Adam Pascal is Roger. Sometimes on stage, and sometimes quite literally. After close to 1,000 appearances as the moody musician, Pascal is waxing a bit nostalgic and dishing on a former boss. Closing shows is nothing new to him, but don’t mistake the curtain going down on Roger as one going down on Pascal. With a future as bright as the sun of Santa Fe, Pascal spends a few moments with the Gay & Lesbian Times.

Gay & Lesbian Times: There are Rent heads from 18-50, people who have you in their iPods and play it over and over. How does it feel when you step out each night, start tuning a guitar, and the house goes crazy?

Adam Pascal: It’s an amazing sort of way to end a journey, from where it started to now 13 years later. To keep going out there with a cast that, quite frankly, I love – I am enjoying it more than ever. People are coming at it with a knowledge of the music and the performance more than when it first opened, of course, and so that brings another level of depth to it. I am so proud to be part of it, where people are still so excited to be seeing it.

GLT: If you could play any other character in Rent, who would it be?

AP: I think it would be fun to play Mark.

GLT: Who are you most like in person?

AP: I guess I would have to say Roger, only in that I did bring so much of myself to creating that role. I do now, but when I first started the show, I never felt like I was acting. I never felt like I was portraying a character. I’ve learned about how I want to have the character viewed. At first, everyone was always telling me about how angry Roger was, and after a while I realized I didn’t want this character to be quite so angry, because then why would anyone want to hang around him? I wanted this person to be someone who people would want to hang around, regardless of what he was going through.

GLT: When the film hit the big screen, you were on the cover of Newsweek. Do you have a copy of it on your wall at home?

AP: [Laughing] As a matter of fact, I do. I am turning over my shoulder right now, and I can see it. I have a guest house where I spend most of my time at home, where my music is, my office is, and it has a Rent corner. The cover is in the middle, and on one side is a picture of the original cast from the New York workshop. It’s got to be the first day of rehearsal. And on the other side, I have a picture done by the photographer Mary Ellen Mark of the cast of the eight principles and Michael Greif, the director, and it’s just a great art, high-fashion type shot on the other side.

GLT: After Rent, you did Aida. What was it like working with Elton John?

AP: It was probably a lot of what you would expect it to be, in respect to the fact as nice of a person as he is, he is a very intimidating presence. He doesn’t put you at ease. I’ve worked with and met countless number of people who have achieved story-like success, and it’s interesting. There are people, for example Phil Collins, who immediately put you at ease. Elton just isn’t like that. He’s a force of nature. That being said, I loved the experience of having had the chance to work with him. He’s amazing, incredible. He’s a genius. A mad genius with personality disorders, but that’s what makes him genius. He’s an incredible person. I’m better for knowing him.

GLT: You’ve originated and closed two Broadway roles in Rent and Aida, and closed Cabaret as the Emcee. You did a concert version of Chess as Freddie with Josh Grobin and Idina Menzel. What’s been the most rewarding for you?

AP: The most rewarding was getting to play the Emcee in Cabaret. That was a role that for me, really allowed me to believe that I was an actor. I had never sung those serious types of songs, or danced that kind of choreography. I had never played such an androgynous character before. I hadn’t done any of that stuff, and I just fucking loved it. I just ate it up, and it did so much for me personally. It really changed my perception of myself and what I was capable of doing.

GLT: In the production of Rent, you play an aspiring musician. In real life, you are both a theater actor and a musician. Which do you consider yourself?

AP: I’m certainly more of a theatre actor in terms of my career, and I consider myself a musician. That’s something I continue to do. I am just sort of driven to do it. I consider it very even, down the middle. I’m both, I think.

GLT: What’s next for you?

AP: I’d love to open something. I’d love to do Chess. I’m working on this project for myself, a musical.

GLT: You didn’t mention doing Aida.

AP: You know, everyone keeps mentioning that to me. I don’t know anything about it. I swear to God. Everyone seems to know there’s talk about doing a movie, and I don’t know a thing about it. I was, believe it or not, the last to know about the movie, Rent. But I don’t know anything about it. And, not to cut myself off, but I couldn’t imagine in a million years that they would cast me in that. I could be totally wrong. I think they’ll probably do, this is my speculation, some hot movie-star route in their early 20s. That’s what I would do. But saying that, that’s a great way to get me work, isn’t it?

GLT: How do you think the country is doing relative to 1996 when the show opened?

AP: I think that’s interesting, because overall, I think the country is worse off in a general way. With respect to HIV/AIDS, I think we’ve come a long way, and people don’t see AIDS as such a crisis here in the United States, even though it is in other places in the world. We’ve been able to get some things under control, and people are living healthy and productive lives. That wasn’t the case in the early 1990s, which is why a show like this was able to be so successful. That being said, I think this show still resonates, and maybe more even recently as the country is in such dire situations, as a message of what do we do in the face of adversity? It’s a message of hope, and I think people are still responding to and needing that. And I think people are going to the theater for that message.

GLT: What else would Jonathan Larson have done, if he hadn’t died tragically in 1996?

AP: I think Jonathan probably felt very strongly about some of his previous work that never got the attention he would have wanted it to. He would have re-explored some of his older works, and he obviously would have continued writing. He was such a prolific writer. I remember one day in rehearsal, we got to a point and someone said, ‘We need a song here for Maureen and Joanne.’ He went home that night, came back the next day, and we have ‘Take Me or Leave Me.’ He wrote it that night. That’s incredible. He was incredible.

GLT: What’s your favorite ice cream?

AP: Back when I was a kid, Baskin Robbins used to make an ice cream called World Class Chocolate. It was chocolate- flavored ice cream with vanilla chocolate ice cream in it, so World Class Chocolate.