Broadway show is a family affair for ‘Les Misérables’ lead as he returns to Bass Hall

Nick Cartell has played the lead character of Jean Valjean in “Les Misérables” over 1,400 times. And, just like his onstage counterpart does each night, Cartell has come to look at life differently throughout all those performances.

“I perform this epic musical every night for three hours and the next morning I get to be dad,” he said with a smile.

Cartell brought his wife Christine and their 5-year-old daughter Sullivan on the road with him when the show was launched for its current tour in 2022. The whole family will be in Fort Worth when Cartell performs at Bass Hall March 18-23. The show is part of Performing Arts Fort Worth’s Broadway at the Bass Series presented by PNC Bank.

“My wife is an actress also — not in this show — so she completely understands the life,” he said. “Plus, it’s nice to have her providing stability for our family while we’re on the road.

“And they both know the show like the back of their hands. Sullivan keeps saying she wants to be little Cosette.”

Cosette is the young girl to whom Valjean becomes a father figure after his repentance in the story. For those not familiar, Valjean was sent to prison for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s child. Then, after his release and forced into being an outcast, he steals some silverware from a church, only to have a kind bishop spare him from jail by saying he gave him the silverware, bringing about a change in Valjean’s life.

This will be Cartell’s second time to perform the show at Bass Hall, the first being in 2019, when Sullivan wasn’t even born yet.

“I love returning to places we’ve been before. People know the show, they want to see it again. A lot of times we’re seeing the same local crew members, the same dresser,” he said. “And I love being able to bring my family into a new city where they’ve never been before.”

Cartell was first cast in the role in 2017 and took a break after 2019. Then, the Covid pandemic arrived and no one was certain of the future of live theater.

In 2022, when he returned to the role, his perspective changed. He was a father now.

“One of the reasons I took a break was we were pregnant,” he said. “Now, I’m so inspired by having a child.”

Cartell said for the first couple of years playing Valjean, he was approaching the role as being a child himself. His mother died of cancer the day before his final callback audition.

“My dad said, ‘We want you to stay. This could be life-changing,’” Cartell recalled. “It was very hard, but he insisted that’s what they wanted and so I did. If that’s not great parents, I don’t know what is.

“Now, my mom has the best seat every night.”

Cartell said he used the memory of his mom as motivation for his performances the first couple of years playing Valjean.

“Pre-pandemic I could only imagine what it was like to be a parent, but the sacrifices my mom made, I remembered those and they inspired me,” he said. “In 2017 I was coming at it from a place of grief. Now, post-pandemic, I am a father and I’m inspired by the sacrifices I would make for my daughter.”

Cartell noted a line from one of the show’s songs in which Valjean sings, “She’s the best of my life” and said it applies to Sullivan.

“It always chokes me up,” he said.

Cartell believes “Les Mis” has stood the test of time because, like himself with Valjean, audience members can see themselves in the show’s characters. In fact, he believes the world could use a few more folks like his character, who dates back to the 1862 novel by Victor Hugo.

“Valjean stands up for what he believes is right,” he said. “He looks into people, and because of his past he can see the greater good.”

And then there’s the timeless music — which Sullivan often sings throughout each day.

“Even if you don’t know the story, you recognize the songs,” he said, noting that in the opening ceremony of last summer’s Olympics in Paris they played “Do You Hear the People Sing?” — one of the show’s most recognizable songs played before the Paris uprising of 1832.

Cartell said that while this is his dream role of a lifetime, he didn’t feel he was ready even though he got the part in 2017.

“I think maybe that’s partly why I got it, the director saw that, like Valjean, I needed to prove myself,” he said. “But Valjean also has self doubt. How is he going to be a father?

“He has to prove himself every time he walks onstage, just as we as parents have to do each day.”

And while he meets people who recall seeing the show in its early days of the mid-1980s to early 1990s, he said, “We’ve introduced the show to a whole new set of young people and they’re loving it. It’s a testament to this show.”

Young people like Sullivan, for example.

This story was originally published March 13, 2025 at 11:42 AM.