Actor, singer Santino Fontana reflects on Minnesota years as his new movie hits screens

NINA MOINI: You're listening to Minnesota Now. Before he was Prince Hans in Frozen, Santino Fontana performed at the Guthrie Theatre. Now the Minnesota trained actor stars alongside Martin Sheen in Lost and Found in Cleveland, opening in theaters Friday. Fontana spoke with NPR's Jacob Aloi about his path from the Guthrie to Hollywood and his new film.

SANTINO FONTANA: This came around-- it was-- I want to say we had just gotten past the big, meaty part of the pandemic, and so things were quiet. And the world was very slowed down.

And I got this call and this email and the script and that cast, and we all went out to Cleveland for a couple of weeks I want to say in total. And it was super fun. I got to hang out with Jeff Hiller in the hotel, and June Squibb was at the hotel with us and getting to hang-- and Dot-Marie Jones-- getting to hang out with everybody and breathe life into this fun script for something that isn't really made in-- these kinds of movies aren't made that much anymore.

There are no superheroes involved. There is no magic. There is no AI. There is no CGI. It's just actors and a story. So I'd never spent time in Cleveland, but I had a great time out there shooting it in the middle of the winter.

JACOB ALOI: You mentioned going to Cleveland. Midwest very cold. Something that you actually have a history with as we mentioned.

SANTINO FONTANA: Oh, yeah. You betcha.

JACOB ALOI: You're a former Minnesotan. You attended the University of Minnesota and graduated from the BFA in acting program. And I'm just curious about how that came to be because if I remember correctly, you were not intent initially on being an actor. It was a late high school thing for you or--

SANTINO FONTANA: No, I'd never met an actor. So the idea-- in my home-- I'm from a small town in Washington State. I was from a small town in California, and we moved to Washington State. There was no one making their living in the arts.

So shy of a piano teacher, which is-- which I had and which were fantastic, but there was no one making a professional performing career as their life. And I met Ken Washington, who was the head of that program at the Guthrie and the University of Minnesota, and Joe Dowling was the head of the Guthrie at the time. And I was in the very first class at the U on the West Bank along with-- [INAUDIBLE] was in my cast, great actress also, a bunch of really talented people.

But, yeah, that was 2000 to 2004, and then I stayed on as a company member until 2006. And I was in the last show at the old Guthrie before they tore it down.

JACOB ALOI: That was-- yeah, played the lead character Hamlet--

SANTINO FONTANA: Yes.

JACOB ALOI: In the-- it's funny. The Guthrie always brings back Hamlet for big moments. It was the first production-- one of the first two productions that opened at the Guthrie, and then it has come back for the 60th. And, of course, when they closed the original Guthrie--

SANTINO FONTANA: That was me.

JACOB ALOI: That was you.

SANTINO FONTANA: Yeah.

JACOB ALOI: So I'm curious that era of early to mid 2000s, you are in-- you're in college, and then you-- only two years after graduating from the BFA program, you're playing the lead--

SANTINO FONTANA: Yeah.

JACOB ALOI: In Hamlet at the Guthrie, the bringing down the curtain of that place. What was that experience like, all of those-- that build up to that moment of I get to embody this iconic character in this iconic space for the last time?

SANTINO FONTANA: It was an amazing opportunity and experience, and I don't take it lightly that Joe cast me and feel really lucky for that for having that experience. I-- the part and that group of actors and at that point in my life right before I then moved to New York, it's surreal. It is-- it's been surreal, and Minneapolis has always been a home in that sense because of all of that experience.

And so much of that is gone or changed. That old building is gone. I've been at the new theater. I've performed in some concert-y stuff there, and it does feel like I'm in the old building, and then I walk out of it. And I'm like, oh my gosh, that's not there.

I-- and I actually I-- it's funny you mentioned the-- I am coming back on November 8th to perform at the Capri Theatre in Minneapolis. Maya Garcia, who used to work at the Guthrie, she's taking over there, and she heard I will be in town November-- first week of November. And so she said let's do a concert, and I was like, absolutely. Why not? Yeah, so it still feels like a home to me.

JACOB ALOI: I'm curious. You mentioned it's that-- you were part of that first graduating cohort of that program. And you had-- you performed in a number of productions with-- leading up to the lead in Hamlet. I'm just curious how that all prepared you for this career that you've gone on to have, that you've gone on to win a Tony Award, be on television, be in films, work with such incredible minds and be considered one yourself. I'm curious what about all of that really prepared you to go off and have that career.

SANTINO FONTANA: I think-- well, listen, it's the only formal training I've ever had in my life. So Scott Freeman, Ken Washington, Virginia Ness Ray, Lucinda Holschuh, Kenny Mitchell, Lisa Carlson, Joe Dowling, Marcela Lorca, those are the teachers that I had that everything I know that I feel like I can grab hold of as a technique as both an actor, but also as an informed, educated artist in figuring out the best way to tell a story and play a person in a different medium-- in all different medium-- mediums, that all comes back to here.

Whether it's this movie you're talking about or I do audiobooks, which is-- talk about Tyne Turner, who's my speech teacher, all the dialects and all of the text work we did and Shakespeare or an animated film or Frozen or Broadway stuff doing eight shows a week, singing. Barbara Karig was my voice teacher who taught at the Minnesota Opera. It all comes through the Twin Cities.

It does. That's it. That's all I've got. So there's no other-- There's nothing else for me to grab hold of. That's all the training. And also I will say, seeing all the great plays that I saw at the Guthrie, I saw Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf with Mercedes Ruehl and Patrick Stewart and Carrie Preston of current Elsbeth fame and Bill McCallum. I saw-- I was an usher at the Guthrie. So I saw that show probably 15 times.

I saw Twelfth Night with Daniel Sunjata and Opal Aladdin and Richard Eglevsky. I saw that maybe 12 times. I saw Antony and Cleopatra. I saw Hedda Gobbler. I saw-- all of those plays that I saw, I can relive them now. Sally Wingard and Steven Yocum and Steven Polinsky and Izzy-- Isabel Monk and-- I'm not going to forget. And there's so many.

JACOB ALOI: Many who are still here performing.

SANTINO FONTANA: Oh, yeah. And I still remember things that they did. I remember the-- Simon Russell Beale came and toured his production of Hamlet when I was a freshman I think in college. I remember his line-- I stole one of his line readings. The funeral baked meats, freshly furnished, the wedding tables, thrift, thrift. I remember how he said it.

Yeah, it's-- it is overwhelming. When I think about that, you put all that pressure on this one place and this-- and all of those things that I learned here. But it's why I always will have a soft spot for it in my heart.

NINA MOINI: That was actor Santino Fontana speaking with reporter Jacob Aloi. Fontana's new Christmas movie Lost and Found in Cleveland opens this Friday nationwide.