Quotes from Ethan Slater

Yellow's never been a good color for me, but it's actually grown on me. I like it more than I used to!

The only reason to do a 'SpongeBob' on Broadway is if it's gonna bring something new to the brand, something new to 'SpongeBob,' and also something innovative to theater and to Broadway.

It's inherently a part of my childhood and my development as a person and an artist, this childlike feeling knowing that something is missing but not quite knowing how to fix it. I'm always drawing on it.

In my senior year of high school, I was doing a dance with a bunch of friends for the talent show, and my pants split entirely in half. It was incredible.

Physical comedy and musical theatre were never actually in my main focus at school. I was more of a dramatic actor. I always thought I was better at that.

I love Broadway musicals, but there's a lot that I want to do.

I think I'm a little less naive than SpongeBob can sometimes seem to be.

When the show starts, I am in my SpongeBob stance, and I walk like SpongeBob, and the first step that I take, I am SpongeBob.

You're always nervous about what critics say - about what anybody has to say, really.

In the room, when I'm playing SpongeBob, I'm optimistic and I'm happy, and I smile in the face of those who are upset in order to make them happier. You know, there's this overwhelming optimism. And I've been lucky enough to have that become a part of my life. I like to think that it's influenced me.

One of the things I've found about SpongeBob's movement style is that, in addition to being animated and sort of stretching and squeezing, he's really based on the classic silent comedians, physical comedians.

I would say that SpongeBob, at his core, is this optimistic, loving best friend. Getting to play him every day has sort of rubbed off on me and improved my life.

We all should be so lucky to be as optimistic as SpongeBob.

The more you see somebody else's version of something, the harder it is to make it your own.