesn't match up to what I think people love to perceive me as.

I mean, come on, Beyonce's the queen of pop music. She's the queen. If you could run for queen... I would put her name in the suggestion box. She's incredible.

Theater is a living creature. It takes a while to break in, like a new pair of shoes.

I'm always just waiting for someone to cut me off; I'm a chatty guy.

When I was in college, I was in the theater department, which for anyone who has been involved in any kind of theater program, you know that it's really wacky and tight-knit, a real family. Me and my good friends from college would do random shows and plays that were sometimes serious, but most of the time really goofy and funny.

I don't shave when I'm not working.

I remember seeing 'Aladdin' when I was five or six and loving it. I looked at the big screen and said to my mum, 'Whatever this Genie guy does, I want to do.' Mum said I couldn't be a genie, but that Robin Williams, who did the voice-over in the film, was an actor. So I said, 'OK, then, I want to be an actor.'

As an actor it's your job to empathise with your character regardless of whether they have a different sexual orientation, spiritual beliefs, or anything.

I have an unabashed adoration of cheesy pop music.