Since 2009, Jordan Fisher has been charming his way into our hearts with shows like “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” “The Flash,” and Disney’s “Happily Ever After” experience. “My general love and infatuation with television and film was a big part of what influenced me,” he tells INLOVE Magazine.

“One of the biggest moments for me actually came from a video game called Kingdom Hearts,” Fisher recalls. “There is something about the narrative and the collaborative efforts between Disney and Square Enix that built this incredible new universe and unleashed my imagination. It made me fall in love with music, storytelling, and ultimately, theater.”

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Sari: What was it that made you fall in love with the world of gaming?

Jordan Fisher: I’ve always been a gamer. In the first memories of my life, I was holding a Nintendo controller. It has always been the consistency in my life. It has always been the thing I have always gone back to if I need a break, if I need a reset, or if I need a separation from work. Gaming is community, gaming is competitive, and gaming is fun! I have made some of my closest friends in my life through gaming. Halo 2 and Super Smash Bros. Meleewere probably the first two games where I said, you know what? I am going to take this seriously. I am going to really try and get good. It progressed from there, and here we are.

Sari: Out of all your roles, which one holds the biggest place in your heart?

Jordan Fisher: I would say that I probably have three favorites. The role of ‘Doody,’ when I played him in “Grease LIVE!” changed my life. “Grease LIVE!” changed my career in the best way. It was a massive mile-marker that just launched things forward. John Lawrence, because John Lawrence/Philip Hamilton was my Broadway debut – which is also when I fell in love with my now wife. And, Evan Hansen. I’m having a blast getting back into the show. It is interesting how much we’ve all changed as people in the last few years and are feeling all of this material differently. Being a mental health advocate and being the first full-time Black Evan Hansen is an incredible honor. Especially being Black, with anxiety and depression, and being able to talk about that. Mental health is not a common topic of discussion amongst the Black community, and we need it. We need to talk about it. I love being able to have a real reason to be loud about it at the moment.

Sari: Do you have a daily routine to boost your mood?

Jordan Fisher: When I’m in the groove of things, when I’m at my healthiest and best, I get up in the morning an hour before I need to start anything. I am a morning person in general. When I wake up, I drink some water, have a quick bite to eat, something small and light, do about 10 minutes of yoga flow, and shower. I finish the last two minutes in the shower cold – there is a lot of great study about hot-cold therapy. That alone, even if it is just 10 seconds of cold water hitting your entire body and you just do some tantric breathing, once you get out of the shower, makes you happier. You are happier that you don’t have this cold water hitting you. You have more juice and more energy to make things happen, and frankly, you get ready faster. You get ready faster, and with more efficiency, it wakes up the brain, clears the fog, and releases ketones. That is my biggest tip for any routine. Try it. It is painful. Don’t overdo it at first, do five seconds here, ten seconds there, and work your way up. That is my biggest thing in terms of a morning routine. It is making sure that I have cold water hit my body.

Sari: What are some tips for positivity and productivity?

Jordan Fisher: Productivity is recognizing the amount that you can work at a healthy level – realizing where the cut-off is and figuring out how long of a break you need before you get back into it. I have watched many TED Talks and put a lot of work and effort into being a good boss and business owner. I don’t even like the word boss. I found my best hour of the day is the 8 am hour. At 8 am, I know that I’m going to get my best work done. Knowing this, I like starting my mornings early. I like getting a perfect one-hour-long, good morning routine to make sure that I feel good going into the day. Towards the end of that morning routine, I start thinking about what I want to tackle first, how I want to tackle it, and then I go into that 8 am to 9 am hour. At 9 am, I take a break and step away. I check in on my wife, I check in on the dogs, and I might watch a quick little TED Talk or a funny video or two on TikToK, and then I get back at it because I need that break to shake things up, to get back to work and be fresh.

For all the students out there, figuring out what works for you—in terms of pulling your all-nighters, is not a healthy thing to do. One hundred percent, please take more breaks. We all must take breaks. That’s my big tip for productivity. I could dig into all the other little things like exercise in the morning and [more on] cold showers – but you have to take a break to be the best version of yourself. You must take a vacation to rejuvenate your senses and rejuvenate your passion for the work that you do. You absolutely must do that. You have to self-care – you have to get a massage, get a mani-pedi, talk to a friend, or get a drink with a buddy. You must find balance. Otherwise, you will not achieve what you want to achieve. If you do achieve what you want to achieve with a massive lack of balance, you’ll find that you are remarkably unhappy on the other side of it.

On positivity, my best tip and trick is just shutting everything down in my mind. I get to the core. I start counting all of the ways that I’m blessed and all of the ways that I can be grateful for what I have. If you just take inventory of all the things you have and then recognize how easy it could all go away, your life will change.

Sari: This summer, you made your debut in the Arrowverse. What can you tell us about your character for the new season?

Jordan Fisher: Bart is back and better than ever! He’s all about growth. Bart is all about wanting to get stronger, faster, bigger, and better. He lives under the shadow of his father, and I think a lot of people can relate to that in some way. Not necessarily living under a shadow, but at least seeing somebody that you want to have respect for and want to work with, that impulses the relationship with his dad in a really remarkable way. He gets to see what it would be and could be like if he became The Flash one day or continued his journey with his sister. There is so much fun and so much excitement with everything Armageddon – you guys are going to freak out about what’s coming.

Sari: So, have you always been a DC fan or Marvel fan?

Jordan Fisher: Growing up, I wasn’t a Marvel fan. I liked DC a lot. But Marvel does this thing. They always have. Every character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the Marvel Universe in general, has so much more humanity. You see, Superman, this alien from a planet called Krypton, comes to Indiana and lands on a farm and is raised by these lovely human beings, which is great, but again, he’s an alien. He’s completely invulnerable.

In Marvel, there are real-life circumstances and real-life conversations. Like Tony Stark in comic iterations, he has a problem with alcohol. There are people with mental disabilities, and there are people with just real human stuff that as a person, as a fan, just as a human being, I can look at these superheroes and say, ‘Oh, I see me. I actually see myself in you.’ That connective tissue between film and audience is one of the most important things. Now, as a producer, I’m so focused on helping people see themselves in these characters in projects I am developing. Marvel has done that so well for so many years. I’m excited to see more heroes and more of a deeper dive into lesser-known heroes that have such great stories. It is really exciting.

Sari: Speaking of great stories, “Happily Ever After” is one for the books. It has been such a massive part of so many people’s lives. Disney just retired the show in September. What has this whole experience meant to you?

Jordan Fisher: The whole “Happily Ever After” experience was a bucket-lister I didn’t know that I had. It started off as an email from my team saying, ‘Is this something that interests you?’ I dropped my jaw and called them back and asked if it was a joke. They said, no, they actually want you to do this and make this music for the firework show. I was in New York walking to the theater to do Hamilton at the time, and I cried the whole way. It was just such a powerful moment of realizing that I was going to become a part of core memories for people. Realizing that my voice was going to be an anthem and narrative where families and kids that have dreamt of going to Disney World, of having an experience with friends and family and grandparents, along with couples getting engaged and pregnancy announcements – all these really big milestones that people save for that moment when they’re watching the firework show at the Magic Kingdom, it is such an honor. My wife and I have had moments at the Disney resorts, walking around or leaving a restaurant. Someone would stop us and say, ‘My wife and I got engaged to your song’ and just seeing the joy in their faces – it was forever changing in the best ways for me.

Sari: You got your own ‘Happily Ever After’ recently when you married your childhood sweetheart. What do you think makes a good relationship work? What does being INLOVE mean to you?

Jordan Fisher: Without question, please listen to this – talk to your partner about everything. Tell them everything. Reflect on everything. It builds trust and a foundation for you to root for one another. Good conversations, hard conversations. Either way, it is about growth. That is the big thing. Being in love is waking up every day, rolling over, seeing that person that you love on the other side of the bed, smelling their morning breath, seeing their bedhead, the crust on their eyes and everything, and going ‘You know what, that is what I want to see every day for the rest of my life. That is what I want.’ And choosing that person every single day, choosing to love them. It is an active verb – that is what being in love means. It means having a partner that is fully your other half, there to support you and take things on with you. The guiding hand, a guiding voice, a guiding light, and comfort, all of those things. That is what being in love truly is, and how to do that healthily? Laugh as much as you can. Tell jokes, be each other’s best friend – my wife is my best friend. There are so many people who don’t understand our humor, but we get each other so fully and laugh all the time. It is the best medicine. It is the best everything.

Just be completely and utterly honest with your partner. Be fully transparent about everything, build that trust, wake up, and choose to love them every day. There are going to be days where it is just not as exciting as it was the day before or the week before, but that is also part of being in love – the ebb and flow of it all. None of us are perfect. We cannot just insert a chip in our head that keeps us infatuated with somebody. We have to wake up and choose them every day. Thankfully, we do.

Sari: You’ve gotten to work with so many incredible people through the years. As a Broadway star, a singer, an artist, working with Lin-Manuel Miranda must’ve been a dream. I’m curious what he’s taught you?

Jordan Fisher: Lin is incredible! If he has taught me anything, it has been by observation. It has been his work ethic and the belief in the story you are telling and that it needs to exist. I feel he is the Shakespeare of our generation. He is just so persistent in getting his message across, and that is such a beautiful thing to me.

Sari: Style seems to be such a big part of how you express yourself. How would you describe your style, and how does fashion play a part in how you express yourself? Can you tell me more about the Be My Friend Apparel Collection?

Jordan Fisher: I would describe my style as pretty fluid. I’m a very fluid person just in general, so that is definitely reflected in what I wear. Oftentimes, I wear a nice mixture of women’s clothing and men’s clothing, gender fluid pieces. I have always loved layers – long coats and sweaters – and boots with a little lift in them. If I had to describe my style, again, it would be fluid, but probably ‘Euro Chic.’ Most of what I love to wear is London and Hong Kong-style streetwear. There isn’t really a name for it, but that is how I would describe my personal style.

‘Be My Friend,’ my new apparel collection, is just that! ‘Be My Friend’ means ‘Let’s do life together, let’s be good to one another and treat everyone well.’ You never know where people are coming from. We have to lead with love. We have to lead with positivity. You don’t know what struggles a person is going through. Oftentimes, people just need a friend. I am that for so many, and thankfully I have a great handful that are that for me. It is just a constant reminder to open your heart, mind, and arms to everyone around you.

Sari: When you first started out, social media was barely a blip on the radar. As an artist, how has its rise impacted your life?

Jordan. Fisher: I’m actually producing a movie about that. I love that I grew up in an analog world with dial-up and Nokia bar phones. I love that it was my childhood. I also appreciate that younger generations now have so much more access than I did when I was their age. I didn’t know what the kids in California were wearing when I was in Alabama in middle school. I had no clue. Because social media wasn’t a thing, I couldn’t just tap in and see what’s going on with the rest of America or the rest of the world – it was whatever was given to me. I grew up in a small football town about 30 minutes outside of Birmingham, Alabama. You can become very sheltered without knowing it. I think social media has helped people grasp their power and claim their space as humans. I think that that is the positive of social media that I have seen. It has impacted my career, my life, really, in the way that people just assume that you’re tangible all the time. People just assume that if they hit you on Twitter, you’re going to respond, you should respond, and you’re not a good person if you don’t respond. It is tough, that massive tangibility that people have with other humans that they don’t know but expect so much from. It is a really interesting thing to break down.

I have had so many conversations about this with a lot of my peers and colleagues, and we all feel the same way. We’re so grateful that technology has gotten to where it is, and that social media is what it is, and we can be so connected and keep up with one another. But at the end of the day, there used to be a world where the media could dictate someone’s career by saying things that weren’t necessarily true. There are receipts now. You can go back and check it. That is interesting. Everything is changing and evolving. We’ll continue to adapt because that is what we have to do, must do, and what we get to do.

Sari: What else is coming up for you?

Jordan Fisher: Oh man, a whole lot of exciting things! I will say this; I think that 2022 is going to be the most revolutionary year for me in my career. I have had so many things on the slate and so many things in development for so long that are all coming out next year, as well as new announcements, new ventures, and new journeys—both in my personal life as well as my work life and career. 2022 is going to be a game-changing year—we are leveling up!

Favorites with Jordan Fisher

Favorite show on TV right now

Succession

Favorite social media

Twitter

Favorite book

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Favorite karaoke song

“Caribbean Queen” by Billy Ocean and “King of Wishful Thinking” and “Hollywood Nights” – mostly ‘80s music

Favorite movie

“Love, Actually,” “Social Network,” “Whiplash,” “Murder on the Orient Express”

Favorite era in time

Harlem Revolution — early 2000s

Favorite city

Tokyo

Favorite animal

Siberian Husky

Favorite thing to do for the holidays

Christmas movies and spiked cider

Favorite video game

Kingdom Hearts 2

Favorite guilty pleasure

Twitch Chat

Favorite pastime

Anime, cooking, and studying wine

Favorite Disney movie moment

You’ll Bring Honor To Us All – Mulan Tarzan and Jane meeting

Favorite comic book character

Gambit

Favorite couple in history

Barack and Michelle

Words: Sari Cohen