Jay Ellis is no stranger to training for a role. The 43-year-old actor recently starred as Sleepy Floyd in Freaky Tales and for that part, he trained in six different types of martial arts until he nailed the fighting sequences audiences saw in the movie. Come this June, though, Ellis will be taking his talents to Off-Broadway as Duke in Charles Randolph-Wright's Duke & Roya — which plays for 11 weeks at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in New York City beginning on June 10. And while he expresses his excitement for the project, the tight schedule is already taking some getting used to. “It feels like the Olympics, I'm not going to lie,” Ellis tells PEOPLE exclusively. “We rehearse six days a week, eight hours a day, until we start tech. And then we go into previews and then the show. And then we're doing eight shows a week once that starts! So it's definitely a schedule." So, how is he preparing to perform live for 11 weeks straight? It turns out, Ellis is looking to Sarah Snook, who got her most prized preparation tip from one of the biggest pop stars in the world: Taylor Swift. “I worked with Sarah Snook on this Peacock show that's going to come out in the fall called All Her Fault, and Sarah just got nominated for a Tony Award, obviously," Ellis recalls. "And I read this interview that she did a few weeks ago, and somebody asked her how she prepared for her play — it's a one person show, and she's moving the entire time — and she went, ‘Oh, I read that Taylor Swift, last summer, would do her entire set list jogging on a treadmill.’ So then I was like, 'Oh, I'mma copy Sarah Snook copying Taylor Swift!' " He’s taken the suggestion to heart, since. “Basically, every morning I wake up at 6 a.m. and I get on the treadmill, and I spend the first 25 to 30 minutes of my morning on the treadmill going over my pages for the day,” Ellis tells PEOPLE. Hectic schedule aside, Ellis is also looking forward to showcasing his musical side in Duke & Roya, which he hasn’t been able to do yet. He's played piano, guitar and the drums on and off since childhood and he returned to piano, specifically, roughly 10 years ago, and continues to practice today. “I actually perform about four or five times throughout the play," Ellis says. "I play piano. I sing. I've obviously never gotten to do a role where I've gotten to do both. But playing piano is a passion of mine. I love it." "Literally, my piano is right there with a bunch of music open, and I sit at it almost every single day, at least four or five, six days a week." he continues. "I joke with my friends that if I wasn't an actor, I should have been a musician or in a previous life." His character is an international Hip-Hop artist who meets and falls in love with his interpreter, Roya (played by Stephanie Nur) while he’s visiting troops on a USO base in war-torn Kabul. "I think that's going to be really interesting." Ellis notes. "I'm actually rapping and it's obviously something that the world has not seen me do yet … so I think that's going to be a lot of fun to find my voice as a rapper.” Though he has had other standout performances since Insecure wrapped in 2021 — including Lt. Reuben in Top Gun: Maverick and most recently, Jay Brown in Netflix's Running Point — the actor very much expects some of those die-hard fans of the HBO show to show up and maybe even give some real-time feedback. “I'm expecting people to have an opinion," he admits. "And as they should. Because my other thing is, if you don't have an opinion, then I didn't do my job. If you're down in the middle, then I didn't do my job. You know what I'm saying? I need you to have a hard feeling one way or the other." "‘[I'm expecting some],' He can't rap like Issa!' 'He ain't got a mirror like Issa!' " the actor jokes, "I can already hear them. I can already hear them.” Duke & Roya also hits some personal notes for Ellis. Throughout his career, Ellis has also been open about the fact that he was an army brat. His father was in the Air Force, and last summer he wrote his memoir, Did Everyone Have an Imaginary Friend? (Or Just Me?) in which he talked about how he invented an imaginary friend as a way to cope with how much he had to move around as a young boy. The play gives him another chance to explore those roots. “My father was in the Air Force, my grandfathers were in the Air Force. I was in Top Gun, obviously, so I've done stuff for the USO before as Jay Ellis," he explains. "The idea of playing this rapper going on a USO tour on a military base, to me, was like, ‘Oh, I have an idea of what that is. I get that.’ I've been on bases all over the world, and I know what it's like to go to do a USO tour." "So [this play is about] what is it like when you're a performer and you're up on stage and the troops are screaming back at you and you're going to a place that you've never been before," he adds. "That got me super intrigued because I had a connection point to it just from my own military experience and my own life.” Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. And while he is ready to make his Off-Broadway debut, Ellis admits there are some nerves brewing. "I'm terrified," he says. "[But] I love being pushed outside my comfort zone. I love a challenge. I think it's just innate to who I am and where I come from and how I was raised, and everything that I am as a person. Even how I got here was a challenge," he says. "And so I just think that if I'm not pushing myself, then what am I doing? That's the whole beauty of being an actor and getting to perform all these characters and go into all these different worlds. It's like you get to push yourself. You get to step outside your own life and your own comforts and go be vulnerable. Stage is obviously one of the scariest places you could do it because it's live." In addition to Ellis and Nur, Duke & Roya also stars Noma Dumezweni and Dariush Kashani. Tickets for Duke & Roya are now on sale. The play officially opens on June 24, and is currently scheduled through Aug. 23.