Most people know John C. Reilly as an actor, with memorable roles in comedies such as Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and Step Brothers or indie hits such as What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and Boogie Nights, but it was his Oscar-nominated role as Amos (Mister Cellophane) in the film version of the Broadway musical Chicago that most inspired his latest incarnation, Mister Romantic, a vaudeville show coming to the Lobero on Sunday, June 7.
A critical darling — The New York Times called Mister Romantic, “wryly funny, sometimes tender and sad, but always sincere,” and Vanity Fair described it as “fiercely funny” and said, “John C. Reilly is one hell of a singer” — Reilly laughed when I asked him about the vaudevillian slant of the show. “When the going gets tough, the tough go to vaudeville.”
He started doing musicals when he was 8 years old, but it was after playing Mister Cellophane that he thought, “Man, I really like to perform this way; this is something I’m really suited to, doing this kind of performance. It’s kind of clowning. It’s kind of a song and dance, and, for lack of a better word, it is vaudeville.”