Exclusive: Celebrities at FanX Expressed Their Love of Theatre

Many celebrities expressed their love of theatre at this year’s FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention, held September 24-26, 2026!

When asked about filming TWISTER during her panel, Helen Hunt shared that “all those storm chasers were brilliant theatre actors,” later responding to a question about her performance in TWELFTH NIGHT on Broadway, quoting Shakespeare lines that she called “perfect writing.” 

In their respective panels, Jane Seymour spoke fondly about performing in AMADEUS on Broadway before filming THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL, and Angela Kinsey (THE OFFICE) and Nia Vardalos (MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING) both detailed how their one-woman stage shows jumpstarted their careers. 

“I've written a play called TINY BEAUTIFUL THINGS that's gone all over the world, and I love theatre,” said Vardalos, who recently appeared in CELEBRITY AUTOBIOGRAPHY on Broadway. “You're going to share an event for 90 minutes, 120 minutes, that's never going to happen again. It's just this one night. So that's why I love theatre.”

“I started out doing musical theatre,” Molly Ringwald (RIVERDALE) told BroadwayWorld. “My first professional job—well, I did community theatre before I was a professional actress, but I did ANNIE for 15 months, and I've done CABARET and SWEET CHARITY, and I love it. I mean, it's really fun. I just finished doing an off-Broadway play where I played the writer Lillian Hellman, and it was great. It just reminded me of how much I love doing theatre and how it's like going to the gym. You know, you build your acting muscles doing theatre.”

The HAZBIN HOTEL panel featured stage performers Christian Borle (PETER AND THE STARCATCHER), Lilli Cooper (THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE), Joel Perez (FUN HOME), Krystina Alabado (GOOSEBUMPS THE MUSICAL), Keith David (THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG), and more. 

“Getting to do these conventions—this feels very theatre cast,” said Blake Roman (HARMONY) in answer to a fan question about their Broadway experience. “I do very much feel like these are the people I do my show with. In the same way that it's like, oh, this is my cast that I do my theatre production with that I see every day. It feels like a similar family to me, which I love. And the cons are kind of the shows that we do.”

Tony winner Christian Borle’s booth was filled with photos for purchase from not only HAZBIN HOTEL, but also LEGALLY BLONDE, SMASH, SOMETHING ROTTEN!, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, FALSETTOS, and CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY.  “What I have found on the convention circuit is that HAZBIN HOTEL is a great gateway into Broadway musicals for a new generation,” Borle told BroadwayWorld exclusively. “It's been thrilling.”

When asked how FanX compares to the stage door, he added, “The stage door experience happens after a hard night of work, whereas this you get up to prepare, you hydrate, you caffeinate, you can have a good meal, and you have a lot more energy to actually be present with people as opposed to wanting to rush home and have dinner and see your loved ones.”

At his booth, Borle happily talked about his career with fans, from the upcoming FALSETTOS revival 10th anniversary concert at Carnegie Hall (“I'm furiously trying to relearn my music, so I'm on the plane with my sheet music on my iPad, listening to our cast recording and getting very excited”) to LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS’ current record-breaking run off Broadway (“The smartest thing that they did was to make sure that they stayed in that small space and honored the original production—what Howard Ashman and Alan Menken wanted, which is not to blow it up into some crazy big Broadway house”) to the TV series SMASH (“If you love SMASH like I do, email NBC and tell them to bring it back—we’re ripe for a revival!”).

One highly anticipated panel featuring the voices of iconic Disney princesses Jodi Benson (Ariel in THE LITTLE MERMAID), Paige O’Hara (Belle in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST) and Linda Larkin (Jasmine in ALADDIN) included their thoughts on the stage musicals adapted from their animated films (also created by Ashman and Menken).

“I've seen it multiple times, but I just saw it this summer,” Larkin said.  “I love it—it’s really a new experience.  It goes beyond what the animated film does, so it's just really special to see what they do with it. And that magic carpet ride in the Broadway show—it's amazing. I'm looking at it every time I've seen the show—like six times—and I'm like, how are they doing that? It's really incredible.”

“There's a new tour out of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, and they're hoping to bring it back to Broadway,” O’Hara said. “The entire production is amazing. Susan [Egan, original Belle on stage] and I both thought there were some improvements made from the Broadway version, definitely. So if you get a chance to see if it comes to where you live, go see it.” (It arrives at the Eccles Theater in Salt Lake City this December.)

“My family and I went to see THE LITTLE MERMAID on opening night in New York City at the Lunt-Fontanne, where I did SMILE with Howard Ashman at the same theatre,” Benson said. “So it was a very full circle moment, and the cast was brilliant. We had so much fun, but as soon as the curtain came down, everybody left the theatre, and I sat in my seat and I sobbed like a baby.”

The voice of TANGLED’s Flynn Ryder, Tony nominee Zachary Levi (SHE LOVES ME), is a repeat attendee at FanX who was grateful to use the convention as an opportunity to raise money for his charity Nerd HQ, performing a benefit concert at the Capitol Theatre with special guest Rumer Willis and organizing several events and celebrity autograph giveaways. 

“You can go and ask for big donors to write you big checks, or you can go and activate large groups of people with microtransactions and make it fun,” said Levi to BroadwayWorld exclusively, calling FanX “a great partner.” “If you make it fun, then people are more willing to want to be giving, and instead of just trying to twist people's arm and begging them for money, it's like, hey, why don't we give them an opportunity to enjoy giving? So that's what we do.”

When BroadwayWorld asked Levi what he’d like our readers to know about what Nerd HQ is doing and how to help, he said, “What I would say first and foremost is that if anybody in the Broadway community is dealing with mental and or emotional illness of any kind and they need help and they can't afford it, go to nerdhq.org. You can sign up for free therapy. That's what we do. We raise money so we can just help pay for people's therapy who can't afford it.”

“There's also resources on the website,” he added, “and if anybody wants to get involved, anybody on Broadway that has a fan following, and they want to sign a playbill or an item or anything, they can ship it to us, and we can put it on the online auction. And eventually, I'd like to do more concerts, like I did on Wednesday, and get other people from the Broadway community to come sing a song or two or whatever, and we can just do these fun benefit concerts, you know? Because I think we've done a very good job as a society to destigmatize mental illness, and that was a big barrier of entry for a long time. Now the barrier of entry really is just can people afford it, and that's why we want to help people to bridge that gap.”

If you missed out on this year’s rush of celebrity-infused excitement, you will definitely want to plan on attending next year.  The FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention, which will return March 11-13, 2027 at the Salt Palace Convention Center, is the most attended convention in the state of Utah and the largest comic convention in North America per capita. To learn more, visit fanxsaltlake.com.

Photo Credit: Cast of HAZBIN HOTEL. Courtesy FanX.