Todrick Hall wasn't able to showcase his dancing skills on American Idol, however he already has his sights set on another Fox series on which he can both sing and dance.
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"I'm making it my personal job now to be my own campaign manager to get myself a role on Glee. I think I would be perfect for that show and so every time somebody asks me what I'm doing now I'm just telling everyone that I would love, love, love to be the next cast member on Glee," Hall told reporters during a Friday conference call.
Hall, Lilly Scott, Alex Lambert, and Katelyn Epperly were all eliminated from American Idol's ninth season on Thursday night after receiving the fewest home viewer votes following Tuesday and Wednesday night's broadcasts of the Top 16 semifinals performance shows.
Hall -- a 24-year-old actor and playwright from Arlington, TX -- claims he didn't get the idea to campaign for a role on Glee until the judges brought it up last Wednesday night.
"I didn't even think about campaigning for that until they said the other night, [Simon Cowell] said, 'Well, you look like you are doing American Idol the musical.' And then [Randy Jackson] chimed in and said, 'Glee.' And I was like, actually, I think I would love to be on Glee," explained Hall.
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"It's the perfect show for me and that's the reason I came on American Idol to hopefully take this platform and do something else with it."
In addition, Hall said judge Ellen DeGeneres will join his campaign.
"I said something to Ellen about it and now Ellen is like helping promote the fact that I should be on Glee on her TV show and I think that's amazing," he said.
"I wouldn't be pushing myself for the role if I didn't think that I would do a good job at it. I think that it would be perfect for me and I just think that anything is possible at this point."
Hall also said had planned to include a dance interlude during his Top 12 finals performance had he made it that far.
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"But hopefully, I'll get to be dancing on Glee and that's how America will see me dance for the first time," he said.
While Hall said dancing "did come in handy for the performing aspect" of American Idol, he added that it also "hindered" him on the show.
"I was always so frustrated during the rehearsals because I'd be like, 'Come on, guys, left, right, left, right.' And then I had to be like, 'Todrick, they're not dancers.' So that was kind of one of the things that I had to kind of let my dance background go and realize that this is not that; we're in a singing competition," he explained.
"I actually think that being a dancer and announcing that I was on Broadway could have potentially hurt me and might be part of the reason why I'm not on the show any more."
After Hall was revealed as a Top 24 semifinalist, some parents who paid fees for their children participate in local productions of Oz, The Musical -- which he wrote as a teenager -- expressed their anger after the productions never occurred and they lost their money.
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Hall said he couldn't address the issue while he was an American Idol contestant and he's "glad" he can talk about it now.
"It wasn't a good time to talk about it when I was on American Idol because I just needed to focus on the show, but I do want everybody to know. I'm not a scam artist. I'm a nice person," he told reporters.
"No 23-year-old that I know in the history of the world has ever tried to put on a show and I think that if people think about that they'll realize that I'm just an ambitious kid that got wrapped with a producer that he didn't know what he was doing. I didn't really know what I was doing and I allowed my name to be attached to that."
Hall added he hopes to make amends for the situation since he doesn't want people to think "negatively" about him.
"I think that the show is going to happen again and we'll be able to fix that situation and there will be no more negative press," he said. "But, just for the record, I was just the writer and director and choreographer of that show. I did not produce the show and I never had any of that money. I never dealt with the money side of that show."
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Overall, Hall said he was able to "stay true" to himself during his American Idol run -- which he thinks might have hurt him.
"I kind of sadly feel that if I had just sung the cookie cutter songs that people would have expected me to do and not gone so far out there with the clothes and the performing and just been a normal guy that got up there and sang semi-decent, you know, I feel like I would have maybe done better," he said.
"But I'm happy that I stayed true to myself because I think that's the most important and I would have not been happy doing that."
Hall said his problem was finding "that line" that you need to balance as an American Idol contestant.
"It's just really you have to try to find that line of when is it not changing it too much and when is it being too cookie cutter and doing a Karaoke version, which sometimes they're okay with and sometimes they're not," he explained.
"I feel like I was true to myself and I feel like I'll be rewarded for being true to myself and being different in the end."
About The Author: Christopher Rocchio