Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Here's how The New York Times has described My guest
Speaker 1: Today a full fledged Broadway star, Broadways reigning Ingenue, Broadways
Speaker 1: Golden Girl, and luminous three different times. Writers called her
Speaker 1: luminous three years in a row. It's hard to avoid
Speaker 1: repetition when it comes to My guest today, because Kelly
Speaker 1: O'Hara is luminous, as you can hear in this clip
Speaker 1: from South Pacific. She is one of the greatest, sweet
Speaker 1: voiced and infinitely bankable Broadway stars of her generation. I'm
Speaker 1: as corney as Kansas and high as a flag on
Speaker 1: the fourth of July. If you'll excuse an expression, irons,
Speaker 1: I'm in lull, I'm in love, I'm in law. She
Speaker 1: worked hard to get there. O'Hara grew up in rural Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: At eighteen, she convinced legendary voice teacher Florence Birdwell to
Speaker 1: take her on as a protegee, as Kristin Chenowith did
Speaker 1: before her. After graduation, she toiled in the trenches in
Speaker 1: Wichita and in New York as an understudy. She exudes
Speaker 1: gratitude for how far She's come. The thing is, though,
Speaker 1: despite the Tony, despite selling out Broadway and the West
Speaker 1: End in South Pacific, the King and I Kiss Me
Speaker 1: Kate and more, Kelly O'Hara gets tired of being luminous.
Speaker 1: I made choices to make a living. A commercial musical
Speaker 1: on Broadway is a financial living. That is um. There
Speaker 1: was more than I expected growing up on a farm
Speaker 1: in western Oklahoma. I didn't take the when I did
Speaker 1: the public it was a financial It was de financially difficult, okay, um.
Speaker 1: And so to go do the little not that I've
Speaker 1: been asked or even called in for an audition, but
Speaker 1: to do those little things or wait for the you know,
Speaker 1: the TV job, or do one day of a guest
Speaker 1: artist for nothing on a TV show, I've never been
Speaker 1: able to afford to do that. So I keep saying
Speaker 1: yes to the commercial Broadway musical. And the thing is is, um,
Speaker 1: if I have to make those choices, they have to
Speaker 1: be really really great for me. Believe me, if anyone
Speaker 1: had believed in me that I could play something that
Speaker 1: was a little bit more gritty than I'm in Love
Speaker 1: with a wonderful guy, I would have jumped at it
Speaker 1: any time in my past. I will never stop wanting
Speaker 1: to do a play or a theater theater. I should
Speaker 1: just say theater. I've always wanted to do a play.
Speaker 1: I've only been asked to do a play like once.
Speaker 1: You know, people say, why don't you want to, you know,
Speaker 1: do more things. I'm not a star. I'm not you know,
Speaker 1: maybe in musical theater whatever. You say that in a
Speaker 1: certain bubble, but not even outside of this range. Did
Speaker 1: you study acting as well? Was acting a big did you?
Speaker 1: It was musical theater you study? No? I got an
Speaker 1: opera degree because that's what my teacher went. Yes, Yes,
Speaker 1: with Florence Birdwell, the premier voice teacher there, and um,
Speaker 1: I wanted my whole life to study with her, So
Speaker 1: that's what I did. Did you break Florence Birdwell's heart
Speaker 1: when you moved from voice to the theater? You know,
Speaker 1: I was on a track to do opera, and I've
Speaker 1: since done some opera and just found very lovely people.
Speaker 1: But in that moment, in my senior of college, doing
Speaker 1: the met audition circuit, I met ugly people. It was
Speaker 1: not for me. If I'm going to make art or
Speaker 1: if I'm going to make art, whatever that is if
Speaker 1: I'm going to do something that is expressive and communicative
Speaker 1: with my voice, I love to do it with people
Speaker 1: and feel things. And I just literally I remember saying,
Speaker 1: I want to be an actor. I don't want any
Speaker 1: part of that solo ego thing. That's not who I am.
Speaker 1: I want to go inside things and live in them.
Speaker 1: Pass the ball and if it gets passed back to me,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be paying attention and I'm gonna catch it,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna pass it back off quickly. That is
Speaker 1: exciting to me. And I walked into her room one
Speaker 1: day and I said, I told her. I had told
Speaker 1: her I'm not going to go to grad school. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to go to grad school. We had filled
Speaker 1: out all the applications for American Volcal Academy and everything,
Speaker 1: and I said, I'm gonna move to New York. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go to acting school and I'm gonna be a
Speaker 1: real actor. And I remember I walked in one day
Speaker 1: and she held up the application to a v A
Speaker 1: and she looked me in the eye and she ripped
Speaker 1: it into and she said, go live, Go do what
Speaker 1: you're gonna do. And honestly, she's more of that person too,
Speaker 1: So I didn't break her heart. I think I just
Speaker 1: surprised her um and she has supported me ever since.
Speaker 1: But I I went to Strasbourg for acting here in
Speaker 1: the city right when I moved, literally that fall, because
Speaker 1: I felt that insecurity, the idea that when you're an
Speaker 1: opera singer there is no acting ability in there. I
Speaker 1: wanted so badly to be an actor, and I still
Speaker 1: so badly want to be a better actor. But I
Speaker 1: went to Strasbourg because I needed to have that um
Speaker 1: for myself, you know what I mean. Even if I thought,
Speaker 1: oh I can get into musicals, maybe an act okay,
Speaker 1: I needed it. I needed that label. Honestly, what's the
Speaker 1: one you did with? There was some real acting you
Speaker 1: had to do in that piece. Um. You know. I
Speaker 1: must I must have thought everything was like a major
Speaker 1: acting I'll tell you what. I that the show that
Speaker 1: I didn't I feel like I knew what I was doing,
Speaker 1: or that I didn't speak up as an actor, which
Speaker 1: was sweet smell of success, which was my first big
Speaker 1: role with Let's Go and Brandosha James and stuff. And
Speaker 1: I look back at that as the time when I
Speaker 1: said either ship or get off the pot, like do it,
Speaker 1: speak out for yourself or stop this business. I was
Speaker 1: trying to lean on my singing and kind of felt
Speaker 1: like I was in a straight jacket and didn't make
Speaker 1: any choices. It wasn't until things like you know, the
Speaker 1: Bridges of Madison County might have asked for me to
Speaker 1: be the most unlike myself. That was way late in
Speaker 1: the game. I had already done South Pacific and other things,
Speaker 1: but um, that was the one where I felt like,
Speaker 1: I've been here for a while, I've learned a few things.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna trust myself. It's interesting how for myself included
Speaker 1: when I got into the business and nowhere was this
Speaker 1: more uh laid there than when I would do plays.
Speaker 1: Was how much I wanted to please people, and there
Speaker 1: if I didn't want to impose my ideas and say,
Speaker 1: well I want to do this, I want to do this.
Speaker 1: I walked in there going what do you want me
Speaker 1: to do? And I wanted everybody to direct me, and
Speaker 1: I was I was afraid. And then when I got
Speaker 1: into the world, even in small roles, supporting roles in
Speaker 1: films with legendary directors like Mike Nichols, you realize that
Speaker 1: on this mount Olympus. It was the opposite. They were
Speaker 1: looking at you like, well, what do you got? What
Speaker 1: do you want to do? That's why you're here. I
Speaker 1: hired you because of your instincts, and do you find
Speaker 1: there was a bit of that of view that one
Speaker 1: point does Kelly O would turn around and I got this,
Speaker 1: I know what I want to do, absolutely show. I
Speaker 1: really think that It was the Bridges Masson County where
Speaker 1: I said, I'm going to speak up for myself. I'm
Speaker 1: going to try to find my way in, and any
Speaker 1: smart director, anyone who's confident enough in their abilities, will say, yes,
Speaker 1: it's going to be only better if if it's more
Speaker 1: natural from you, if it's coming from you, use your voice.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm going to listen. As opposed to being
Speaker 1: threatened by that um that first job that I mentioned
Speaker 1: sweet film success, the girl before me had been fired
Speaker 1: in the workshops. So I walked in so fearful it
Speaker 1: was my first role on Broadway that I would be fired,
Speaker 1: and I also felt like I would be people have
Speaker 1: already got it wrong once, you know. And I was
Speaker 1: walking in and it was that atmosphere too. It felt
Speaker 1: very much like nobody quite had control and Um, I
Speaker 1: learned Nick Kitner, and it was a bad time. It
Speaker 1: was after night, right after anyway, UM, I promised myself
Speaker 1: I would never do that again. I remember actually having
Speaker 1: a conversation in a rehearsal where I was starting to
Speaker 1: feel that where there was a sexual scene between the
Speaker 1: my leading man and we were doing something and I've
Speaker 1: really never told the story. Uh, and we're just going
Speaker 1: to start with it. And Nick said, you know, stop, stop,
Speaker 1: you look like you're mothering him. And I knew that
Speaker 1: wasn't me. And I said, I know how to touch
Speaker 1: a man. I know what I'm doing. And I stood
Speaker 1: up for myself for the first, like literally the first time,
Speaker 1: and it had to do with just being a human
Speaker 1: being a woman and I and I felt that in
Speaker 1: my core. I felt like, no, I there is something
Speaker 1: I can bring here. I might not be what you
Speaker 1: want or what other people expect or envision, but if
Speaker 1: you if you have any sense of your own humanity
Speaker 1: or self, that's what you bring, you know, if you
Speaker 1: can access it. I literally have to take most of
Speaker 1: my questions down and throw them in the garbage because
Speaker 1: I was expecting a kind of Julie Andrews and you
Speaker 1: sent ship and going off the pod you said, I
Speaker 1: know how to touch a man. My interview with Kelly O.
Speaker 1: Harris going we're we're very often and we're off roading
Speaker 1: here completely. We're going up into territory. I was unprepared
Speaker 1: to go for it. So I'm ready though, I'm ready. Um,
Speaker 1: But here's what's interesting to me is that we'll just
Speaker 1: get this out of the way, which is in the
Speaker 1: world that you typically inhabit. You're out there and it's
Speaker 1: a fantasy and they want it to be beautiful and
Speaker 1: they want to be And then then now you come
Speaker 1: this famous award winning singer in the theater and when
Speaker 1: you come out there, do you feel like that's the obligation?
Speaker 1: Is like you're hosting an event and you've got to
Speaker 1: give these people this magical evening. I know what you're
Speaker 1: talking about. There is an obligation. This is what we do,
Speaker 1: and you do in order to just you know, get
Speaker 1: up and do it every night for hows a week
Speaker 1: for twenty years. You have to tell yourself. I heard
Speaker 1: once someone say it's either someone's first time seeing this
Speaker 1: theater at all, or it's someone's last time, and so
Speaker 1: it gives you this kind of reason to be, I guess,
Speaker 1: because otherwise you're literally thinking of the grocery list. Sometimes
Speaker 1: when you've sung a song a hundred and seventy five times,
Speaker 1: you know, and you have to kind of find a
Speaker 1: way to connect. I think that I do this for
Speaker 1: very personal reasons. I don't know why it bit me
Speaker 1: a long time ago, because I wasn't raised around any
Speaker 1: of it. Um So sometimes I think about that obligation,
Speaker 1: and sometimes I I lose myself in it in a
Speaker 1: weird way, like I've actually tried to have, you know,
Speaker 1: I try to dig deep and say, what does this
Speaker 1: do to you? That's different, I think sometimes in what
Speaker 1: other it does to other people. I guess I learned
Speaker 1: from it. I kind of fall into it. Even even
Speaker 1: after eight shows a week, I find myself kind of
Speaker 1: dealing with all of this, all of my innards out there.
Speaker 1: And I think maybe it's because overwhelmed when singing a song,
Speaker 1: you almost broke down crying. That's I do. I do
Speaker 1: all the time, and it's so and it can be
Speaker 1: a song of song thousand times and something will just
Speaker 1: a It's how I filter, it's how I process, I think,
Speaker 1: and it's why I'm not quite tired of it. It's
Speaker 1: why I'm not quite jaded by it. Sometimes I am,
Speaker 1: but for the most part I find that I go
Speaker 1: inside it, maybe as opposed to just dealing with it
Speaker 1: all out here. You said that you didn't grow up
Speaker 1: around this. What did your dad do? It's a farmer? Literally?
Speaker 1: Did you just laugh just that you are this queen
Speaker 1: of Broadway? And I found was a farmer. What did
Speaker 1: he farm? We farmed wheat, cattle, and cotton. It was
Speaker 1: in western Oklahoma, very small town that he grew up
Speaker 1: and my mother they met in the eighth grade. My
Speaker 1: dad went back to school when he was forty. He
Speaker 1: went to law school. It was his dream and he
Speaker 1: changed our lives. I was sixteen when he graduated law school,
Speaker 1: and so my last two years of high school we
Speaker 1: had moved to the big city of Oklahoma City, and
Speaker 1: then I was off to college. His mother continues to
Speaker 1: be there. He's my dad's still kept. Yes, and my
Speaker 1: dad and my brothers still run cattle and they're still
Speaker 1: practice what kind of law they He and my brother
Speaker 1: practiced together. They practice a state tax, oil and gas law.
Speaker 1: Because he was a farmer. My dad's first big case
Speaker 1: was fighting like Phillips. Their land had been kind of
Speaker 1: ruined by the oil drilling and stuff. And my dad
Speaker 1: represented he is a dooder and your mom school teacher
Speaker 1: what subject, uh, social studies? It was my dad, my
Speaker 1: dad to social studies. A dear friend of mine, Jeff Ambrassini,
Speaker 1: who I went to high school when I grew up
Speaker 1: with him. He and his wife were in the world
Speaker 1: you're in, you know, striving and then uh he was.
Speaker 1: She was from Norman and they upped and left and
Speaker 1: moved to Oklahoma, and not only for her to be
Speaker 1: near her mother, but they got more work in that
Speaker 1: area than they did in New York. Um. I have
Speaker 1: a really good friend that's back there teaching voice and
Speaker 1: she does cabaret. She performed in the shows when they're there,
Speaker 1: And Um, New York was like air for me, Like
Speaker 1: the first time I breathed. I remember running down I
Speaker 1: was twenty one, and I remember running down Fifth Avenue,
Speaker 1: darting in between people with my backpack on like I
Speaker 1: was in a car, like I was in rush hour.
Speaker 1: I was alive. I was alive for the first time,
Speaker 1: and I don't really believe that I knew it. What
Speaker 1: was it? About you that felt that way, this is
Speaker 1: the mountain you wanted to climb. Yes, And because I
Speaker 1: loved the vast number of people, different types of people,
Speaker 1: I somehow didn't even matter. Who cares what I did.
Speaker 1: When you grew up in a small town, I was,
Speaker 1: you know, riddled by um. I had really good upbringing.
Speaker 1: I mean I did it was a safe but I
Speaker 1: was kind of riddled by the feeling of being different
Speaker 1: a little bit. It was a chubby kid or whatever,
Speaker 1: and and there was really I was I was a
Speaker 1: chubby kid, and there was this kind of feeling of
Speaker 1: but I still did gymnastics, and I still did flips,
Speaker 1: and I still sang, and there was this feeling of
Speaker 1: you can't do that, you know, or I just felt
Speaker 1: like there was this kind of cap you know, of
Speaker 1: don't try to do anything special or and I it
Speaker 1: wasn't so much like I'll show you. It's more just
Speaker 1: like I need I need the quiet. I need that
Speaker 1: all that to be quiet. And you just come up
Speaker 1: here and whether you make it or not, no one's
Speaker 1: really on your back about it. You're just doing it,
Speaker 1: you know. I've always loved the acceptance, you know, like
Speaker 1: whatever you're into people like, wow, you know whatever your
Speaker 1: thing is now, Scott ellis so I family with I
Speaker 1: went to go visit me to rehearsal, and I was,
Speaker 1: I don't want to say appalled, but I was mildly
Speaker 1: shocked by the mechanics of the rehearsal of the Broadway music.
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe. It was like I was at Boeing
Speaker 1: and they were putting a jet plane together, how technical
Speaker 1: it was, and people were they were like okay again
Speaker 1: and they're like bot of the botto the pop pop
Speaker 1: up stop, and it was start start. I mean I
Speaker 1: got a headache watching this and how hard they were
Speaker 1: and how precise they were, and how they made them
Speaker 1: do it again and again. I mean I thought they
Speaker 1: were all getting paid just for the insanity inducing repetition
Speaker 1: of it. Well you know what you're when you describe
Speaker 1: the musical theater rehearsal, My my heart kind of pounds
Speaker 1: with that. Yes, you know, you say it's like nauseating,
Speaker 1: but that data data stop. But that's not really me.
Speaker 1: I'm not a dancer. I'm not a timed performer. Um,
Speaker 1: which I love. I love that because I'm better at
Speaker 1: They do all do that until you come out and
Speaker 1: then it's a play. Um, when you're rehearsing a musical,
Speaker 1: a big musical, the kind you would do, what does
Speaker 1: a director offer you at this point in your career.
Speaker 1: Any good director is never going to tell you where
Speaker 1: to go, how to stand, where to move. What do
Speaker 1: they tell you? Go, Let's go, let's read the scene,
Speaker 1: Let's see what happens, and then so you get it,
Speaker 1: you get something going on with with the person you're
Speaker 1: working with. Whatever the scene is just like a play,
Speaker 1: and then they might have some suggestions about if you
Speaker 1: entered here, you know, because we've got exiting here. I
Speaker 1: think in a way, musical theater can be more cinematic
Speaker 1: because it's transitions. It's like what comes in between each scene.
Speaker 1: So we need this kind of thing filtering on while
Speaker 1: you're filtering off. So then you have these suggestions of
Speaker 1: how we're going to stage this as far as transitions,
Speaker 1: but within the moment. I think, especially with Bart Sheer,
Speaker 1: who I've done a lot of shows with, we spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time at the table before, you know,
Speaker 1: or in school studying World War two or clown classes
Speaker 1: or whatever it is, that then we're going to put
Speaker 1: into it and then we only spend a few a
Speaker 1: couple of days just moseying around, you know, trying to
Speaker 1: make a scene, and that that's it, that's set. And
Speaker 1: then once we start previewing or whatever, then he might
Speaker 1: say this, this and this, And then once in a while,
Speaker 1: when you're talking about kind of real, you know, the
Speaker 1: acting part of it, again comes to your room and says,
Speaker 1: you know, let's talk about if this is a deeper moment,
Speaker 1: you know, how do you feel about this or and
Speaker 1: then we can get deeper. And but there's a lot
Speaker 1: of allowance if it's a good director, if they can
Speaker 1: trust you and you can trust them and believe me,
Speaker 1: there are times when I said, I don't know what
Speaker 1: the hell I'm doing here? You know, can you talk
Speaker 1: to me? But I mean, I think that you are
Speaker 1: ready to ask those questions and admit those things when
Speaker 1: you have the director who let you try first, and
Speaker 1: then if you need something you ask does the director
Speaker 1: is embedded in his role? Is the vocal direction or
Speaker 1: is there somebody separate who handles you when you're singing?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean Bart bart Sheer wouldn't know what
Speaker 1: to say about. There's the musical director. Ted Spurling and Paul,
Speaker 1: Jim and Janni one of the greatest, and what I
Speaker 1: love about him again is just his absolute confidence in
Speaker 1: everyone else's ability. He doesn't control, he doesn't obsess. He
Speaker 1: just he sits there and moves his hand like an
Speaker 1: inch high and inch low and just controls it. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of time where you're at a piano with
Speaker 1: someone like Jim and and they're talking about how you're
Speaker 1: gonna play the song. Yeah, you're to do it, and
Speaker 1: then we're gonna talk to Yeah, we're gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: bring my way, and then listen. We're gonna all listen
Speaker 1: to each other and kind of figure it out. We're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about Tempe and whatever. Um. But yeah, the
Speaker 1: music director in a musical is right up there with
Speaker 1: the director and the choreographer or the stager. You kind
Speaker 1: of have a three part team where you have to
Speaker 1: all of those things have to fall in place. Tempo,
Speaker 1: how you transition from scene to scene, which is the
Speaker 1: director's choice, has to also be supported by musical interludes
Speaker 1: that time just right. So it's a it's a big team.
Speaker 1: It's not just doesn't sit still, it continually moves Broadway
Speaker 1: star Kelly O'Hara. Another great Broadway leading lady is Patti Lapone.
Speaker 1: Her breakthrough role was as Eva Perone in A Vida,
Speaker 1: but on opening night in New York, she didn't know
Speaker 1: how legendary her performance would become. I threw up in
Speaker 1: the sink before I sank. Don't cry from Argentina. I
Speaker 1: got extremely bad notices opening in l A and extremely
Speaker 1: bad this is opening in San Francisco. There was an
Speaker 1: article coming out in Susie Nicko Parker's column the next
Speaker 1: day that I was going to be fired and that
Speaker 1: actor's Equity was waiting to clear Elaine Page to take
Speaker 1: my place. I'm dealing with all of this press of
Speaker 1: me being fired and me not being able to sing
Speaker 1: the part, and still going on from my throwing the
Speaker 1: s and al came to me and said, we're going
Speaker 1: to laugh about this in twenty years, Patty. The rest
Speaker 1: of my interview with Patty Lapone is in our archives
Speaker 1: at Here's the Thing Dot Org. Kelly O'Hara returns after
Speaker 1: the break. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing. Kelly O'Hara has been at the top
Speaker 1: of the Broadway game for almost twenty years. Some things
Speaker 1: have stayed the same, while others are unrecognizable. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I think one of the biggest ones isn't even a
Speaker 1: stage thing. I remember I was doing South Pacific, I
Speaker 1: got pregnant with my first child. I left to have him,
Speaker 1: and I came back to do my next Broadway show.
Speaker 1: I remember that I'm having a meeting and rehearsal about
Speaker 1: social media, about filming, what you could and couldn't film,
Speaker 1: what you couldn't couldn't post, and literally the show before
Speaker 1: that show the idea of having anyone come inside your
Speaker 1: rehearsal room and sharing it with anybody but your team,
Speaker 1: your family. I I thought they were joking, Like I
Speaker 1: literally thought I was being you know, maybe candid camera
Speaker 1: or being punked. I was kind of horrified. Now I
Speaker 1: can be old fashioned. I'm made fun of by all
Speaker 1: my friends because I I still kind of live in
Speaker 1: that place of how dare you, how dare you share
Speaker 1: this problem with the world so that they can be
Speaker 1: a part of our that because what we bring to me, well,
Speaker 1: that's is that what we're leaning on or were we
Speaker 1: going to lean on? This craft? So that I had
Speaker 1: to really get used to, because then everyone started filming
Speaker 1: all of the rehear souls and they said, oh, this
Speaker 1: is only to teach the choreography or whatever b s.
Speaker 1: You know, that's going to be somewhere, and then there's
Speaker 1: going to be the commentary, and then then that's going
Speaker 1: to affect decisions. Why don't we trust ourselves? You know?
Speaker 1: So I actually had to get used to that part
Speaker 1: of theater. When you do these shows, do you have
Speaker 1: a casting approval? Sometimes? I mean, you know, maybe we're
Speaker 1: gonna make you do it with somebody you don't want
Speaker 1: to do it with. No, not anymore. And I mean
Speaker 1: all the way back to light in the Piazz, I
Speaker 1: sat in on the auditions for Fabrizio, the guy I
Speaker 1: played I loved and um which is always great opposite
Speaker 1: Matthew Morrison. It's always great to kind of feel, but
Speaker 1: you never see. The thing is that you might shoot
Speaker 1: yourself in the foot because you might think that you
Speaker 1: want to work with somebody and you might be pleasant
Speaker 1: you don't think you don't and then really be pleasantly
Speaker 1: surprised by have someone. How someone works is or comes
Speaker 1: off is very different how they normally are. Sometimes Um,
Speaker 1: I've been pretty lucky. Almost everyone across the board has
Speaker 1: been pretty great to work with for the most part,
Speaker 1: you know, and sometimes I got a choice and sometimes
Speaker 1: I didn't. I found that Pacino had the great line.
Speaker 1: I interviewed Pacino a million years ago from my college
Speaker 1: favor that I listen to your podcast that's very funny,
Speaker 1: and Paccino said to me that he didn't get involved
Speaker 1: in the cast. He kept his focus on himself, into
Speaker 1: his own thing and let everything take care of itself.
Speaker 1: Do you sit there and go it doesn't matter who
Speaker 1: the guy is. Now, that's you know, it might not
Speaker 1: matter so much in film, although you really need to
Speaker 1: make something with somebody, but there's you're you're you know,
Speaker 1: you're getting a close up, you're getting different angles. I
Speaker 1: think in theater there's an element of actually kind of
Speaker 1: being a little bit as opposed to start and stop
Speaker 1: catching some sort of specific thing. In theater, you're kind
Speaker 1: of having two hours of maybe being together. And if
Speaker 1: there was someone I just really I didn't like or
Speaker 1: didn't manage that to the extent that there were people
Speaker 1: who you love them less than other people you worked
Speaker 1: with that when you did that, it's just something where
Speaker 1: you just have to find a way to just get
Speaker 1: through it. Yeah, but I'm terrible at that. I'm so
Speaker 1: emotional about it that I would just maybe not to
Speaker 1: their I mean I would just come in my dressing
Speaker 1: room and just scream and throw things into a pillow.
Speaker 1: When you let me borrow your dressing I can see
Speaker 1: there were a lot of dents in the wall and
Speaker 1: a lot of holes in the wall. Though this woman
Speaker 1: is really she's wild, She's a she's a fire cat. Listen.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you have to pretend like you love somebody,
Speaker 1: it's and they're playing, you know, and this is this
Speaker 1: wasn't kiss Me Kate? Which is that dressing room? But
Speaker 1: when they're you know, you're doing a musical comedy or
Speaker 1: a musical theater piece and someone wants to think they're
Speaker 1: doing Macbeth or you know, they're they're Willie Lohman or something,
Speaker 1: and you're like, come on, you know, we all take
Speaker 1: this very seriously and we're doing our best, but come on,
Speaker 1: get over it. You know that that pisces me off.
Speaker 1: Who's the guy you did kiss Me Kate? With? Chase?
Speaker 1: We just had I never had to throw things about well,
Speaker 1: all the holes in the wall were about something else.
Speaker 1: The the I loved him. I loved him. He glowed
Speaker 1: with a warm, warm and a masculinity and I'm like,
Speaker 1: he had it all. Like a lot of guys want
Speaker 1: to do the masculinity thing and they lose the glow,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And then those guys who
Speaker 1: come on and they just have they have it all.
Speaker 1: He was fantas, don't cut this out. I want him
Speaker 1: to hear this, and I'm gonna tell him to listen,
Speaker 1: because I mean, I think he kind of got us,
Speaker 1: you know, a bad rap for somehow he didn't quite
Speaker 1: get acknowledged. And I and I I just I just
Speaker 1: thought he really was such a sweetheart. Whoa is it?
Speaker 1: This guy's great? Um, what's the last straight play you did? Uh?
Speaker 1: King Lear? And you did that? I'm looking at you.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just love this. This is why we're
Speaker 1: so glad you're here. I'm looking at you. When I
Speaker 1: think you I'm willing to watch that man right out
Speaker 1: of my hair. Then I go, what do you do
Speaker 1: after that? King Lear? That's exactly what I did. Um.
Speaker 1: I desperately wanted to do something. Besides, I was going
Speaker 1: to wash that man right out of my hair. I mean,
Speaker 1: listen exactly what you assume. Uh. And I think that's
Speaker 1: why Julie Andrews. You said Julie Andrews, Well, Julie Andrews
Speaker 1: just throws f bombs and cut curses all the time.
Speaker 1: She's that's she's I think she must have done that,
Speaker 1: not only her upbringing. But you get so sick and
Speaker 1: tired of what you feel is an assumption about yourself,
Speaker 1: even if it's true, even if there's a little bit
Speaker 1: of that. And I want to apologize for being, you know,
Speaker 1: so god damn happy to be in love and my
Speaker 1: shows are so genuinely sincere. I want to apologize for
Speaker 1: that because it's what I love to do. I love
Speaker 1: to go inside something and really try to make it.
Speaker 1: When I first met you, I was surprised you remind
Speaker 1: me more of like Bob Hoskins than Julie Andrews. I'm like, Wow,
Speaker 1: this chick is tough. Well, I don't know if I well,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, I thought you were. Thank you. I'll
Speaker 1: take that, But I just I think that you I
Speaker 1: wanted to act, I wanted to do Shakespeare did it
Speaker 1: where I did its public Sam Waterson was earlier. It
Speaker 1: was not a well received production. There were lots of
Speaker 1: things about it, and when you're doing it, what was
Speaker 1: it like for you? I mean, I think that it
Speaker 1: was very strangely imagined. It when you're sitting in notes
Speaker 1: sessions and there's no conversation coming back from the director
Speaker 1: Um who has never done a Shakespeare play, but also
Speaker 1: just um. When you make the choice to just be
Speaker 1: silent and never say anything because maybe you don't know
Speaker 1: what to say, your actors start to get a little
Speaker 1: uncomfortable and get wind of Maybe it's not so much
Speaker 1: just silence and and listening, it's more it's well and
Speaker 1: we had great people in the cast. It's where I
Speaker 1: met my great friend Arian Moyad, who I can continue
Speaker 1: I've continued to work with and me too. So I
Speaker 1: think that it was a great experience, but it was
Speaker 1: not well received. And Sam, who was so wonderful and
Speaker 1: we all know his Shakespeare ability, he choked on an
Speaker 1: apple the night before our first preview for third even
Speaker 1: minutes it went down his whimpipe. The next night he
Speaker 1: had no voice, like zero voice, and so we had
Speaker 1: to cancel and we but the next night it was
Speaker 1: so raw and broken and then we had to do
Speaker 1: the show eight shows a week, every night. He never
Speaker 1: regained his voice. He never So it was when Bill
Speaker 1: Irwin played the full which was all really fun. You know,
Speaker 1: we had these great right, great top people, and um,
Speaker 1: it just it wasn't It just didn't come together. I
Speaker 1: mean you know at the time we were hoping it would,
Speaker 1: but you done shake. I mean I was the person
Speaker 1: with like raising my like, asking questions, listening to every
Speaker 1: single thing, walking in the door with no and this
Speaker 1: is how I handle myself, with no pretense, no assumptions
Speaker 1: that I'm going to be great. It's all about I
Speaker 1: just wanted to hear, I want to learn, I wanted
Speaker 1: to listen. Um. I did the same thing with the opera.
Speaker 1: It's like, I just want to do these things. If
Speaker 1: I fall in my face, I guess at this point
Speaker 1: I fall on my face, But I just I cannot
Speaker 1: be doing one thing with all the assumptions. With the
Speaker 1: moment you shout there and go I want to do
Speaker 1: more of this, Yeah, something definitely, And I've just what's
Speaker 1: the part you want to do? Now? What's a piece
Speaker 1: of you? I'm sure there are several, but what's an
Speaker 1: example of when you're dying to do well, I mean
Speaker 1: rosalind or you know, I think there have been a
Speaker 1: couple of even Shakespeare, oh chab Yeah. Sure. You know
Speaker 1: what I really I really would love to do is
Speaker 1: I would love to venture into these kind of great
Speaker 1: American not Who's afraid of Princition in your Wolf, but
Speaker 1: these these living room American stories or something more contemporary
Speaker 1: Augustociage County, you know, these families sitting here. I have
Speaker 1: so many ideas for you, well, do something with me,
Speaker 1: so many ideas. Do you find that because you have
Speaker 1: this very well established and very successful queer that you
Speaker 1: just weren't interested in chasing movie roles and TV roles?
Speaker 1: I got this, I mean yeah, I think also I
Speaker 1: had such I had big dreams, in my opinion, but
Speaker 1: growing up, you didn't. I didn't know about all of this.
Speaker 1: I didn't know. And I loved musicals the most because
Speaker 1: I was watching movie musicals, not live ones even. But
Speaker 1: I wasn't thinking Hollywood. I wasn't thinking that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: It's I moved here, I started to do it, and
Speaker 1: I guess I probably felt so like I'm doing this.
Speaker 1: I got this is what I always wanted and so
Speaker 1: there was this weird part of me that put a
Speaker 1: cap on well, you know, that would be selfish to
Speaker 1: want more UM. But then of course you realize it's
Speaker 1: all part of it. It's all part of what you
Speaker 1: want to do. And and I started auditioning little bits,
Speaker 1: but I would be doing eight shows a week, the
Speaker 1: shows at night, going in for two seconds. And it
Speaker 1: really at that point in my career twenties, early thirties,
Speaker 1: it really kind of I would walk in and it
Speaker 1: was just about what I looked like. I could feel it,
Speaker 1: I could see the other women in the room, and
Speaker 1: it started to put a dark thing inside me because
Speaker 1: I'm blonde. It was I was going in for those things.
Speaker 1: Are you piste off about the career you could have
Speaker 1: had if you weren't a leading lady? I mean, listen, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm grateful would have had a career if I didn't
Speaker 1: different well, a different um. Yeah. Yeah. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, let me just let me say this. I
Speaker 1: did start working. I did get at kind of a
Speaker 1: big TV show. I didn't get to take it. This
Speaker 1: was a really pivotal point in my life. I was
Speaker 1: doing a Broadway show, The Nice Work If you can
Speaker 1: get it, and the l A studio agreed to shoot
Speaker 1: me Mondays and Tuesdays. They were going to work around
Speaker 1: my schedule. Just the third lead ran five years big success.
Speaker 1: I had some producers playing god and just said I
Speaker 1: can't do it. We're going to sue you, we won't
Speaker 1: let you do it. And I am stubborn, and I
Speaker 1: mean it was. It was conversation over and my way
Speaker 1: of dealing with it as opposed to, well, then f you,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna, you know, leave all you guys and go
Speaker 1: take this was It's not meant to be. I'm never
Speaker 1: gonna audition for television again. This is where I belong.
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to do musicals. It's all I can do.
Speaker 1: It's the only thing I'm you know, able to do.
Speaker 1: And I did an audition for like four years after that,
Speaker 1: and and it it's in here. Were you miserably the
Speaker 1: entire time? They know? Okay, so no, that was actually
Speaker 1: a really fun time. But I was miserable in my
Speaker 1: little stomach at the people who had made decisions for
Speaker 1: me like that that I couldn't get out of. And
Speaker 1: if it had been one show before with different producers
Speaker 1: who get it that this is a career, and that
Speaker 1: you give a little to get a little. I would
Speaker 1: have anyway, So I don't find regrets on that because
Speaker 1: I have to get over that resentment, I guess. And
Speaker 1: then I start doing little things here and there. And
Speaker 1: I meet Arian Moya and he writes a web series,
Speaker 1: and I do the kind of work I want because
Speaker 1: it's small, it's no money. He teaches me about lenses,
Speaker 1: he teaches me about close ups, he teaches me about
Speaker 1: the things I never would have known, and I would
Speaker 1: have gone and done television without any knowledge. Gets me
Speaker 1: an Emmy nomination, and then I start getting things a
Speaker 1: little by little. After that they're not that thing, and
Speaker 1: maybe it will lean into something else. But I will
Speaker 1: always be the person who thinks, maybe I'm done with
Speaker 1: all this, Maybe I'm just going to live in Connecticut
Speaker 1: and raise my kids. What's it like for you as
Speaker 1: a mom and every night you're out there, Yeah, how
Speaker 1: did you manage that? I've only managed, but I don't.
Speaker 1: It's not easy and it's no success. And the kids
Speaker 1: coming into the city dinner with you when we when
Speaker 1: we were in the city, they came between shows every time.
Speaker 1: Of course, I'm you know, nursing, doing everything you have
Speaker 1: to during the show. Uh four years ago, So you
Speaker 1: left the city not that long ago. Yeah. Um so
Speaker 1: when the baby, when the kids were babies, we were here.
Speaker 1: I couldn't have done it otherwise because they had we
Speaker 1: had I had to feed them, you know all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Um it's getting harder as they get older, because they
Speaker 1: notice more. They want more from me, They need more
Speaker 1: for me, and I want to give it to them.
Speaker 1: So I ten and six, I didn't do a show
Speaker 1: after the King and I until until last year. I
Speaker 1: did a very short run of Kiss Me Kate. And
Speaker 1: that short run was really tough. It was really tough.
Speaker 1: Off I'm gone. They come home from school, there's a
Speaker 1: little bit of time, and then I have to get
Speaker 1: in so I can be here early, do my yoga,
Speaker 1: do my quiet, do do everything that I do. Um
Speaker 1: So that that was difficult, But I these are times
Speaker 1: when they come and they go shooting a television show.
Speaker 1: I'm flying to San Francisco. I'm gone for days at
Speaker 1: a time. I'm missing birthdays. That's worse. The thing about
Speaker 1: a Broadway show, the only you know, the thing I
Speaker 1: can say about it that's doable is that it's consistent,
Speaker 1: so I know they know what time Mom's leaving. I
Speaker 1: wake up with them every morning. You know, that's when
Speaker 1: people say, how are you doing it well? The alternate
Speaker 1: is sometimes much harder. If you're lucky, you're admitted midnight midnight,
Speaker 1: and that's and then waking up for the bus because
Speaker 1: I got to see them at six thirty, and then
Speaker 1: I would go back to sleeve kind of waste your
Speaker 1: day or whatever until they get home off the bus.
Speaker 1: But you just do it, and I it doesn't sound
Speaker 1: too glamorous, but you do it because I want to
Speaker 1: try to do it for them. And you protect your
Speaker 1: voice during the day when you're seeing on stage now
Speaker 1: as much as I can. What's called a famous Broadway
Speaker 1: singer who shall remain nameless, and her assistant said to me,
Speaker 1: don't call it before twelve. She takes no phone CaAl,
Speaker 1: she doesn't talk before noon. I don't have an assistant
Speaker 1: who speaks for me, first of all. Secondly, uh, I
Speaker 1: will speak to you and then I'll rest later. Um,
Speaker 1: I protect my voice. If I had laryngitis, would protect
Speaker 1: my voice. But I'm not going to be dramatic about
Speaker 1: what I do. I'm either going to live in it
Speaker 1: and enjoy it and have control over my own life,
Speaker 1: or I won't do it. Kelly O'Hara, not justin Anginue.
Speaker 1: If the lightmotif of our conversation was O'Hara's drive to
Speaker 1: get serious, dramatic roles to shake her image, the story
Speaker 1: has a hopeful coda. This new project I'm working on,
Speaker 1: I can't talk about it. I'll mention it to you
Speaker 1: and you'll understand. It's the closest thing I've felt to
Speaker 1: letting this part of me out. It's an acting role,
Speaker 1: a serious acting role. This is Alec Baldwin and you
Speaker 1: were listening to. Here's the thing, o