In 2016, Laurie Hernandez earned a silver Olympic medal flipping across a 4-inch-wide balance beam in Rio de Janeiro. Ten years later, she has plenty of space to move — a whole stage, in fact.
I catch the retired gymnast at a Midtown hotel on the cusp of her Broadway debut in & Juliet at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre. Jittery with excitement, she is still awestruck by the opportunity. “I can’t believe it,” she says, pushing up the sleeve of her leather jacket as she tries to relax on the couch.
Hernandez, 25, has a pattern: Work hard — really hard — and win big. She left Rio with two medals, including a team gold, then came in first place on Dancing with the Stars with Val Chmerkovskiy three months later. Two months after that, she published a New York Times-bestselling memoir. She accomplished all of this, by the way, before her 17th birthday.
Following the Olympics, the New Jersey native fell in love with Broadway. In 2023, she enrolled as a drama major at NYU, where she’s set to graduate in May. Tisch students typically take 30-something credits per year, but she powered through 50 in 2025 alone. “I had a gut instinct to knock it out,” she says. “I was nervous that something would come up this spring and I’d have to choose between graduating and taking a cool opportunity.”
Her premonition was correct: Last fall, her agent called out of the blue and told her to audition for & Juliet. The show’s premise: What if William Shakespeare hadn’t killed off Juliet and, instead, his wife got to write the end of the play? Set to Broadway renditions of Max Martin hits, the musical, which opened in 2022 and was nominated for nine Tony Awards that season, is a Y2K girly-pop concert wrapped in a feminist fever dream. (The leading lady mourns Romeo’s death with a ballad version of “… Baby One More Time.”)
Though Hernandez’s role, Charmion, is nonspeaking, she spends most of the 2.5-hour musical performing intricate, explosive choreography and singing with the ensemble. She learned the part — which Charli D’Amelio performed from 2024 to 2025 — in just three weeks.
Five days before Hernandez’s first performance, she had a “put-in,” a rehearsal in which a new cast member does the show with the whole shebang — props, costumes, blinding lights. Unbeknownst to her, the & Juliet cast has a tradition of surprising newcomers with themed outfits.
“I’m really gullible. I walked in, and someone had a track suit, people wore leotards, they were making fake medals. After the fourth person had Olympic gear on, I was like, ‘What’s happening today?’” she says, laughing. “It helped me relax a lot and remember that everyone wants to have a good time.”
She’s still involved in the athletic world. She served as an NBC commentator for the 2020 and 2024 Olympics, winning a Sports Emmy Award for the latter, and attended last month’s Olympics in Milan as a spectator. She was thrilled to see Alysa Liu take home gold — not by adhering to figure skating’s prim standards, but by doing it her way.
“She’s connecting with the audience. She’s waving to people,” Hernandez says. “When I was competing, we weren’t allowed to even look at the audience or smile or laugh. You got in trouble because [gymnastics coaches] saw that as you not paying attention.”
Hernandez made her onstage debut on March 17. During & Juliet’s opening number, “Larger Than Life,” she performed the same perfect aerial that once helped her win silver on beam, followed by a funky handstand with bent knees. She then stepped to her feet, pivoted to the audience, and flashed a big grin.
On falling in love with Broadway:
The first musical I saw was Hamilton with my teammates when I was 16. I didn’t really know what I was walking into, because the Olympics had just happened and I was so wrapped up in that. But watching the show, I swear my life changed in that moment.
Then, on Dancing with the Stars, we had Broadway Week. I was given “Cell Block Tango,” and Idina Menzel was the judge. I was like, “This is wild.”
I remember seeing Waitress, where Drew Gehling played Dr. Pomatter, and wanting to be a part of something like that. Now he plays Shakespeare in & Juliet. That was such a full-circle moment for me to jump into the show like, “I cannot believe I watched you a couple years ago.” I haven’t told him this, but the lore will come out at some point.
On musical theater and gymnastics:
A lot of & Juliet’s choreography is hip-hop and contemporary with a little bit of street mixed into it. Some things are intentionally messy or as big as possible, and gymnastics is not like that at all. In gymnastics, they want you to be compressed and stoic and kind of sucking in your breath. Everything is sort of raised to the sky, almost like a puppet.
One of the biggest notes I had during rehearsals for & Juliet was like, “We’ve got to get you into your knees. Use your knees, use the ground.” I posted a blooper reel of rehearsals on Instagram because I was like, “This is bad and everyone should see it.”
On stepping into D’Amelio’s shoes:
Charli came for act II of the put-in, and we got to chat. It says a lot that she was like, “Yeah, I’m going to pop in for this girl I’ve never met before, and we’re in the same role.” In sports, that would be looked at as really competitive. Like, [snotty voice] “I wonder how she’s doing it.” But Charli was like, “I want to come and support.”
On making her professor proud:
At NYU, I did my first two years at Stella Adler, and it was lots of theater. One of my professors, Steve Maurice Jones — miss you, Steve — commented on my social media and was like, “Yeah, you’ve made your Shakespeare teacher really proud.” I was like, [squeals] “Yay!”
On her favorite spot in New York:
Athena Keke’s is an all-women’s sports bar that opened up somewhat near my neighborhood, and it’s always fun — every time I’ve gone, it’s been so packed.
On what’s next:
I can’t wait for how the show is going to feel in two weeks, when it’s like muscle memory and I won’t be like, “Did I hit my mark?” I would love to keep doing theater or musicals, or do on-screen. I’m so excited to have such a wild transition from sports into acting and entertainment. Gymnastics has such a short lifespan — I’m excited to do something for a long time.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
