When “The Rocky Horror Show” director Sam Pinkleton called and asked Stephanie Hsu if she wanted to be his Janet, she had a confession: she was a virgin.
“I was like, ‘I’ve actually never seen Rocky Horror,’” says the actress, wearing a T-shirt bearing Pinkleton’s likeness and seated on the mezzanine level of the Roundabout Theater at Studio 54 before a recent matinee performance. “So I watched the movie that night, and fell in love with it, and ever since have been deep diving into the fandom,” Hsu adds. “I’ve gone to the midnight showings, watched the documentary, and now I’m definitely obsessed.”
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The actress stars in the Broadway revival as Janet Weiss, a coquettish woman who, along with her husband Brad, stumbles upon Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s mansion one fateful night. Inside, an eclectic cast of characters and sexual awakening awaits them.
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The show received nine Tony nominations ahead of this weekend’s awards, and Hsu is nominated for best leading actress in a musical for her portrayal.
Toward the top of the theater, Hsu is taking in a different view than she’s used to: the technical staff is testing out the various set pieces on stage before a matinee performance, and she spots castmate Josh Rivera, who stars as Rocky, walk past the stage. “Why are you here?” Hsu calls out. “Why are you there?” he calls back.
The show’s infamous call-outs have been a big topic of conversation since the show premiered, but there’s one section where Hsu has been actively encouraging the audience to participate, after a big turning point for her character. She questions, “If only… If only… If only…” and the audience calls back: “But you did.” “But it did.” “But you’re not.”
“To me, that moment is so stupid in the best way, because she is responding to the call-outs as if they’re ghosts in the castle, but it’s obviously the audience,” Hsu says. “We are both the haunted ones.”
Hsu is already looking forward to participating in call-outs as an audience member during future stage revivals: “I sometimes fantasize being in my 80s and getting to watch the next revival of Rocky Horror. And then being in the audience just screaming, ‘Slut!’ at whatever young victim is next,” she says.
While audiences have been populated by many Rocky Picture die-hards, the production has also turned other “virgins” into new fans.
“ A friend of mine came recently, and she admitted to me that it was her first time,” says Hsu.
“She had tears in her eyes, and she was like, ‘You know what that means?’” recalls Hsu. “She’s like, ‘You’re my first Janet. You are my Janet.’ Which is really meaningful, for so many reasons.”
Beyond the experience of getting to “unleash Janet” every night on stage and portray a sexually liberated female character, Hsu has found it meaningful to portray Janet as an Asian American queer woman.
“I never saw myself as an ingénue. I never saw myself as the girl next door,” says Hsu. “I could never imagine myself as Janet until Sam called me. And it’s very much not lost on me that my existence at this moment in time in the history of this ‘Rocky Horror Show,’ and the future to come, that my Janet is a cultural pivot point for my community. And I feel really honored to be a part of that shift in perceiving what a Janet could even look like — both identity-wise and in terms of how feral she is.”
Growing up, Hsu doubted the possibility of becoming a leading actress on Broadway because she didn’t see herself reflected in the roles, or people portraying them, that were available.
“The beautiful thing about a Tony nomination is that this, to me, I’ve been joking that it feels like building generational wealth for the present and the future generations to come, so that people who look like me can spend less time doubting that it’s a possibility for them,” she says. “First of all, it’s the first Janet that’s ever been nominated, which is so cool — and then you look at every Janet that’s existed before me, and one thing is not like the other, you know?”
While nominated in the supporting actress category for the Drama League and Drama Desk awards, Hsu’s role was delineated in the leading category for the Tonys.
“That journey for myself and my team of understanding and embodying what it feels like or means to be a leading actress as opposed to featured is a pretty substantial psychological shift,” says Hsu, who’s been working with stylist Frank L. Fleming for her recent awards show appearances. “Frank was really like, ‘I want you to feel like a leading actor,’ and that’s what we’re stepping into on Sunday.’”
For Hsu, “Rocky Horror” has felt like a homecoming. Her last time on Broadway was in the 2019 musical “Be More Chill,” when she was concurrently filming “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” on her days off. Afterward, she starred in Oscar-winning film “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” And then the COVID-19 shutdown happened.
“I went dormant for two years. And when COVID ended, my life totally changed because of that movie,” she says; Hsu received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress in 2023. “But in a weird way, coming back to the theater feels a little bit like I picked up where I left off before COVID, which was being a total masochist artist.”
As for why Hsu was up sitting in the mezzanine, besides finding a quiet place for an interview? She wanted to be close to “the aliens,” a cluster of silver mannequins — one handcuffed, another holding opera glasses — looking down toward the stage, next to a jar that the cast and crew filled with the names of people who aren’t able to be present at the theater.
“These are our protectors,” she says. “There are moments within the show where I get to think about the past, present, future, and I look to our aliens, and it always feels like an amazing scene partner or guardian for the future.”