Darren Criss - Where Did He Come From?

Thousands have seen the TV-series Glee. Most of them know the character Blaine Anderson. Some also know that Darren Criss is the actor portraying him. But very few actually knows where he came from... What did he do before Glee?

Have you ever heard of A Very Potter Musical? Or StarKid Productions?

I actually discovered Darren before he became a part of Glee. He could be found om Youtube!

While attending University of Michigan he majored in Theatre Performance. After graduating, he and a bunch of his former class-mates founded the production company StarKid Productions. 

The idea for their first stage production came quite out of the blue. Darren and a couple of the other guys was just playing guitar and making up songs for fun, and suddenly they had made this funny song where Draco (from the books of Harry Potter) was secretly in love with Hermione, and that's the reason he was so mean to her all the time. That little idea lead to a lot of ideas... and soon they had made an entire parody musical based on the Harry Potter-universe!

It became an instant hit, and all of their performances at the University of Michigan was completely packed. So high was the demand that they decided to videotape one of their shows so that friends and family could watch it online. What they didn't expect however, was that the show would go viral on Youtube. Today, the first part of the show has got over 9 million views!

The show has a completely different take on the Potter-story, key words being Draco played by a girl, Voldemort being the most likable character, and RedVines turning out to be quite magical. The songs are really catchy, the characters and the plot are truly hilarious, and the actors behind it all are brilliant. Even Tom Felton thought it was great! In 2010 they did it again, and A Very Potter Sequel was born. 

This unpredicted success boosted both Starkid's and Darren Criss's carrear. Out of the blue Darren got an audition for the hit TV-series Glee on Fox. He was cast as Blaine Anderson, and only two days later they started filming. Now that season four has just started Blaine is listed as one of the main characters and Darren has never been more popular.

Earlier this year he got his first role at Broadway as the main star of the show How To Success In Buisnes Without Really Trying. And just to confirm what a strong bond there is between Darren and Harry Potter, he was cast in the exact same role as Daniel Radcliffe! They played a couple of weeks each.

As some sort of gesture to where Darren originated from, one of the newest episodes of Glee portrayed him in a wizzard costume. Fans of StarKid and AVPM all over the world spoke up in total excitement! Everyone is eagerly waiting for the finished edit of A Very Potter Senior Year, which was preformed at this year's Leaky Con.

He recently starred in Katy Perry's music video Last Friday Night along with some of his fellow Glee members. As he's one of Gleeks' favorite character, and he's set to starr in the movie Imogene opposite Kirsten Wiig, just imagine how far he can go from here... Three years ago he and the other Starkids dressed up and sang their songs outside the midnight screening of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Just one year later he was invited as a special guest at the red carpet screening of the Deathly Hallows Part 1! He's such a humble, thankful, awesome and hard-working guy I hope his journey has just begun :)

Favorite - Couple In a Television Series

(c) Elisabeth

Honestly, I'm all about cops!

I have to mention Rookie Blue again... If you have seen it, you know that Andy and Sam are a fantastic and incredibly interesting couple! And like I said before, it's all so realistic. Even their relationship. Sam loves her so much that ha actually stayed away from her since she was engaged to another man in the first season. He never pushed her and never tried to steal her from here fiancee... All he ever did was to take care of her. And when Andy (SPOILER) found out her fiancee cheated on her, Sam was the one who was there for her and helped her get through it. Now they're together at last, and they're just so perfect for each other <3

Favorite - Television Series

(c) Elisabeth

Woho! It's starting! It's time to reveal my first favorite thing. And the first thing up is, as most of you probably know already, favorite TV-series. (For details on the the challenge, head over here.) And if you want to you can totally leave the link to your blog-post down in the comments :)

It's honestly some hard category to start up with... What happened to nice and slow? You see, I don't have just one TV-series I love! I have at least five! But I have decided that I have to pick one as my favorite. The toss-up is between (in random order) Glee, The Vampire Diaries, House, Rookie Blue and So You Think You Can Dance. "Do you watch these things? Most of them are for teens!" I know! But I love them anyway. Don't judge! When I sit down to watch an episode of a TV-series it's meant to give me a break from all the other tings I do all day. I want to be entertained! To laugh and smile and cry and be excited.

Glee gives me joy to watch. It's so adorable but it also adresses a lot of important issues in scociety and in life in general. In one minute I find myself singing along grinning like a fool when they play a song I like, and in the next minute I can tear up because of things like bullying, prejudices and broken dreams.

Vampire Diaries, on the other hand, is very exciting, engaging and at times nerve-wracking. I dont care much about the fact that they are actually a bunch of vampires, werewolfs and witches... Its the personalities I love! There are literally no stereotypes here. And I love Damon Salvatore, the brother of the main character's boyfriend! I have rarely been presented such an interesting, deep, highly unpredictable and constantly changing character, and the actor, Ian Sommerhalder, is awesome.

House is for nerds. Which means I have totally screwed up humor! I go to school together with a lot of science-nerds, and even thought I'm not one of them myself (I loath math) I have come to understand and like the humor. House himself is despicable, but like Damon he's just so interesting! I started on season one about two years ago, and now I've reached the beginning of season eight, and I still love it.

So You Think You Can Dance is one of the things I look forward to each spring. It's one of those series that airs during the summer unlike most TV-programs. The reason why I love this is quite obvious: I love dance and I love to dance! It's just so inspiring, like watching a living art gallery, just that it's a dance show. You get to know the contestants through the season, and the judges are fantastic as always.

But, my favorite is a quite unusual choice...

My favorite television-series is Rookie Blue!

It's a Canadian police drama started in 2010, now in it's third season. It too only airs during the summer... The series is about five fresh rookies and how they handle the real life as a cop. You think that doesn't sound exciting? No, you're right, it doesn't. But it is! And the reason for that is that it's all so real and realistic. I've watched a lot of different agent-type TV-series (Alias, CSY, Covert Affairs and so on...) bit none of them are very realistic. Since this one is not produced in Hollywood, not even in the States, it had a whole different kind of truthfulness about it.

Here we get to see a cop's everyday life, with ups and downs. After watching this I started, for the first time, to think of the people behind the uniforms. What they feel like searching a house for a murderer. How terrifying and horrible a child-abduction can be for the cop in charge of the investigation. How a cop actually feel both during and after a fire. I could name countless examples, but I think you got the picture. In adition to all of this the actors are great! With Missy Peregrym (Andy McNally) and Ben Bass (Sam Swaerk) as the leading characters.

All in all, I love it, and I highly recommend you to see it!

Other bloggers also participating in the challenge:

Drops of Art
SaraRosine

Check them out! :-)