Aaron Tveit leaves behind the plum coat and Christian’s angsty romantic emotions in Moulin Rouge: The Musical! to hit the stage with a razor blade in hand as the titular character in Sweeney Todd: Demon Barber of Fleet Street. And somehow, is…hotter than he’s ever been?
If you’ve been a fan of Tveit’s for a while, then you’re well aware of all his glorious transitions, from Next to Normal to Les Misérables to TV shows like Graceland and Braindead. He even managed to make the problematic and deeply unlikable Danny Zuko hot in Grease: Live! But whatever’s going on with the disheveled approach to the murderous barber out for revenge is a whole new level of fire. New footage previewing his transformation into the role with Sutton Foster as Mrs. Lovett is a true feast for the eyes.
Between the perfectly glorious and tailored scruff to the costumes that are (thankfully) a little too tight, he could probably slit my throat with that get-up, and I’d thank him. I mean—what? While there have been hesitations about whether Tveit’s voice could match what’s necessary from the character, anyone who knows the actor’s range knows he could bring some riveting edges to any role he takes on. And again—when he’s that hot, who on God’s green earth cares what he sounds like? I don’t.
We’re also forgetting that while his version of “El Tango De Roxanne” doesn’t hold the angst and softness that Ewan McGregor’s does in Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge, Aaron Tveit knows how to strike every cord with the faultlessly charged high notes.
(Someone help me because I’m also holding for dear life because of this man.) But this isn’t about his indomitable vocal range. It’s about how unfairly and scaldingly hot he looks in a role that won’t be documented for the entire world to see.
It’s a big ol’ thank you to the makeup and hair department for deciding on an overtly chaotic look with a side part that works excellently even when it probably shouldn’t. It’s also about the suspenders because it’s a truth, universally acknowledged, that any time a man wears suspenders, he’s instantaneously fifty times hotter than he was before it.
I should not be out here thirsting after a man with a blade, wholly enraptured by how he moves said blade, but we can blame Aaron Tveit’s face for that. In some ways, Sweeney Todd is a love story—a man’s inability to grasp that the one he loves is no longer with him, resorting to drastic measures for revenge. And with that comes the delicious longing fans of Tveit know he’ll project pristinely beyond the tortured exterior of a barber at his wits.
In other words, it’s the position he’s sitting in during the one promotional still. Who told him to just ruin me like that? It’s the prominent crease between his eyebrows holding down the fort and working overtime to show all the range necessary to convey the fire within the chairman of the tortured barbers department. See what I did there? Anyway, I am, but a mere mortal, and I need this man to just stop being the hottest for five minutes. There’s only so much we can take.
Aaron Tveit begins his run in Sweeney Todd from February 9 to May 5.
