Dan Donohue

Hometown: Spokane, Washington

Currently: Making his Broadway debut as the scheming villain Scar in Disney's long-running hit musical The Lion King.

Grandma Knows Best: As early as age six, Donohue knew he wanted to become an actor, "but I didn't quite see how to do that," he says now. An early booster had no doubts: "When I was very young, my grandmother, who was a real character, said to me, 'When you grow up, you're going to be a rich and famous actor and you're going to send me $5 a month.' I had no concept how much $5 was, but it sounded like a lot. I thought, 'How would that be possible?'" he recalls with a laugh. Though his grandmother didn't live to see his success, "She did see me act—and she never sent the bill collector!"

Classical Education: Donohue began his professional training in his home state at Whitman College receiving a B.A. in theater arts and earned an M.F.A. from Penn State, where he became one of 12 finalists in the annual Irene Ryan acting competition at the Kennedy Center. He then headed back to the west coast, building a solid career at theaters in the San Francisco area, Seattle Rep and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. "You kind of become a big fish in a small pond," he notes of the festival, where he's played more than 30 roles in 25 plays, including Prince Hal and Henry V in a three-year cycle and Mark Antony in Julius Caesar. "It's a wonderful artistic home, but for me, it's good to move around. I enjoy being 'the new guy.'"

Becoming Scar: Before making his Broadway bow, Donohue played Scar more than 1,400 times on the road, thanks to an initial push from college buddy and longtime Scar Patrick Page. "I was doing a play at the Long Wharf [in New Haven] and Patrick said, 'You should come in and audition for Disney. You'd be very good as Zazu [Mufasa's aide].'" The casting team took one look at the lanky actor and tapped him to replace Page in the national tour. "I couldn't see myself as Scar at first," Donohue admits. "I had never played a heavy, and I used to have a light, tinkly sort of voice. But now," he says with a rumbling laugh, "it's down in the basement."

Hit the Road! For some actors, touring is a necessary evil, but Donohue loved it. "It was great to taste little bits of each city we went to," he says. "I loved the ongoing challenge of getting better while doing the show so many times." Of course, it didn't hurt that he also found romance on the road: "I met my girlfriend, Christy Ney, who was a stage manager on the show, so we got to experience all the cities together, which was nice." Even nicer: Ney is now working on Broadway, too, as a stage manager at Wicked.

Learning from the Master: After arriving in New York in October, Donohue conferred with Lion King director Julie Taymor, who returned to prepare the production for its 10th anniversary performance an event that ended up being cancelled during the stagehands strike. "I had met her when we were in Boston, and she always said, 'Find your own Scar,'" he says of Taymor. "She likes the fact that my version of the role is very physical, and she encouraged me to allow my whole body to reflect what's going on within the movement of the mask."

Shakespearean Villain: Donahue's classical background has come in handy in playing Scar. "He's very much like Claudius in Hamlet, and also Macbeth and Richard III," the actor says. "Scar sees himself as a tragic hero, and he would love for the rest of the world to see him in a heroic way. There's something grand and very human about him, and it's wonderful to play the relish he has for himself." Laughing, he adds, "Unfortunately, nobody else buys into that." Donahue insists that it isn't a drag to portray someone the audience hates, night after night. "It's actually great—I love the fact that the audience knows that Scar is going to stir things up, and you can feel them wondering what he's going to do next."

New York State of Mind: Before heading back to Oregon to tackle Iago in Othello next summer, Donahue is taking full advantage of his stay in the Big Apple. "The Lion King has Tuesdays off, so on any given Tuesday you'll find me in a theater somewhere," he says. "I love walking to work every day and passing these Broadway theaters with so much history in them. It's thrilling to feel like I'm part of the community." He's even learning how to be an aggressive Manhattan pedestrian: "Every time we get to an intersection, my friends say, 'Don't stay on the curb! New Yorkers stand in the street!'" he says with a laugh. "So I'm learning to step down a little more."