Todrick Hall’s days on American Idol may be over, but he’s hoping he won’t be leaving FOX any time soon. Todrick used the majority of his elimination interview time to campaign for a spot on Glee and he promises he’ll be campaigning non-stop until you see him singing with New Directions.
When he wasn’t talking about Glee, Todrick took the time to clear the air about the pre-season scam scandal, compare himself to Lady Gaga, and shared the innovative plans he had for this week’s Rolling Stones theme.
Can you tell us about the “Oz the musical” scandal?
“I’m so glad that I can talk about it now, it wasn’t the time to talk about it when I was on American Idol, because I needed to focus on the show, but I want everybody to know that I’m not a scam artist, I’m a nice person. No 23-year-old I know in the history of the world has ever tried to put on a show, and I think that if people think about that they’ll realize that I’m just an ambitious kid that got wrapped up with a producer who didn’t know what he was doing, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I allowed my name to be attached to that, but I’m going to get on the phone Monday and hopefully call a lot of those people because I do want to go there, and I love kids and I wouldn’t want people to think negatively of me in that way. I think the show will happen again, and we’ll be able to fix that situation. Just for the record, I was just the writer, director, and choreographer of that show, I did not produce the show, and I never had any of that money, I never dealt with the money.”
Now that we’ve cleared that up, what are your future plans?
“I’m making it my personal job now to be my own campaign manager to get myself a role on Glee. I would be perfect for that show, and every time somebody asks me what I’m doing now, I just tell everyone that I would love love love to be the next cast member on Glee. And I didn’t even think about campaigning for that until Simon said the other night, ‘You look like you’re doing American Idol the Musical’, and Randy chimed in and said Glee! And I was like ‘Actually, I think I would love to be on Glee it’s the perfect show for me.”
What was the first thing you did after you were eliminated?
“I took a deep breath, and just thought, ‘what do I do next?’ You pick yourself up. I’ve had a lot of experience, I was more concerned for Alex, and some of the people who maybe have not necessarily gone through this, but I just thought of the Glee thing and I said something to Ellen about it and now Ellen is helping to promote the fact that I should be on Glee on her TV show. I think that’s amazing, I wouldn’t be pushing myself for the role if I didn’t think I would do a good job.”
You were eliminated after your strongest performance, what do you think went wrong?
“I feel like I should have done what I did this week a couple of weeks earlier. The problem is that I’m an African American and a lot of people expected me to sing: Usher, Chris Brown, Ne-Yo, Brian McKnight, Stevie Wonder, any black artist that basically you can sing, but that’s not the kind of music that I want to sing. I’m happy that I stayed true to myself, but I sadly feel that if I had just sang the cookie-cutter songs, that people expected me to do, and not gone so far out there, with the clothes and the performing -a normal guy that got up there and sang, I would have maybe done better, but I’m happy that I stayed true to myself.”
Do you think your theater background helped you or hurt you? Do you think it influenced the judges’ approach to you as a contestant?
“When people know certain things about you, it’s kind of hard to shake those things, but I just told someone today that I felt that Lady Gaga is one of the most successful artists out right now, if she were on American Idol, they wouldn’t have good things to say about her because to a certain extent they do want you to be out of the box…they kept telling me that I was changing things too much, and I would hear them tell people, ‘You aren’t changing it enough’ and not making it their own. You have to try to find that line when it’s not changing it too much and making it too cookie cutter and making it a karaoke version, which sometimes they’re OK with, and sometimes they’re not. I feel like I’ll be rewarded for being true to myself and being different in the end.”
What about your dance background? Did it help you during the group number choreography?
“It did come in handy for the performing aspect, but it kind of hindered me, because I was always so frustrated in the rehearsals because I’d be ‘C’mon guys, it’s left-right-left-right’…I had to remember ‘they’re not dancers’. It was one of the things where I had to let my dance background go. I actually think announcing that I was a dancer, and announcing that I was on Broadway could have potentially hurt me, and might be part of the reason why I’m not on the show anymore.”
Did you ever think about adding more choreography to your solo performances?
“I was planning to sing “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and I was going to dance for the first time. They’ve kept yelling at me for dancing, but then Ellen last week said last week, ‘I think you should dance’. I was going to be the first contestant to actually do a dance break. No one’s ever danced, I was looking forward to doing that. Hopefully, I’ll get to be dancing on Glee.”
(Image courtesy of FOX)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
