Solea Pfeiffer and John Cardoza
(Photo by Sergio Villarini for Broadway.com)

“I’ve always kind of described it as a show that happens to you.”

That’s how John Cardoza sees life at Moulin Rouge! on Broadway. And he’s an old pro, having played the bohemian lover boy Christian on tour before moving into the Al Hirschfeld Theatre alongside Solea Pfeiffer, who plays his sparkling diamond Satine. “It’s a train ride,” Pfeiffer agreed, the two of them sitting down with Tamsen Fadal for The Broadway Show at the Skylark in Midtown NYC. “And once you get on, it is a bullet heading right towards the end.”

Pfeiffer and Cardoza started their joint run in the spectacular spectacuar, based on the popular Baz Luhrmann film, back in October 2024. Cardoza was just off his star turn as Young Noah in The Notebook, while Pfeiffer was relatively fresh from a run as Myrtle Wilson in the world-premiere musical Gatsby at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, MA. They met on the first day of rehearsal. 

“It’s actually kind of weird that we hadn’t met before that,” Pfeiffer said, Cardoza acknowledging how they “had been in each other’s orbit for many years.” 

“It was meant to be,” Pfeiffer added. Thank God we’re doing this together. We are having such a good time.”

Watch the full interview in the video below, and look back at Pfeiffer and Cardoza’s in-studio performance of “Come What May.”