Entertainment

Shooting straight to the top

“BONNIE & CLYDE” STAR JEREMY JORDAN HAS EARNED REVIEWS FAR MORE POSITIVE THAN THOSE FOR THE SHOW ITSELF. (MAXA/Landov)

By any measure, this year was a real roller-coaster ride for Jeremy Jordan. Like the Frank Sinatra song, the 27-year-old actor’s been up and down and over and out, having made a splash with two shows in a row, the second of which — “Bonnie & Clyde,” closing Friday — was gunned down like the murderous young lovers it depicts. Only in this case, it was the critics doing the shooting.

But Jordan probably won’t be out of work for long. Before “Bonnie & Clyde” came to town, he starred in the musical adaptation of the Disney movie “Newsies” at New Jersey’s Paper Mill Playhouse. The show was originally intended for the regional theater circuit, but a spate of rave reviews, especially for Jordan’s charismatic turn as the lead newsboy, Jack Kelly, paved the way to Broadway.

Now “Newsies” — book by Harvey Fierstein — is scheduled to open at the Nederlander Theatre March 29, and although it has yet to be announced, it’s a good bet that Jordan will again be its star.

“I’ve loved that movie ever since I was a kid, so the chance to create that character onstage was beyond a dream for me,” says Jordan, who, like Clyde Barrow, grew up in Texas. “Who knew that all that fun would translate into a hit? It was true Disney magic.”

Less magical was “Bonnie & Clyde.” Though Jordan and his Bonnie, Laura Osnes, won warm notices — The Post’s Elisabeth Vincentelli called them “the biggest assets here . . . young and easy on the eyes, good actors and even better singers” — the show received mostly withering reviews. When it closes, it will have played only 69 performances, including previews.

Jordan suspects the critics have it in for its composer, Frank Wildhorn, the man behind such lambasted efforts as “The Scarlet Pimpernel,” “Jekyll & Hyde,” “Dracula” and last season’s flash in the pan, “Wonderland.”

“You can’t deny the fact that he’s been their whipping boy,” Jordan said the other day in his dressing room at the Schoenfeld Theatre, his blood-soaked, bullet-ridden Clyde suit hanging a few feet away.

“We weren’t expecting critics to fall head over heels with it. But based on all the wonderful audience reactions we’d been getting, we certainly weren’t expecting what we got.”

That aside, he concedes, it’s been a pretty charmed run. He landed an agent right after graduating from Ithaca College, and before long was on Broadway in “Rock of Ages,” subbing dozens of times for its star headbanger, Constantine Maroulis, before playing Tony in the revival of “West Side Story.”

No sooner had Jordan stepped onstage, in fact, he got his first movie break. Writer/director Todd Graff (“Camp”) was in the audience of “Rock of Ages” that night and decided Jordan would be perfect for the male lead in “Joyful Noise,” his new film musical. Out next month, it also stars Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah.

Jordan found out he got that part while on the beach in Sarasota, Fla., during a break from the first rehearsal of “Bonnie & Clyde.”

“Life couldn’t have gotten too much better at that point,” he says.

As it happens, there’s another Jeremy Jordan out there — a gay porn star from Canada — which has resulted in some pretty awkward Google Image search results.

“It’s not even his real name,” says Jordan, who recently got engaged to the gorgeous Ashley Spencer, one of the singing divas of Broadway’s “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.”

“It’s my God-given, mother-given name. People have advised me to change it. But I like it!”

It’s safe to say he won’t have to worry about anyone confusing the two of them much longer.