The Minutes' Noah Reid Is Setting New Goals | Playbill

Special Features The Minutes' Noah Reid Is Setting New Goals

After a hit television series and now a Broadway debut, the performer talks about the work that motivates him.

Jeremy Daniel

A quick scan of Noah Reid’s resume reveals that he’s pretty much already done it all. He made his professional stage debut in Toronto as Chip in Beauty and the Beast. He spent seven years as the voice of the title turtle in the animated television series Franklin. He has a long list of film and tv credits, and recently wooed millions of fans while courting Dan Levy’s character David in the final three seasons of the sitcom Schitt’s Creek. The multi-faceted performer is also a singer-songwriter with three album releases under his belt.

Reid is now appearing in the ensemble cast of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s production of Tracy LettsThe Minutes, playing a newly elected city council member in the fictional mid-America town of Big Cherry. “It’s just a bit of a dream,” he says, “making my Broadway debut in this play, with these people, with this company.”

The actor confesses that even with all of his successes, there were some downs when he was building the ups of his career. “It’s taken me a while to get to the level that I’ve always wanted to play at,” he says. “I think I thought about it as things I wanted to achieve in my life and setting goals, and when that stuff started to not happen or not exactly happen in the way that I had drawn it up, that felt really disappointing.”

His thinking has shifted, though, to be more about the kind of work that he gets to do, and who he gets to do it with.

“It’s not going to surprise anyone for me to say…this is a complex time. The world we’re living in is so cacophonous. It’s so busy. It’s so hard to keep anything in our heads for very long and we’re easily distracted, so I like projects that allow for us to sit in some kind of reflection of this world that we’re inhabiting," Reid says. “I love the challenges of, ultimately, the examination of what it is to be a human being in this world. I mean that’s kind of what artists have been reflecting on for centuries and generations and we just keep getting more complex as a species. There’s lots to mine.”

“I just want to continue to do work that challenges me and that I get to surround myself with thoughtful, intelligent, compassionate, and brilliant artists. You know, I think that can be the goal.”

 
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