Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing.
Speaker 1: If it is fish up fishes. Much like the staggering
Speaker 1: beauty of her singing voice, Audrem McDonald is impossible to ignore.
Speaker 1: The only person to sweep all four acting categories at
Speaker 1: the Tony's, she's one of the most decorated Broadway stars
Speaker 1: of all time. Reviews of her award winning performances overflow
Speaker 1: with accolades. She's spelled binding, radiant, and wrenchingly human. This year,
Speaker 1: the Juilliard graduate took on her first voice over role,
Speaker 1: playing Madam Guardrobe in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. The
Speaker 1: performance was so great one critic wrote that her name
Speaker 1: and the credits prompted theatergoers to erupt and cheers. I
Speaker 1: sat down with Audre before her debut this summer in
Speaker 1: London's West End, where she takes on Billie Holiday, whose
Speaker 1: life as a black female performer hits close to home
Speaker 1: specifically for me. I would say that there was an
Speaker 1: expectation on my part that things would get easier as
Speaker 1: a result of being successful. You know, well, what do
Speaker 1: you mean, I They're going to make more money than
Speaker 1: I am, and yet we're doing the same thing we're playing.
Speaker 1: We're basically equal as far as the roles are concerned.
Speaker 1: Or um, what did you do to address that? If anything?
Speaker 1: I didn't. For I didn't do anything for a while
Speaker 1: I should have and I didn't. I just went along well.
Speaker 1: And especially you know, when you're an accurates, like you're
Speaker 1: always being told you should be grateful you've the job.
Speaker 1: You know, you're being told that if you if you
Speaker 1: push too much, you're going to get a bad reputation
Speaker 1: from being yes, yes, and I there's actors that are
Speaker 1: infinitely less talented than you work all the time. You're
Speaker 1: just easy to be, easier to work with, and they don't.
Speaker 1: They don't. Cause in terms of being an African American performer,
Speaker 1: did that change? Well, I tell you, I mean, let
Speaker 1: me give you an example of how in some ways
Speaker 1: it changed and didn't change. I have to I have
Speaker 1: to acknowledge the fact that I am someone who has
Speaker 1: had uh an incredible opportunity in terms of sort of
Speaker 1: breaking down barriers as far as like color blind casting,
Speaker 1: being color blind cast as Carrie Pepperidge in in Carousel,
Speaker 1: you know, or the fact that I played mother Abbess
Speaker 1: and the sound of Music Live, you know, and um,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people have issues with that,
Speaker 1: but you know I was the one that got the
Speaker 1: opportunity to do that. You know. Um, when I was
Speaker 1: doing Annie for ABC, they did a version of that
Speaker 1: with Kathy Bates and Victor Garber and m Alan Cumming
Speaker 1: and Kristin Cheneworth, and they cast me as Grace Ferrell.
Speaker 1: And there was a scene at the end where Grace
Speaker 1: Ferrell and and and Daddy Warbocks proposes to Grace Ferrell.
Speaker 1: At the end, the happy ending is happening, you know.
Speaker 1: Victor Warbox, Yes, he was my daddy. I love him too.
Speaker 1: And actually you'll appreciate this. We were sitting around one
Speaker 1: day on the set and uh, you know, in the
Speaker 1: big gorgeous mansion that Daddy Warbos has and we were
Speaker 1: sitting between takes and I was sitting next to Victor
Speaker 1: and I just got a little emotionally said, Victor, what
Speaker 1: if this was really our house and we were really
Speaker 1: getting married and we had all this money in this life?
Speaker 1: And he said, in the just true Victor fashion, Darling,
Speaker 1: get ahold of yourself saying that, right. But anyway, so
Speaker 1: we were film breaking, Yeah, we're filming. We're filming Annie
Speaker 1: and UM, so we shot the scene where you know,
Speaker 1: Daddy Warbocks gives Grace Ferrell the ring and it's lovely,
Speaker 1: and then UM, we get word that we have to
Speaker 1: come in on a Saturday to do some reshoots. And
Speaker 1: Rob Marshall was directing UM and Neil Marin and Craigs Aiden,
Speaker 1: who are wonderful, wonderful producers and have been very kind
Speaker 1: to me over the years and give me a lot
Speaker 1: of work that cast me in Sound of Music as
Speaker 1: a mother abbesss and UM they said we have to
Speaker 1: do some reshoots, and then they took me aside and said,
Speaker 1: it turns out that Disney might be a little uncomfortable
Speaker 1: or the powers that be. I don't know if it
Speaker 1: was Disney ABC, I don't know. We're comfortable. There might
Speaker 1: be some issues with Daddy Warbucks actually marrying Grace, so
Speaker 1: so we need to reshoot the scene and do it
Speaker 1: without you're hooking up with Daddy Warbucks giving and I.
Speaker 1: I was devastated. I was I was devastated. It was
Speaker 1: one of those things where you know you're starting to
Speaker 1: feel good, You're starting to feel like, oh, there's really
Speaker 1: change coming things are happening here, I am playing this
Speaker 1: role and and it's it's Annie, but nobody cares and
Speaker 1: it's wonderful. Nobody else feel including Victor, I think everybody,
Speaker 1: and I think they were all kind of horrified. And
Speaker 1: you know, also, did they use in the product in
Speaker 1: the film? Rob said, Okay, so we're all going to
Speaker 1: come in on a Saturday. And you know how expensive
Speaker 1: that is when you're only shooting Monday to Friday, coming
Speaker 1: on a Saturday just to reshoot the scene. So everybody
Speaker 1: comes in and we get dressed up in that moment
Speaker 1: for that scene, and Rob does one big master take
Speaker 1: of Daddy Warbucks, just sort of going, hey, and everybody, anybody,
Speaker 1: it's great and this is great. This happened. Okay, looking
Speaker 1: at you kid, exactly you over there, you person, you
Speaker 1: and he got one shot, one master take, one shot,
Speaker 1: and then Rob said, okay, got that, so while we're here,
Speaker 1: and then he proceeded to reshoot other things that he
Speaker 1: thought he could make it, so he tanted the tank it.
Speaker 1: He did tank it so they couldn't use it, so
Speaker 1: they ended up using where So you look in the
Speaker 1: film and Daddy Warbucks proposes to Grace Ferrell in that
Speaker 1: and that's because that's because of Rob, you know, and
Speaker 1: his courage. His courage. Absolutely. And then at the end
Speaker 1: of the year when the film came out, Time magazine
Speaker 1: said something or maybe it's a newsweek um, and he
Speaker 1: said that in Things that Happened this Year, Daddy Warbroocks
Speaker 1: marries a black Grace Ferrell and nobody cares. So I
Speaker 1: don't know what that's the answer to, but it's just
Speaker 1: an issue of things that you know, you think, you
Speaker 1: get to a certain point where you know things are changing,
Speaker 1: and then boom, you're sort of slammed back into that reality.
Speaker 1: What are you in the middle of doing now? I
Speaker 1: can't remember what you're doing You're rehearsing some show? Yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I've got a Lady Day was on the West End.
Speaker 1: You're gonna go to London? Yeah, I've never been. No, not,
Speaker 1: I've never performed on the West End. That's that's what
Speaker 1: I mean. You've never performed over there? Not I performed,
Speaker 1: but never on the West End. I've never I've done
Speaker 1: like concerts and stuff that I've never done a show, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: What of the places outside of New York have you
Speaker 1: performed that's an interesting thing to think about. Well in
Speaker 1: terms of like concert work everywhere, but actual shows I've
Speaker 1: only done, well, that's not true. I did the Secret
Speaker 1: Garden Tour a million years ago, so you know, you know,
Speaker 1: you do kind of a national tour, you go all
Speaker 1: over the place. Yeah, I did, but as you know,
Speaker 1: ensemble member, you know, and then I did Master Class
Speaker 1: is the only other one that I did. We did
Speaker 1: that in l a And at the Kennedy Center. We
Speaker 1: did the taper at the Kennedy Center, and Plays and
Speaker 1: Players in Philadelphia before we came into New York. But
Speaker 1: that's been the nineties. Do you find that you stay
Speaker 1: in New York and try to stay in New York
Speaker 1: with that's home and that's easier for you, and well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it is Broadway. It's Broadway, and that's where
Speaker 1: I want to be. Yeah, but especially since you know,
Speaker 1: since having kids, you know, well, I have a six
Speaker 1: month old, and I have a sixteen year old, and
Speaker 1: I have two stepsons who are sixteen and thirteen. So
Speaker 1: it's a have a sixteen year old and that's yours,
Speaker 1: that's mine, and you have a six month old that's mine,
Speaker 1: that's yours. Yes, yes, you know what that's like, having
Speaker 1: a bit of a spread in between. She read a
Speaker 1: kid when you were very young, the sixteen year Well,
Speaker 1: that's very kind of you to say, Oh, I was
Speaker 1: thirty when I had my first and now I'm forty
Speaker 1: six and you want to have another baby, you know,
Speaker 1: I or you were drunk on a sailboat with your husband?
Speaker 1: What happened? Which is it? Which is it? It's it's
Speaker 1: it's somewhere in between. It's really that the Broncos won
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl. Seriously, Oh my god, and my husband
Speaker 1: is a big Broncos fan. And nine months later the
Speaker 1: rest is Sally James McDonald swinson. Yeah, what are you
Speaker 1: gonna do? How was that for you? Because I mean
Speaker 1: I don't always want to ask. I was saying, how
Speaker 1: I want to do another show, but I don't want
Speaker 1: to be away at dinner time every night for four
Speaker 1: to six months. What's that like? Do you bring the
Speaker 1: kids to the theater? I did, Well, I certainly did
Speaker 1: with my sixteen year old um when she was little,
Speaker 1: she was at the theater all the time with me.
Speaker 1: That was kind of the only way. And I imagine, well,
Speaker 1: I know for a fact, when I'm in London. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm staying very close to the theater, and she'll be
Speaker 1: at the theater. And and if I were to get
Speaker 1: another Broadway show, I would just bring her there because
Speaker 1: you don't want to you don't want to miss anything,
Speaker 1: and you don't you don't want to make them feel
Speaker 1: like what about the baby? But yeah, the baby will come. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: She has to be with you right until the half hour.
Speaker 1: That's what I've been doing now this year, you know,
Speaker 1: since i've had her, I've started back concertizing and literally
Speaker 1: I've had her backstage with either my husband when he
Speaker 1: can join me, or my babysitter, and um, I will
Speaker 1: sing and then run off stage and nurse her and
Speaker 1: then you know, go do your meet and greet or whatever.
Speaker 1: And actually during one concert she was really really fussy,
Speaker 1: and so my husband went on and performed, and I
Speaker 1: ran off stage and and and nurse her and called
Speaker 1: her down and the right back on stage. Crazy crazy.
Speaker 1: Where did you meet him? Your husband? We met doing
Speaker 1: in the Shade, the show on Broadway back in two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, so yeah, a long time ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was crazy time too. I Um, I met him
Speaker 1: and then my dad was killed in the plane crash
Speaker 1: like a couple of like about six weeks later. He
Speaker 1: was a high school principal. And when you grew up
Speaker 1: in California, but here we were born in Germany. I
Speaker 1: was born in Germany. What was she doing over there? Here?
Speaker 1: He was in the he was in the army. And then, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was raised in Fresno, California. My dad was a
Speaker 1: high school principle and then he went on to become
Speaker 1: an associate superintendent of schools there. But his passion was flying,
Speaker 1: and he flew small planes and he had his own
Speaker 1: and he was he had just recently retired and he
Speaker 1: had his own plane that he was flying, And um, yeah,
Speaker 1: he where were you when you found that about that?
Speaker 1: I was actually walking. I just finished the matinee of
Speaker 1: The Shade. We were still in previews, and I was
Speaker 1: walking with um my husband. He wasn't my husband at
Speaker 1: the time. He was just a friend at the time.
Speaker 1: We a bunch of us were walking to meet the
Speaker 1: rest of the cast to have you know, a post
Speaker 1: you know, Sunday matinee drink with the entire cast. And
Speaker 1: my step mom called and said my dad was remarried. Yes,
Speaker 1: he was remarried and your mom still alive. Yes, my mom.
Speaker 1: First she lives next door to me in the yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: in Westchester. And when she retired and left town, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: but yeah, my stepmom called me and said, and I
Speaker 1: was just I was on fifty three Street between eighth
Speaker 1: and ninth Avenues, and it was it was it's interesting,
Speaker 1: you know in those moments, you know, you see what
Speaker 1: happens in film and you think it will be similar,
Speaker 1: you know, in real life, and it's it seldom is
Speaker 1: you know, as an act. Well, I didn't it didn't
Speaker 1: compute what she was saying. You know. She said, your dad,
Speaker 1: dad had an accident while he was flying the plane
Speaker 1: and he didn't make it. And I kept saying, oh,
Speaker 1: I said, okay, so where is he now? And she said, Audre,
Speaker 1: he didn't make it. It's like, okay, well where Yeah.
Speaker 1: But I wasn't. It wasn't computing either, you know, and
Speaker 1: I was just really stunned. And it took it took
Speaker 1: a day for me to really start to cry, you know,
Speaker 1: because it just it was close to him, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: very close, and it just wasn't making sense, you know.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting. I mean, it's it's been ten years
Speaker 1: on it will be ten years actually next week that
Speaker 1: his since his passing, and um. But it's just interesting.
Speaker 1: As an actor, this sounds so cold and callous and
Speaker 1: it's not. It's not meant to be. But as an actor,
Speaker 1: there was a part of me that was sort of
Speaker 1: floating away from my body watching the scene, going, I
Speaker 1: don't think you're having the right reaction, you know, I don't. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not you know, if this were seen, you'd fall
Speaker 1: to the ground and and you know, break into a
Speaker 1: million pieces. And you're not doing that. You're you're playing
Speaker 1: the scene wrong. It's so strange. But actually I know
Speaker 1: exactly when I really started to cry about my dad's passing,
Speaker 1: and it was I had I found out. We were
Speaker 1: getting ready to open a ten of The Shade, and
Speaker 1: so we're getting ready to go into a critics week
Speaker 1: where critics are coming and they're saying I'm saying I
Speaker 1: have to go, and they're saying, you're the star of
Speaker 1: the show. You can't leave as I have to. And
Speaker 1: so they canceled a couple of shows so I could
Speaker 1: fly home to California. This is for their profits funeral,
Speaker 1: and you can leave well, they know, they were just like,
Speaker 1: how do we do this? You know? And actually was
Speaker 1: at the end of it was like right at Tony um,
Speaker 1: what's it called? When it's the cut off times? Qualification time?
Speaker 1: So everybody was like, we what do we do? So
Speaker 1: they were kind enough to cancel enough shows for me
Speaker 1: to run home for the funeral and trying to work
Speaker 1: that out with my step mom who was devastated and
Speaker 1: you know, really broken, and trying to keep her together
Speaker 1: and keep the family together and figure it all out.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until after the funeral you're saying hello
Speaker 1: to everybody, and I just kind of kept it together
Speaker 1: the whole time. And then as soon as I greeted
Speaker 1: like the person or something like a thousand people at
Speaker 1: his funeral. He was very very well known and very
Speaker 1: loved in Fresno, California, and his older sister came and said,
Speaker 1: how are you doing? And that's when I lost. When
Speaker 1: you emptied out, I emptied out. But it was you know,
Speaker 1: but once again, that's not how I mean. Maybe maybe
Speaker 1: a good director, but that's not how I just imagined
Speaker 1: the film. An actress, you're always controlling and managing your
Speaker 1: feelings anyway, lovers and knobs and dials inside of us
Speaker 1: there was in the playing with all these were paid for,
Speaker 1: you know, So you moved to Fresno. When you grew
Speaker 1: up in Fresno beginning at what age? I was nine
Speaker 1: months old? Here's your little baby. So you're a child.
Speaker 1: And so there's there's the Order McDonald who grows up
Speaker 1: in California. There's the Order McDonald who now is one
Speaker 1: of the princesses of the Broadway Theater. Yeah, there's like
Speaker 1: a mount Rushmore. It's you and burn it out and
Speaker 1: all these chicks. Now, who are these the greatest singers
Speaker 1: in the world? And I want to talk about the
Speaker 1: auder in between. So the order in between when you
Speaker 1: first start under the business, when people are hiring you,
Speaker 1: and as you're building your career in New York and singing,
Speaker 1: what were they hiring you? Four? Well, I think it
Speaker 1: had more to do with if I look back on
Speaker 1: it now, and no one's ever asked me this, So
Speaker 1: kudos to you. Well, I do try, You've got you've
Speaker 1: got the talent um, But I think it had more
Speaker 1: to do with I wasn't what people were expecting. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, back in those days, can I say back
Speaker 1: in those days, yeah, the early nineties. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: you'd go on audition for something and they'd see an
Speaker 1: African American girl and her twenties walk in, and I
Speaker 1: think they'd expect some big gospel voice or you know,
Speaker 1: they're like, can you be streets part you know, all
Speaker 1: those code words and whatnot, and I would sort of
Speaker 1: break out with the pseudo operatic voice that had Broadway
Speaker 1: qualities and was a bit goofy um and so I
Speaker 1: think it just intrigued people more than anything. I think
Speaker 1: that's even how I got into Juilliard. When I auditioned
Speaker 1: for Juilliard, and I wasn't you know, I wasn't really
Speaker 1: wanting to pursue classical music, but I thought, I'll audition
Speaker 1: on the strength of my voice. That's that's my my strength.
Speaker 1: Was that a goal to go to Juilliard, Well, I
Speaker 1: wanted to go to New York. I wanted to live
Speaker 1: in New York. Juilliard was at Lincoln Center, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, the good beginning. Yeah, um, and I thought
Speaker 1: I'd be able to get like my acting classes in
Speaker 1: nancing classes while I was there. I didn't realize that
Speaker 1: once you're in a program once you're in a department,
Speaker 1: you know, you shall not stray, you stay in that department,
Speaker 1: and you know. So I just went in there an audition,
Speaker 1: didn't really know what I was doing, and kind of
Speaker 1: riffed at the end of a Mozart area. You're not
Speaker 1: supposed to riff with Mozart, and I did, And I said,
Speaker 1: I was a mezzo soprano, and I'm singing subrette, you know,
Speaker 1: roles for them, showing them. I sang a subrette aria
Speaker 1: from the note to de Figuro marriage Figuro. And so
Speaker 1: for people who don't know what soubrette is, what is that,
Speaker 1: I'm one of those people. By the way you do well.
Speaker 1: Soubrette is sort of like a really high light soprano,
Speaker 1: not necessarily coloratura, but she's like a young, sweet heroine
Speaker 1: type lighter sound, not like a full lyric soprano. And
Speaker 1: um so it's a lot of people say the ena
Speaker 1: rolls Despina or Celina, the little cute roles. So anyway,
Speaker 1: that's what I sang. I sang one of those areas.
Speaker 1: But then I said, I'm a metzo soprano, which I
Speaker 1: just I was just that, just showing how much I
Speaker 1: didn't know how how little I knew. And they laughed
Speaker 1: at me and they said how old are you and
Speaker 1: I said, I'm said teen, and they just said okay,
Speaker 1: And I thought, well, I blew that. And then two
Speaker 1: weeks later they called me and said, we want you
Speaker 1: to come to Juilliard. But I don't think I think
Speaker 1: it was just intrigue on their party. You're there for
Speaker 1: four years, Well would you start working? No? I was
Speaker 1: there for five years, but you finished there, you graduated
Speaker 1: from the Yeah, I had. I took a leave of
Speaker 1: absence because I had a suicide attempt actually while I
Speaker 1: was there, so I took a leave of absence. There's
Speaker 1: a lot that happened between the Order and Fresno, California
Speaker 1: and the Order who's on Broadway. Now, okay, we're going
Speaker 1: to cover as much of that as you care to
Speaker 1: in the time. I'm completely open about it. But so
Speaker 1: you're in Juilliard. What years was that? That five years
Speaker 1: was from when to win? It was from So when
Speaker 1: you're there, was it trouble for you fitting in? Did
Speaker 1: you feel uncomfortable and out of place? There? Absolutely was
Speaker 1: that a part of what led you to do what
Speaker 1: you did. Yeah, I felt out of place artistically. I
Speaker 1: felt all my life growing up in Fresna, California, all
Speaker 1: I wanted to do was beyond Broadway. And and then
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, let me audition for Juilliard. Just
Speaker 1: didn't think it through audition got in. So everybody back
Speaker 1: at home was like, Wow, Ordre got into Juilliard in
Speaker 1: New York. She's you know, she's gonna make it. And
Speaker 1: then I get to Juilliard and I'm studying classical musing,
Speaker 1: I'm like, this isn't what I want to do. I
Speaker 1: don't want to be an after singer. Why surely they're
Speaker 1: gonna let me go take some acting classes, surely it,
Speaker 1: and go do some dance less and surely it and
Speaker 1: go an audition for Broadway shows. No, you have to
Speaker 1: just study, you know, if you are enjoying it. No,
Speaker 1: I and I felt I felt lost. I felt completely lost.
Speaker 1: I felt like I was off at But that that alone,
Speaker 1: I'm assuming, and tell me if I'm wrong, didn't lead
Speaker 1: you to do something drastic. What else? No? I mean, well,
Speaker 1: you know, to the extent you can say, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know, like I said, I'm open about it, because
Speaker 1: you know, I think I'm a case of it it
Speaker 1: gets better, you know. But I so I was lost
Speaker 1: in terms of that, and then feeling like I couldn't
Speaker 1: just quit and go back home because I would look
Speaker 1: like a failure back at home. And you know, I
Speaker 1: had boy trouble while I was there. And so the
Speaker 1: culmination of being where I wanted to be in New
Speaker 1: York City, thinking I'm finally going to realize my dreams,
Speaker 1: stuck and failing miserably at Juilliard, not being able to
Speaker 1: admit to anybody at home what was going on, not
Speaker 1: being able to go home because I would have looked
Speaker 1: like a failure. Living literally on Broadway on Broadway my
Speaker 1: apartment and my address was Broadway Broadway, the residentially the
Speaker 1: old Broadway I called the wild wild West, and in
Speaker 1: anything north of eighty six Street, forget it. You did
Speaker 1: not in your shield and a sword to go to
Speaker 1: the grocery store right, and to look at it now,
Speaker 1: Oh my goodnes. But what I'm curious about is that
Speaker 1: the woman, the young woman from Fresno, who goes to
Speaker 1: New York and and and again let me put a
Speaker 1: fine point of this before you answer, which is, and
Speaker 1: you say you have boyd troubles? Are you dating a
Speaker 1: different kind of boy. Now, what, Julie, are the boys
Speaker 1: that were hard for you to understand? So I was,
Speaker 1: you know, I was that all the same? Well, I
Speaker 1: was just not be treated well by a boy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: boys are the same, alloy, Thank you, my guest has
Speaker 1: been ever good night everybody. But but but, but but
Speaker 1: the reason I asked this, I want are you a
Speaker 1: fish out of water in every way? Yes? I was
Speaker 1: a fish out of water in every way except for
Speaker 1: the fact that I was in New York, which is
Speaker 1: what I knew I wanted. I knew that much was right,
Speaker 1: but everything I kept grounded, Yes, but everything else was wrong,
Speaker 1: and so in you know, in those days I was.
Speaker 1: I couldn't see past the fact that I had gotten
Speaker 1: here and everything up to up to now had gone swimmingly,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden it was all falling apart.
Speaker 1: And um, if you don't know my asking, what the
Speaker 1: what were the the the ramp up the time, and
Speaker 1: what you were thinking and feeling? And the only reason
Speaker 1: I asked this for people who listen to this, who
Speaker 1: might be young people and artists who are experienced a
Speaker 1: certain kind of pain that you experience in this business
Speaker 1: that I think is very unique because you exude in
Speaker 1: your work. You seem so confident and so powerful. Well,
Speaker 1: I think it's because I'm now, I'm I'm where I'm
Speaker 1: supposed to be. I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing.
Speaker 1: I'm doing what I think. If you want to get
Speaker 1: I don't know, you're not playing the inna roles anymore. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: But I mean it's it's more about I'm artistically fulfilled.
Speaker 1: I think my artistic soul is fulfilled. It's doing what
Speaker 1: it's supposed to do. You greet them what kid look
Speaker 1: copy to me? Not that she doesn't still find challenges
Speaker 1: coming up. Ardo McDonald talks about a song that's been
Speaker 1: rather hard to sing. Ardo McDonald isn't the only star
Speaker 1: who struggled to find her voice. I mean when I
Speaker 1: tell people I was extremely shy that nobody believes me.
Speaker 1: Now that I think that people have to overcome yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: You know. I found a lot of comedians to be
Speaker 1: serious and and was withdrawn sometimes. So yeah, I think
Speaker 1: sometimes we overcome things by going after the very thing
Speaker 1: that really eludes us. To hear more about Renee Fleming story,
Speaker 1: go to Here's the Thing dot Org. This is Alec
Speaker 1: Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing. If ever
Speaker 1: there was a track record that warranted Diva doom, it
Speaker 1: is Audre McDonald's. But despite her unparalleled fame, the Queen
Speaker 1: of Broadway is disarmingly humble, perhaps the mark of a
Speaker 1: person who has endured great pain in her case. While
Speaker 1: studying at Juilliard, this was my third year and it
Speaker 1: had been just yet another year of floundering and doing
Speaker 1: poorly in all my class is, and teachers just saying,
Speaker 1: you know, you've got to get give over to your
Speaker 1: operatic sound, and me not wanting to, not knowing what
Speaker 1: that was, um. And when I would get close to
Speaker 1: an operatic sound, I'd say, I don't want to sound
Speaker 1: like that. So I felt like I was just being
Speaker 1: pushed and they were doing their job rightfully. So this
Speaker 1: is like, this is your Juilliard to study. This is
Speaker 1: what you're gonna do to push me into a place
Speaker 1: that just wasn't me artistically. So that coupled with being
Speaker 1: one by yourself in New York and being treated poorly
Speaker 1: by um whatever his name was, what's his name, I
Speaker 1: were so going to say that no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: he's he's fine. He's a great guy now, but in
Speaker 1: any rate. Um, so all of that combined with me
Speaker 1: being sort of like the great hope from my my
Speaker 1: hometown too. You know, Ordre is gonna make it. If
Speaker 1: anybody's gonna make it on Broadway, it's going to be Audre.
Speaker 1: I the boy was the catalyst. That's sort of like,
Speaker 1: sort of broke that. It was a straw that broke
Speaker 1: the camel's back. But it was three years of I'm
Speaker 1: in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing. I'm failing miserably,
Speaker 1: but I'm here in Disneyland, where I'm supposed to be
Speaker 1: where I said I wanted to be. So I I
Speaker 1: I slit my wrists one night, and what happened? And
Speaker 1: about this? Have you written about this? I haven't. I
Speaker 1: guess I should. I speak about it all the time,
Speaker 1: but maybe one day I'll write about it. And found, Um,
Speaker 1: I slit my wrists and then realized what I had
Speaker 1: done and called the student affairs director who I had
Speaker 1: become close with, and said, I helped me, and someone
Speaker 1: came and helped you, and they helped me, and they
Speaker 1: took me to a mental hospital. Um, it's interesting, this
Speaker 1: mental hospital still there. Um, Gracie Square Hospital. It's next
Speaker 1: door to um my uh my O B G y
Speaker 1: n who delivered my six month old uh circuit that
Speaker 1: so I almost didn't make it, and now I made it.
Speaker 1: And it was I had to pass it, you know,
Speaker 1: every week to go to my O. B G y
Speaker 1: n appointment, I had to pass Gracie Square Hospital. And
Speaker 1: every time I passed it, there was a part of
Speaker 1: me just you know, waddling down the street. Pregnatives can
Speaker 1: be some twenty nine years later, I would, um, I would.
Speaker 1: I felt such relief and joy and and you know
Speaker 1: a sense of yes, I I get I get the
Speaker 1: big picture. Now one month in the school year was
Speaker 1: that that that happened. It was January or February. So
Speaker 1: at the midpoint, let's say, and you take off obviously,
Speaker 1: and you come back when you come back the following fall,
Speaker 1: you don't. I came back, um the following fall for
Speaker 1: a little bit, and then I got an opportunity to
Speaker 1: audition for something that ended up end up being the
Speaker 1: Secret Garden actually, and I asked the you know, administration
Speaker 1: office and my the dean, what I should do, and
Speaker 1: they said, you know, go do that It's okay, take
Speaker 1: the time off to go do that. It seems like
Speaker 1: that's where you want to be. So and they they
Speaker 1: probably didn't want to disappoint you at that point. At
Speaker 1: that point you want to go and do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't ever want to get your way. You know.
Speaker 1: The thing is there was actually a lot, not a lot,
Speaker 1: but they had a special arrangement with Gracie Square Hospital.
Speaker 1: They were a couple of other Juilliard students there that
Speaker 1: I had wondered what had happened to I was there.
Speaker 1: I was at the hospital for mean Gray Square I
Speaker 1: think is private hospital. I was there for a month. Um.
Speaker 1: They evaluated me and said you you're not going anytime soon? Um,
Speaker 1: and did that change you? I was so heavily medicated,
Speaker 1: they I was heavily medicated. When you say that, it's
Speaker 1: so compelling to me because when I see you, I
Speaker 1: think of you. I think of you like you know,
Speaker 1: you're so strong, your personality and performed. I view you
Speaker 1: as the person that's going to go I'm going back
Speaker 1: into the burning building to save the baby. Well that
Speaker 1: is me now, but I think maybe that experience helped
Speaker 1: make me that now. I mean, look, I'm still. I mean,
Speaker 1: everybody's a mess, always a mess, I you know, and
Speaker 1: I what, I understood a lot going on. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I realized, you know, I'm someone who suffers from depression,
Speaker 1: and but I've learned in the years a how to
Speaker 1: deal with it be to find you know, find my
Speaker 1: joy and see you to realize that, like alcoholism, it's
Speaker 1: something that you wake up every day and you say, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's still something that I have to deal with, as
Speaker 1: opposed to saying, oh, I'm just not depressed anymore. Just
Speaker 1: but to learn how to cope with that. And my
Speaker 1: my art gives me a lot of joy and keeps me,
Speaker 1: keeps me strong. So what's the first job you do?
Speaker 1: This is a tired question, but I can't help back asking,
Speaker 1: especially with something like you, what's the first job wouldn't
Speaker 1: you do? When you sit there and go I got this.
Speaker 1: I think I got this, Like I'm over the no
Speaker 1: known meaning you know that the sky is the limit
Speaker 1: for you. You're out there and you're doing it and
Speaker 1: you're connecting to that material you know, and you go,
Speaker 1: I think I really really have a shot at my
Speaker 1: dream coming true. Here. It was Sally Murphy and she
Speaker 1: was she was Julie Jordan and I played Carrie Pepperridge.
Speaker 1: And who was the guy Michael Hayden was Yes, yes, yes, Nick.
Speaker 1: Lincoln Center, which is also crazy for me to then open,
Speaker 1: you know, in in Carousel at Lincoln Center, where at
Speaker 1: Vivian Momont Theater where you can look up and I
Speaker 1: can see the school that I, you know, had a
Speaker 1: hard time in. And and I remember standing in those
Speaker 1: in those windows at Juniiard looking at Vivian Beaumont, seeing
Speaker 1: Patti Lapone performing there, and going why am I not
Speaker 1: doing that? And then how do you feel? Um like
Speaker 1: luckiest survivor in the world. I mean, and I felt
Speaker 1: a sense of gratitude, a sense of relief, and a
Speaker 1: sense of Okay, I get it. I now get that
Speaker 1: I was on my path. Out the window of one
Speaker 1: place is your future. Out the window of Juilliard where
Speaker 1: you try to snuff yourself, is the Vivian Beaumont where
Speaker 1: you're going to do Carousel. Across the streets, always a
Speaker 1: vistaf you what might have been, what have been? What was?
Speaker 1: Which was something not bad and wonderful? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: babies and Tony Awards and all that stuff. I think,
Speaker 1: I think what I realized is there's a bigger picture.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, it's very easy to you know,
Speaker 1: just get into tunnel vision, especially when you're young and
Speaker 1: you know it's only you that you're having to think about.
Speaker 1: And not that that's a bad thing, but it's just
Speaker 1: easy to get buried very quickly, um, under emotion and
Speaker 1: and fear and disappointment and all that. And um, I
Speaker 1: just think that I learned to have a bigger picture
Speaker 1: about life. Once you become extraordinarily successful in the You
Speaker 1: won your first Tony Award for what show Carousel? And
Speaker 1: you how old your child and you when you were
Speaker 1: you were fresh out of that situation, went far that
Speaker 1: far removed from that situation. It was two and a
Speaker 1: half years away from that two and a half years later,
Speaker 1: which is nothing. Yeah, you win a Tony Award and
Speaker 1: you've won six Tony Awards. Yes, you won the most
Speaker 1: Tony Awards of anybody. Are you tired with somebody? You're
Speaker 1: tired with you? No? Not, that's true. You know. I
Speaker 1: love when people. I love when people sit there and
Speaker 1: they go, oh, I don't know, I don't keep tracking that.
Speaker 1: I go, you liar, your Tony's lined up. Not you
Speaker 1: people in general. I doubt you do actually, but to
Speaker 1: embarrass you even more than I already had, good God,
Speaker 1: you are enormously talented and everything clicks, and you're very
Speaker 1: very successful, and you're a gorgeous woman. Well you're you're
Speaker 1: a gorgeous woman. And what did that do in terms
Speaker 1: of your career, meaning that you could have gone and
Speaker 1: made films and done a television series? Did you have
Speaker 1: a lot of offers to do that you swept aside? No,
Speaker 1: I've never had those offers. I mean, I did one
Speaker 1: television series series once where I played the best friend
Speaker 1: in Private Practice to the main character Private Practice. Kate
Speaker 1: Walsh played Addison Montgomery and I played her. Did you
Speaker 1: do that? I did it for five six years. The
Speaker 1: show ran for seve in years, and I did it
Speaker 1: for five or six years. But No, Hollywood is never
Speaker 1: really banged down to my doors. And I think that's because, um,
Speaker 1: you're very kind to say I'm gorgeous, but I don't
Speaker 1: think i'm the typical sort of look. I'm also a
Speaker 1: big girl, and I'm proud of that, and I'm fine
Speaker 1: with that. But you know, it's it's interesting when you
Speaker 1: go to Hollywood, and you see these people on the
Speaker 1: movie screens your entire life, and then you see them
Speaker 1: in person and they're all like one fourth of that
Speaker 1: paper airplane. What the hell? You don't look well a cheeseburger, No, No,
Speaker 1: I mean in the same will look terrible. But it's
Speaker 1: just for me. It's just like I. I you know,
Speaker 1: I think size wise that has something to do with it.
Speaker 1: And I and I don't know that that's where I'm
Speaker 1: at my strongest, you know, And I think we works
Speaker 1: so hard to develop this perchure in Now what's that
Speaker 1: like for you to have to go out and ring
Speaker 1: yourself out again? Well? The process for me, I I
Speaker 1: go really inside. I get really quiet. People around me
Speaker 1: think that I'm angry with them before I do a
Speaker 1: show because I just get very quiet, and I go
Speaker 1: inside and and stay still. And I'm not I'm not
Speaker 1: one to kind of jump around and go visit other
Speaker 1: dressing rooms. I just I have to kind of go
Speaker 1: in and be super super super quiet and still, because yeah,
Speaker 1: because in a minute, you're gonna have to turn all
Speaker 1: of your insides out. And so if I'm giving all
Speaker 1: that out beforehand, I will have nothing to get the
Speaker 1: hardest ones for you, Lady Day. Absolutely that was by
Speaker 1: myself on stage for an hour and forty five minutes,
Speaker 1: just having to give it and especially living that life
Speaker 1: that she lad I have have to live that on
Speaker 1: stage every night. Um that I was no fun to
Speaker 1: be around before the show. After the show, I was involved,
Speaker 1: because that's very common. Yes, because I was real that
Speaker 1: was over until the next You know, it's interesting. I
Speaker 1: know I can remember who. Oh maybe it was Kathy Bates.
Speaker 1: I can't remember who said this to me, but I said, well,
Speaker 1: why don't you ever come back to Broadway or do
Speaker 1: a show on Broadway? And I think it was Cathy
Speaker 1: Page said, oh, honey, oh that's hard. It's hard, and
Speaker 1: she's right, you know it is because especially when you think, Okay,
Speaker 1: I've done it, I've given in good performance. I got
Speaker 1: through that. You know, when you're doing a film, you're like, great,
Speaker 1: it's in the can, and now I'm off to Cabo
Speaker 1: or whatever, you know. But Broadway it's like, and now
Speaker 1: I have to do that again tomorrow night, and then
Speaker 1: the next night after that, in the next and it's
Speaker 1: a blessing. At the end of every day. I got
Speaker 1: to go to work you have that whole day and
Speaker 1: what happens in that day in the world. The worst
Speaker 1: thing for me when I was acting was when I
Speaker 1: have a wonderful, fun day and then I had to
Speaker 1: go to work and ring myself out and so I'm
Speaker 1: trying to go do the Scottish play. Yes, for me,
Speaker 1: it was always on Sunday Mattenee's. When you're headed to
Speaker 1: your Sunday Mattinee and you're walking down Ninth Aven and
Speaker 1: you're seeing everybody outside either at a street fair or
Speaker 1: having wine and runch, and I can't tell you how
Speaker 1: many sun in the sun. I can't really tell you
Speaker 1: how many times you're walking down Ninth Ave and you
Speaker 1: just want to take your hand and swipe a lot
Speaker 1: of food off at those sidewalk tables. To say that's
Speaker 1: not fair, of course not. I mean it's I'm doing
Speaker 1: what I wanted to do my entire life. But there
Speaker 1: is that people are counting on you. Yes, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: When I did Street Card, I got really sick and
Speaker 1: I missed the show. I was out for it for
Speaker 1: a weekend, but to say, out of days in the
Speaker 1: Sunday and I missed the show, But I go downstairs.
Speaker 1: I lived on Central Park West. I go downstairs. I
Speaker 1: crossed over to Broadway on eighties six and Broadway on
Speaker 1: the northeast corner. I'm going to cross over to William's
Speaker 1: Chicken and get my soup. Yes, And I'm there and
Speaker 1: this little woman looks up to me. It's like seven
Speaker 1: o'clock at night. It's a it's a Friday night or
Speaker 1: a Saturday night rather, and she looks up at me,
Speaker 1: this little owlish from when she goes, aren't you supposed
Speaker 1: to be on Broadway right now? Us town? Flipping town.
Speaker 1: I have a story like that too. I mean, we
Speaker 1: were it was a New Year's Eve and Ethan Hawk
Speaker 1: had been able to we were doing Henry the Fourth
Speaker 1: at Lincoln Center, and he've been able to get the
Speaker 1: entire cast invited to the plays and Players Club with
Speaker 1: a what's the club over on the Players Club? Players Club? Yes,
Speaker 1: for New Year's Eve. So we're all there and we're
Speaker 1: all celebrating, and it's wonderful, but we're, you know, in
Speaker 1: and amongst you know, the actual members of this club.
Speaker 1: And it's New Year's Eve and I'm doing a play.
Speaker 1: And I was still young, and I thought I'm going
Speaker 1: to have a cigarette, you know, whine, I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: a cigarette. And I don't smoke as a rule, but
Speaker 1: I just decided as New Year's Eve, I'm going to
Speaker 1: have wine and cigarettes and it'll be fun. So I
Speaker 1: was smoking out on the little terrorists they have out there,
Speaker 1: smoking my cigarette. I'm chatting with some of my cast
Speaker 1: members and an older woman who's a member of the
Speaker 1: players come. She comes up to me and she said,
Speaker 1: I'd say, your order, McDonald, but it couldn't possibly be
Speaker 1: home because she wouldn't be smoking, destroying her instruments. She
Speaker 1: wouldn't be smoking. And then she just sort of marched off. Now,
Speaker 1: who are people who in your life? In your career,
Speaker 1: one might assume you've sung the song, sang the songs
Speaker 1: of pretty much everyone you want to sing. Where there's
Speaker 1: there one that's gotten by. Is there some composer whose
Speaker 1: music you want to sing that you haven't? Say No,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say that. I mean there's always young I
Speaker 1: I have always championed the work of new young musical
Speaker 1: theater composer, So I'm always looking for new work to do.
Speaker 1: There are certain songs that I stay away from um
Speaker 1: because I don't feel that I can do them properly.
Speaker 1: For example, um one that I have not been able
Speaker 1: to conquer that I have tried a couple of times
Speaker 1: and never done in public because I can't conquer it
Speaker 1: is being alive. I saw in time. I cannot as
Speaker 1: much as that song moves me, as much as it
Speaker 1: means to me. Every time I try and sing it,
Speaker 1: I fail. So I I have not done it in
Speaker 1: public and I and I won't until I figure it out.
Speaker 1: And that is that strange. No, No, I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's people it's like in place. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to I'm trying to think of writers. Do you
Speaker 1: have writers whose work you steer clear of as a
Speaker 1: performer because you don't you don't get it, so you
Speaker 1: don't know how to bring it to life. Not that
Speaker 1: you don't enjoy watching. I might enjoy watching, you know, whatever.
Speaker 1: I want to have in the theater. Life itself is
Speaker 1: so filled with oddities now and surreal crap going on
Speaker 1: with the government and everything. I want to see something
Speaker 1: which is really I want to honesty now. I need
Speaker 1: to have a like auction. I need a big hit
Speaker 1: of honesty. You know that's interesting I was listening to
Speaker 1: a performer on the way down here who I absolutely meyer,
Speaker 1: whose work I admire, and they were singing a song
Speaker 1: that didn't, in my mind, seem quite right for them.
Speaker 1: Not that they weren't singing it beautifully, but I thought,
Speaker 1: I don't think they believe this. I don't. I think
Speaker 1: they're trying something and they don't believe it. And and
Speaker 1: there's a part of me that thought, why am I
Speaker 1: thinking that about them? I do that stuff all the time.
Speaker 1: But I think you're right. There is something going on
Speaker 1: right now, and the zeitgeist as sort of like you're,
Speaker 1: everybody is needing truth and needing needing something to ground them.
Speaker 1: And where is reality any satire? And my last question
Speaker 1: for you is, first of all, describe for me, if
Speaker 1: you would, as I try to always think about people
Speaker 1: in your profession and who do what you do as
Speaker 1: well as you do, a moment when you're on stage
Speaker 1: and you used to go out there at night and
Speaker 1: you'd sing a song and you knew you were going
Speaker 1: to kill these people, you know, the minute that you
Speaker 1: sang that song, the way you said that you could
Speaker 1: almost feel the people just getting destroyed by that song.
Speaker 1: Is that in a Lady Day as well. Well, I
Speaker 1: think in the beginning with Lady Day, because I think
Speaker 1: no one thought that I could find her voice, you know,
Speaker 1: because I'm a soprano. So it's like, what are you
Speaker 1: doing with the soprano doing Lady Day, you know, trying
Speaker 1: to be Billy Holiday. She doesn't have it in her,
Speaker 1: and I didn't think I had it in me. And
Speaker 1: so some nights, you know, the show opens and the
Speaker 1: first thing I do is sing before I even start speaking,
Speaker 1: and so the audience and you can tell that the
Speaker 1: audience is waiting to hear is she gonna get it?
Speaker 1: And on nights that I really felt that I was
Speaker 1: really lined up, really lined up with Billy. I had
Speaker 1: had enough, you know, of her perfume on, and I
Speaker 1: had the makeup right, and I had the gin behind
Speaker 1: my ears so I could smell like what she must
Speaker 1: have smelled like in those days. And I would open
Speaker 1: my mouth and sing the first all I know is
Speaker 1: I'm in love with you, um, and you'd hear sometimes
Speaker 1: i'd hear the audience gasp, and that's when I'd be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I got that right now, sustain it for the next
Speaker 1: hour and forty five minutes, you know, and I'd feel that,
Speaker 1: I'd think, Okay, they're they're taking the journey with me.
Speaker 1: And there were nights where that wouldn't happen. I think, okay,
Speaker 1: I gotta drag him on this journey to you know.
Speaker 1: But every once in a while there'd be that moment
Speaker 1: of and every every once a while here people go,
Speaker 1: oh my god, oh no is I'm in low you
Speaker 1: eve in the you said that we are through. I
Speaker 1: know that's your lave. Yes can't go I under whew.
Speaker 1: Lad has got the final line of a review from
Speaker 1: The Evening Standard for her recent West End debut as
Speaker 1: Billie Holiday doubles as a review of Audre herself quote
Speaker 1: yet still she stands broken but indomitable to the last unquote.
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the Thing,
Speaker 1: and darling, if that's not enough, I'll luin. If things