James Seol Talks Love, Risk, and “Maybe Happy Ending”
The gay actor discusses Asian American representation and finding humanity in the Tony-winning musical at the National Theatre.
For James Seol, appearing at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., is a homecoming.
“I’m gonna be a little cliche here,” says the gay actor, who was raised in Springfield, Virginia, “but it’s a little bit of a dream come true. When I was just starting out, my family might have been a little bit uncertain about this career choice. And to be able to come to a theater that I actually grew up going to — I remember seeing the first national tour of the original production of Ragtime — and then having my family — a big contingent of family, by the way — come to see me perform there is a really, really great feeling.”
Seol will appear in the national tour of Maybe Happy Ending at The National from October 6 to 11. At the time of our conversation, he’s in Greenville, South Carolina, as the musical makes its way across the country.
Set in the not-too-distant future, the show follows two obsolete helper bots, Oliver and Claire, who meet and fall in love. Written by Will Aronson and Hue Park, the deeply romantic Maybe Happy Ending won six Tony Awards in 2025, including Best Musical.
Seol plays James, Oliver’s former owner, who appears in the helper bot’s memories.
“I have one song,” he says. “It’s a duet with Oliver. But the majority of the songs are sung by Oliver and Claire. I will say that I think it’s probably one of the best Broadway scores written within the last fifteen years.” He praises the songs’ melodic richness and lyrical complexity, but also their clarity — “because you have to understand it in the first hearing.”
Seol notes that although Maybe Happy Ending is centered on two sophisticated robots, it is not a cautionary tale about technology.
“The show is not about artificial intelligence, nor is it really about robots, I would argue,” he says. “Yes, the two main characters are called helper bots and they are essentially computers that are living,” but the premise allows the writers to explore the risks of love — the possibility of both joy and pain — through an unexpected lens.
“The robots, the AI stuff, the projection of what the future could look like, that’s just a vehicle to help explore and examine these more interesting questions about what it means to be a human being.”
Seol plays several additional roles, including James’s son, Junseo, and enjoys the challenge of making each character distinct.
“The thing is, the audience will always know it’s me, but what are the things that I can do to sort of encourage them to suspend their disbelief?” he says. “We have amazing designers and hair and makeup, costume folks, but if I can just offer the audience a hint or taste of something that’s shifted, something that’s different, the audience will go on the ride with me. How to do that and how to be detailed about that, how to be specific about that is definitely something I picked up in school.”
That school was Juilliard, where Seol studied under Michael Kahn. The former longtime artistic director of D.C.’s Shakespeare Theatre Company also headed the New York school’s Drama Division at the time.
“He was a great, great teacher,” recalls Seol. “He could be very hard, but also very warm. He was the kind of teacher you knew was on your side. He was very exacting and had just a wealth of opinions and knowledge and practical wisdom.”
Our conversation turns to Maybe Happy Ending‘s predominantly Asian American cast.
“We’re all POCs, the majority of whom identify as AAPI,” he says. Seol recalls a time when Asian actors had few opportunities in the musical theater canon, particularly in principal roles.
“One of the reasons I took this job was that I think it’s a great show to take across the country and show audiences in a very beautifully crafted package that people who look the way I do can fall in love, can be funny, can have dramatic moments, can play a multitude of different roles.”
At 48, Seol — whose credits include HBO Max’s The Flight Attendant and Julio Torres’s wacky comedy Problemista — is pleased with how his career is going.
“It requires equal parts skill, hard work, talent, and luck, and I’ve been very fortunate,” he says. “Have there been periods where I haven’t worked? Yes. But in those periods, I’ve done other things — readings and workshops and concert gigs, things like that. I still have ambition and at the same time I am very content.”
He continues: “I made this sort of pact with myself a few years ago that, in middle age, there is this tendency inside of me to want to continue to be safe and coast and just kind of do things that make me feel comfortable. And I made a pact with myself about three years ago where I said, ‘You know what? I’m gonna try to do things that push me outside of those places of safety. I just wanna make sure that I don’t ever get complacent.’ And so that is something that this particular career choice affords me.”
Maybe Happy Ending runs Oct. 6 to 11 at The National Theatre, 1321 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Tickets start at $87. Visit broadwayatthenational.com.
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