Kelli O'Hara
Kelli O'Hara
Kelli Christine O'Hara is an American actress and singer. She has appeared on Broadway and Off-Broadway in many musicals since making her Broadway debut as a replacement in Jekyll & Hyde in 2000. A six-time Tony Award nominee, her first nomination was for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for the 2005 production of The Light in the Piazza. Her subsequent nominations were for The Pajama Game, South Pacific, Nice Work If You Can Get Itand The Bridges of Madison...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionStage Actress
Date of Birth16 April 1976
CityElk City, OK
CountryUnited States of America
When I'm given an opportunity with music and goodness, then I want to do that [play that role]. I want to go all the way to the edge of that and make it as big as I can.
You always want to be the person who doesn't need to be included, but it feels damn good to be among you people. My first Broadway show was Master Class, and I saw Audra McDonald. The one that sealed the deal was Ragtime, with Marin Mazzie. My first big role was with John Lithgow, and he taught me the ropes. Norm Lewis sang the night I met my husband. It makes me feel like I have a family.
I loved to sing and I loved to act, and I didn’t want to continue opera because I wanted to act.
I've been singing since I was nine or ten.
I think anything emotional adds to your acting and singing, no matter what it is that you go through. It will always add to it, never take away.
American theatre, to me, represents zeroing down on what the need is to get inside the personal hearts of people. I think it's really beautiful if we can keep doing that instead of just fluffing everything up and hiding again.
If you have kids, in my opinion, your priorities better shift to them.
I'm grateful that I feel the way that I do - to make choices based on a lot of people's feelings - even though it has been hard at times, especially when I was younger, but I feel like it has led me down the right road for me. I'm very happy with what has come of that.
If a man thinks you're beautiful or thinks you're strong or thinks you're smart, take the power and use it, but don't need it.
Sunday's my favorite day - that one matinee in the middle of the day!
I try to do different roles and try to immerse myself deeply and see what they need to be that's different than the last one.
Sometimes I'm considered, I guess, a subtle actor. Maybe I'm less of a showman and more just trying to tell the story. I don't know what the perception is. I just want to tell the story so the story as a whole works as opposed to just making sure that I work.
My spiritual life is an interesting thing. It's pretty private. I was raised Catholic in the Baptist Bible belt, so my spirituality was challenged and very much a private thing and it continues to be.
One thing I really, truly believe in is having something greater than myself to be grateful to.