Ethan Slater

“I'm used to working hard and making sacrifices.”

“You're always nervous about what critics say - about what anybody has to say, really.”

“My mother passed away when I was seven. She had a piano in the house that she was teaching my sisters how to play. That was where I first encountered music, through her.”

“One of my favorite pieces of fan mail was a gift that I got. It was a jar filled with handwritten nice thoughts.”

“I love Broadway musicals, but there's a lot that I want to do.”

“I would say I'm the normal level of 'SpongeBob' fan, which is that it's been out since I was a kid, and it's part of the zeitgeist.”

“The whole cast and creative team were definitely aware of the 'This is the death of Broadway!' kind of thing about 'SpongeBob,' but we've been really ready to change people's minds. I'm really proud of being part of something that took the most creative route to a commercial entity.”

“That's what I really focused on in school - straight drama - and I would love to get an opportunity to do that.”

“It's inherently a part of my childhood and my development as a person and an artist, this childlike feeling knowing that something is missing but not quite knowing how to fix it. I'm always drawing on it.”

“One of the things I've found about SpongeBob's movement style is that, in addition to being animated and sort of stretching and squeezing, he's really based on the classic silent comedians, physical comedians.”

“The only reason to do a 'SpongeBob' on Broadway is if it's gonna bring something new to the brand, something new to 'SpongeBob,' and also something innovative to theater and to Broadway.”

“I look a lot like my mom. I'm the only one of my siblings with red hair, and she had bright red hair. I always have felt incredibly connected to her.”

“I know that my father was a little nervous about me pursuing a career in the arts.”

“I've gotten to meet Sara Bareilles a couple of times. I'm just a such a massive fan of hers, from her albums to 'Waitress' to everything that she does. To be a fan of somebody and then find out that they have a good heart and are kind is really heartwarming.”

“I would say that SpongeBob, at his core, is this optimistic, loving best friend. Getting to play him every day has sort of rubbed off on me and improved my life.”

“I grew up with SpongeBob - it came out in 1999, right before I turned 7. So it's been a part of my life and all my friends' lives and defined our humor, in a way.”

“We all should be so lucky to be as optimistic as SpongeBob.”

“The sort of stereotypical wrestling practice is that you're doing burpees, and the coach is yelling at you to keep going, and you feel like you're going to collapse, but you somehow make it through to the end.”

“I've always been somebody who sort of throws himself, you could say, obsessively into whatever thing I'm passionate about.”

“The process of finding my voice as SpongeBob was to start by watching what Tom Kenny did, trying to do an impression of sorts, and then forgetting all about it and letting the voice become a second-nature thing.”