James Corden wants to throw up when he thinks about his "big, ambitious" Tonys opening number
Tony Awards host James Corden told "CBS This Morning" Thursday he's worried about pulling off the opening number for Broadway's biggest night.
"We're opening the show with quite a big, ambitious song, and I was listening to part of the orchestra arrangement for that and it was making me feel like throwing up," Corden said.
Corden is returning to Radio City Music Hall to emcee the awards show for the second time, having hosted back in 2016. Gayle King asked whether he liked what they had planned, and he suggested his only concern is whether they can pull it off.
"There is a feeling that we may have bitten off slightly more than we can chew," he said.
But the "Late Late Show" host is no stranger to pulling off difficult live performances — like his "Crosswalk: The Musical" segments where he and a group of actors take over an intersection. He also boasts his own Tony Award for his role in "One Man, Two Guvnors" on Broadway back in 2012.
Adding to his worry is the fact that the performances at the Tonys are precisely what set it apart from other awards shows.
"Most award shows are groups of millionaires giving each other gold statues and that is really it," Corden said. "Whereas here is a show where all of these incredible casts — people are paying $200, $300, $400 a ticket sometimes for some of these shows and they're going to perform right there, big moments from their shows all night, and you don't have to leave your living room to watch them."
Corden still remembers the exact moment he knew he wanted to be on stage.
"I went to see a musical called 'Me and My Girl,' which is at the Adelphi Theater on the Strand and it had a brilliant actor in it called Gary Wilmot and it's a big comic romp. that show, you know, it's really funny. And I walked out of the Adelphi Theater and I said to my dad, 'That's what I want to do, dad. I just want to do that,'" Corden said.
Years later when he was performing at the Adelphi in his Tony Award-winning role in "One Man, Two Guvnors," his father took him to the exact spot where he'd told him what he wanted to do with his life. "We both had a nice, you know, cry," Corden said.
And he thinks live theater has a special place today in our digital age. "I think the more that we live online, the more we live on our phones, you're searching for a collective life experience and that's what this offers."
The Tony Awards will be broadcast live from the Radio City Music Hall in New York City on CBS, on Sunday, June 9, 8:00 - 11:00 p.m. ET/PT time delay.
