Leslie Odom Jr. to reflect in Hancher on portraying Aaron Burr, path that led there

A musician and Tony Award winning actor best known for his portrayal of Aaron Burr in the blockbuster Broadway musical Hamilton, Leslie Odom Jr. got his start at age 10 in Philadelphia.

Some folks around him noticed his confidence, his ability to deliver speeches without the typical preteen nerves, and encouraged him to do it more.

'So I did,” Odom told The Gazette in an interview recently.

He entered the African American History Oratorical Competition, writing a speech inspired by a book he read: 'A hero ain't nothing but a sandwich.”

'It was about how we shouldn't look too far outside of our homes and our communities for our heroes, because there are everyday heroes all around us,” Odom said. 'There are teachers and parents and people who are working hard every day to set examples for us. ... We don't have to look at professional basketball players and hot shot Broadway actors to be heroes for us.”

Still, when Odom visits the University of Iowa next week for a 'conversation” in Hancher Auditorium, plenty of children and adults alike will be looking up to him - or perhaps down, depending on their seat.

And so he has this advice for mentors.

'Much of my success I owe to the kindness of people who saw something in me and encouraged me on my way,” Odom said.

For the mentees who'll be in the audience, Odom notes he didn't win that first contest at age 10 because he read his speech. But he learned and returned the next year with his words memorized.

'I won first place for four or five years in a row, and it set me on my way and gave me a lot of confidence,” Odom said.

About 10 years ago, in his mid-20s, Odom began picking up more roles in Broadway shows and popular TV series - he landed recurring parts in CSI: Miami and Vanished and made appearances on the likes of Gilmore Girls, Grey's Anatomy, and NCIS: Los Angeles.

His first bigger lead arrived in 2013, when he played Sam Strickland in the short-lived but critically-acclaimed NBC show 'Smash,” coproduced by Steven Spielberg. And another up-and-comer took notice: actor, composer, and writer Lin-Manuel Miranda.

'While not many people were watching the show around the country, people in the theater watched it a lot,” Odom said. 'Lin had been watching.”

Miranda shot Odom an email asking if he wanted to come read 'this thing” around a table.

That thing would become Hamilton, a sung-through musical about the life of Alexander Hamilton achieved through a widely diverse cast and music styles. Last year, it received a record 16 Tony nominations, won 11, earned the 2016 Grammy for best musical theater, and received the year's Pulitzer Prize for drama.

But, at the time Miranda reached out, Odom said, wasn't offering a Broadway show or a Tony Award.

'He's just offering an opportunity to have an opportunity,” he said. 'He's offering me the chance to get in a room and try it out.”

And that went on for years.

'Every time Lin invited me into a room to try it out, to sit around a table and read this thing for him and bring it to life for him, I looked at every single time as an audition,” Odom said. 'It was a role of a lifetime, the opportunity of a lifetime, that's how I looked at it.”

Odom said he knew it from the start.

'I knew the quality of the writing was so rare.”

And yet, he said, the whole 'wild and wonderful” Hamilton experience wasn't entirely expected.

'I had no idea that people would feel about it the way they do, and that America - this country - would take to it the way they have,” Odom said. 'But I knew how I felt about it.”

The part was groundbreaking not just in its structure and style.

'I knew that Aaron Burr - that a role like that - I had never been offered a part like that, I had never seen a part like that before for an actor of color,” he said. 'So if I could be the guy, I wanted to be the guy.”

Odom said he never tested any other roles in Hamilton - just Burr, who narrates the show and serves as Hamilton's antagonist, making him the historical villain. The drama of that relationship and the many others that enrich Miranda's work brought to life text book characters, which Odom said might serve as a lesson for today's educators.

'It's not necessarily all that important for a sixth-grader or eighth-grader to know about Hamilton's affair with Maria Reynolds,” he said. 'But if they could sprinkle it with a little more of the foibles and pitfalls, I think it would actually make it more interesting for kids. To feel like they're learning about humans and not statues.”

Playing a 'villain” wasn't tough for Odom, who said Miranda's characterization of Burr was so well-structured and complex that he never felt to be the 'bad guy.”

'I hung the whole performance on love,” he said. 'I had my wife and my daughter ... I had Hamilton, who I think he had a great amount of respect for and a great amount of admiration for - Burr was in awe of him. And then love for my audience.”

Performing eight shows a week for a year and a half - totaling more than 400 performances - never got old or tired, Odom said.

'It was such a privilege and honor that I got to be their guide through the first time they were experiencing this piece that I loved so much - these characters and actors that I love so much,” he said.

Odom took his final bow as Burr in Hamilton on July 9, 2016 - the same time Miranda, who played Hamilton, and others also left the show. But the musical continues to tour with a new cast - Des Moines Performing Arts recently released details of the show's schedule for summer 2018.

And Odom said the role opened plenty of doors - allowing him, for starters, to dive into his musical pursuits. Still, the stage - alone on a stage, where he started 25 years ago and where he'll be standing Monday night in Iowa City - will always beckon, Odom said.

'That's when I'm most comfortable,” he said. 'It feels like home.”