James Snyder may play every grandmother’s nightmare as the pouty greaser hoodlum Wade “Cry-Baby” Walker. But remove the wig and attitude, and there’s a fresh-faced California boy. As he shares with a reporter photos of his childhood home in Sacramento, his family, and his girlfriend (as well as the latter’s pet dog, sadly eaten by a coyote), Snyder cheerfully gripes that he is sleepless—not, mind you, from bar-hopping, but from assembling furniture.

The 27-year-old University of Southern California, soccer-playing theater grad was filming in Boston when, during a brief New York City visit (via Chinatown bus), en route to try out for a different rock musical altogether, he privately auditioned for John Waters’s latest Hollywood-to-Broadway adaptation of the 1990 camp classic. “He’s so… nice,” Snyder says of Waters. “Putting people off-balance and pushing the envelope is his job. The energy shifts when he’s around, in a great way.”

Of his Broadway debut as the star of Cry-Baby, he says, “It’s surreal.” Of course, he has some formidable Cuban heels to fill, taking on the role that helped make Johnny Depp a star. “Holy crap, yeah,” Snyder says. “But, I’m singing and dancing, so I don’t have to battle with too many comparisons to him.”

Speaking of singing, Snyder’s debut CD, L.A. Curse (Lionsgate Records)—recorded with some USC colleagues—just hit record stores. “That album was born of looking for love and the future in a bleak landscape,” he says. “That dark side really pushes you into those dirty places.” Finally, a shared characteristic with “Cry-Baby”: They’re both diehard romantics.

Photo by Isa Wipfli