Today we’d like to introduce you to Jonny Lee Jr.
Hi Jonny, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My name is Jonathan Lee Jr. or Jonny for short. But I am also 李日仁. For those that can’t read Chinese, that’s “Li Ri Ran.” It means “the day’s benevolence.” My mother named me this in hopes that I would have a kind and caring demeanor…and I do believe her wish came true, but maybe to a detrimental point.
I am a child of immigrants, and like many children of immigrants, I grew up straddling two, sometimes very different cultures. Broadly speaking, I am American and also Chinese. If we go deeper, I am a New Jersey native and Taiwanese. Was it confusing growing up with so many different cultural lenses? Maybe…but I wouldn’t give up my experience for the world. It is what made me who I am today.
I started performing as a child and grew to love it as teenager. After high school, I briefly pursued a career in fashion merchandising at the Fashion Institute of Technology. This was mostly because my family has been involved in the fashion world for a few generations. Though I was good at it, I came to realize that I really needed to be in the performing arts. There was something inside me that needed to tell stories, whether it be through writing, acting or singing, and predicting fashion trends just did not fulfill that need.
Through series of circumstances, I eventually made my way to the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City on a scholarship. There, I trained to be a musical theatre actor and really found myself.
Today, I am proud to say that I am a professional actor, using my skills to pursue theatre and film endeavors whether through performance or writing.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I’ve always struggled with my identity.
As a child, I just wanted fit in. But for reasons, I wasn’t very successful. I didn’t look like the rest of my classmates. I wasn’t good at sports. I loved to sing. I was told I was very sensitive. I felt more comfortable talking to girls than boys. All of this was the perfect combination for being bullied.
Was it hard growing up? Hell yes. Being the one kid that was constantly bullied was not fun. Especially when my reaction to all this was to try and be kind.
My strategy was to show my bullies that I was a good person in hopes that they would see that there was nothing wrong with me, that I didn’t deserve their jeers and taunts. Obviously, this was a terrible way of going about it, but I didn’t know any other way to handle my situation. My only solace was singing. When I would sing, people would stop and listen. In my mind, I was finally being seen for who I was. Not what the bullies made me out to be.
Through singing, I discovered the performing arts. There was a freedom I felt when I inhabited the skin of another character. In a way, it was an escape from being me. I could be Jack, running away from the Giant. I could be a King, a Maharaja, who spread wealth throughout his country. There was a certain peace there when people didn’t see “me” when they saw my visage in costume, but the character I was portraying. But in the end, I was always me. Whether I liked it or not.
In a way, the more I ran away from myself, the more I hated myself.
When I was a teenager, my voice changed and I felt like I lost something. The beauty of my soprano voice became an untrained screechy tenor, and I had no idea how to navigate it. A turning point was when I auditioned for my high school musical and was not cast. I felt lost. I fell into a dark abyss. If I wasn’t a singer, and if no one wanted to see me perform, then who am I?
But in this darkness, I eventually found my way towards light. If people refused to see me for who I am, I must fight for them to see. I began to take voice lessons, and slowly, I gained more confidence. The more I brought myself into my craft, the more “whole” I became. I learned that I would not always succeed in life, and it will always hurt when rejection comes, but as long as I can truly love myself, then it will all be okay.
I am still navigating this journey, and boy is it a hard one. But I know that whenever I am hurt by words, actions, or rejection, the only thing to do is to heal and become stronger. The world doesn’t need to love me, I need to love me.
Do I know who I am now? Yes. I am everything that my life has been up to now. I am a Chinese American artist. I am a storyteller. And I love it. I am uniquely me and my only hope is that someday, I can leave an important imprint in this crazy world.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am a storyteller. Specifically, I choose to spend my time focusing on being an actor.
As an actor, I have performed in many live stage productions, mostly musicals. One of my favorite past roles include Thuy in Miss Saigon. It was a blast, cause who doesn’t love playing a villain?
The most recent show I had the privilege of performing in was an industry reading of the upcoming musical “Corner of Bitter and Sweet” written by Lainie Sakakura and music Paul Fujimoto. There’s so much I can say about this amazing piece, but for the sake of brevity, I’m just gonna say read the book that it’s based on, “Hotel On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet” by Jamie Ford. It’s wonderful and truly one of the most American stories I have ever read. Please look out for news of this show, it’s going places!
Currently, I am set to star in the world’s premier production of “Gold Mountain,” a musical by Jason Ma at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. I am extremely excited for this production because it is a story that I think needs to be told and I feel a special connection to. The musical is set in the 1800s during the building of the transcontinental railroad. I play Lit Ning, a young fresh-faced Chinese immigrant who sets out with his father to bring riches back to his starving family in China by working on the railroad. There, he finds unexpected love and loss. It’s a beautiful story, and I cannot wait to sink my teeth into the role. Especially since I get to work opposite Broadway veteran Ali Ewoldt, the first Asian American Christine in Phantom of the Opera.
As a writer, I co-created and co-starred in a musical web series called “City of Dreams” which was featured in the New York Times, USA Today, and Playbill.com. I am also the concept creator of a short musical called “Cookie Soiree” which was recently published in an anthology by Musical Theater International. My musical, “Welcome to Shoofly” co-written with Justin Anthony Long, has been a selection at the ASCAP/Dreamworks Workshop at the Wallis Annenberg Center in Beverly Hills and also a show that was chosen to present at NYMF.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.jonnyleejr.com
- Instagram: @jonnyleejr
Image Credits:
Lia Chang, Courtney Lindberg
