Video: Darren Criss Reflects on Career Highs and Lows on CBS Sunday Morning

Stage and screen star Darren Criss visited CBS Sunday Morning December 22 to trace his career from his viral college musical A Very Potter Musical to his current Broadway gig, the new musical Maybe Happy Ending.

"A Very Potter Musical really changed my life," Criss recalls in the video, which can be viewed above. "That one set me on the path to where I am now."

The parody musical positioned Criss to be a prime pick when TV's Glee was casting a then-minor role, Blaine Anderson. Criss' popularity eventually led to the character becoming a co-lead on the program, launching his career. "I owe my tenure on that show to the subcultural fanbase army that we had gathered from the Potter stuff."

With Emmy and Golden Globe statuettes on his shelf, Criss has consistently returned to the stage; his latest project, Maybe Happy Ending, is perhaps the most emotionally resonant.

Criss has weathered immense highs and lows in the last four years: He and his wife Mia have welcomed two children, a son and a daughter, while Criss has also wrestled with the loss of his father to a heart condition in 2020 and his brother to suicide in 2022. "I don't necessarily think of my own experience with those people, specifically in my life that I've lost, but I do think about the feeling of loss," Criss says. "The sadness and emptiness and loneliness that yields, because we all feel it. The things that move me in life, and in this piece, are not the darkness of the loss, but the herculean grace that it takes to be resilient in the inevitable truth."

Visit MaybeHappyEnding.com.