Josh Groban on engagement, Hollywood Walk star, awkward dancing and film songs

Josh Groban is best known for his operatic baritone, not his dancing.

But he managed to survive a goofy 21 seconds “dancing” down Jennifer Hudson’s talk show Spirit Tunnel last December, a de rigueur exercise of social media clickbait for the show’s guests since it debuted in 2023 during the program’s second season.

“I flailed,” said Groban in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution to promote his Gas South Arena date on June 17 with (who else?) Hudson. “I’m terrified of dancing at all. Terrified! I might as well have been naked. I wiggled my way through as fast as I could!”

Groban may not ever appear as a contestant on “Dancing With the Stars,” but that hasn’t been an impediment to his ability to date beautiful women over the years including actors January Jones and Kat Dennings and singer Katy Perry.

Then in April, he became engaged to his girlfriend, British actress Natalie McQueen.

“We had this digital COVID relationship after mutual friends connected us,” Groban said. “We had FaceTime dates during that time. She was in London. I was in New York. We had to get to know each other on a screen before we even met.”

He proposed to her at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, where he was doing promotional work, and decided to invite family members along with an unsuspecting McQueen. The planning for the surprise proposal, he said, took three months.

“It’s the only time in your relationship you have to keep a secret and tell some white lies to make it work,” he said.

Disney employees helped set up a lovely spot at Snow White’s well near Sleeping Beauty Castle for the proposal.

“I’m not good at planning things, so the fact it went so great was a nice surprise,” Groban said. “Now we get to plan the rest of our life together.”

Groban also continues to map out his musical path a quarter century after he released his first album at age 20. After last year’s greatest hits album “Gems,” he decided to cover 10 of his favorite songs from film soundtracks in “Cinematic,’ which came out last month.

“I had done a Broadway musical ‘Sweeney Todd,’ which inspired me,” he said. “I wasn’t finding myself writing fast enough to do the kind of original album I wanted to put out.”

In April of 2025, Groban performed “Brucia La Terra” from the classic film “The Godfather Part III” to honor acclaimed director Francis Ford Coppola for the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award Gala Tribute.

“That was such an incredible experience singing that song for the first time,” he said.

A month later, he had a short residency at The Colosseum Theater at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and since Adele had just performed there, he covered her James Bond theme “Skyfall.”

He realized his mind had a deep connection to so many soundtrack songs, which led to “Cinematic.”

“Recording those songs was so much fun,” Groban said. “It wound up turning into one of my favorite things I’ve ever done.”

The challenge was narrowing his initial list of 50 potential songs spanning more than 85 years. He played each one on the piano to see how well they matched his voice or style. Some songs were easy to eliminate: “My voice doesn’t really work for, say, Monty Python’s ‘Lumberjack Song,’ which I really love but isn’t exactly me,” he said.

He knew he’d get one or two Disney songs in, given his love for that cinematic world. In the end, he covered three tunes from different Disney eras: “When You Wish Upon a Star’ from 1940s “Pinocchio,” “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” from 1994’s “The Lion King” and “Remember Me” from 2017’s “Coco.”

“They are all different styles and deserve to be honored,” he said.

On the album, Groban and Hudson duet the Righteous Brothers’ classic ballad “Unchained Melody,” a centerpiece song in the 1990 romantic film “Ghost.”

“She loves that song,” Groban said. “She really wanted to do it. So we made it a duet and made it our own.”

They will perform the song when they come to Gas South Wednesday. Groban was thrilled to get Hudson for a few weeks while she wasn’t taping her talk show.

“It’s like lightning in a bottle,” he said. “I love collaborating with artists like Jennifer. We happen to share the same agency, so I sent her a note. When she said yes, I jumped for joy!”