Neil Patrick Harris | Interview outtake

Neil Patrick Harris

Photo: Chris Pizzello/AP Images; Photo illustration: Jamie DiVecchio Ramsay

A few weeks ago, as I interviewed Neil Patrick Harris over the phone, he mentioned he'd been shooting Smurfs 2 in Montreal; a few days later, as my partner and I happened to be vacationing in Montreal, we stumbled upon a film crew shooting Harris on the street. The scene involved him swinging around to face a woman, kiss her and move as if to get in a parked car—take after take after take. My partner quickly snapped a shot, but the Montrealer crew members waved at us and said, in French, something to the effect of "mais hell no." We did end up with a lovely shot of some parked cars, however. And…end of story. But you, too, can see NPH! On your television set this Sunday as he hosts the Tonys. Better yet, read our published interview. Here's an outtake from our chat:

You tweeted—you’re a very prolific tweeter, by the way, you make it easy to come up with questions—that the Tonys are “the biggest day in the world for a very small faction of people.” A very small, but very impassioned faction. Do you think they see your hosting as the new hope for the Tonys?

Hope, or Crosby. [Laughs] What I enjoy so much about the Tonys’ uniqueness is that anyone who’s tuning in has an interest in seeing the show, so our job is halfway done. We’re trying to get as many people to become interested in seeing it, but if you like the theater and you’re interested in seeing what live theater looks like in New York, you probably already set your DVR. It’s gonna be a hard ask to get a bunch of college-basketball fans to tune in for three hours to watch the Tonys. So my job is just to keep things moving at a brisk pace with a real kind of jubilant celebration. That honors the people, it honors the night, it honors the shows, ’cause I do think the Tonys are about showing millions of people at one time how hard all of these people work every night.

Harris hosts the Tony Awards on CBS June 10 at 7pm.