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
I've always wanted to do a Shakespeare play.
Some songs depend heavily on the character, but, for the most part, a great song begs for reinterpretation every time it is sung, even when in character.
When I've done TV and film, when it's offered to me, I loved doing it, and I would do it again, but the ins and outs of auditioning is - that's time away from my kids.
I love playing an ingenue, and I love doing revivals, and I will continue to do that.
I love to play things that are out-of-the-box. It's just that I don't always get the chance to do it!
If I get tickled in a certain way, I actually lose the ability to stand. I don't mean to, but something happens to my knees, and I fall on the ground.
It's really important that I have a personal life.
It's always hard - it's a little counterintuitive to leave your baby at any point during the infancy.
There is such a cliche to certain roles that all I can do is to try to make them realistic and work for the times, and so the audience actually won't see me as a caricature of something, but rather as an actual person.
The hardest role that I've ever tried to play was Clara Johnson in 'Light in the Piazza' at Lincoln Center. It was the least fun I've ever had, but the most beautiful experience I've ever had. I could not understand her. I could not put my feet in her shoes. I came home every night, and I was depressed.
I mean, it feels like a homecoming in a really wonderfully comfortable place to be - the same director, the same musical director, my same dressing room! [laughs] It's a great place to build something with freedom.
If you have kids, in my opinion, your priorities better shift to them.
I want to work, but I certainly am not going to be clawing at empty things when I can completely fill up my bucket with them - the other is a waste of my time.
Our natural thing to do when we break away from our parents and our family is to decide in how many ways they were wrong and bad, and the older you get you start to realize, "By 'bad' I mean 'different'" and then you get a little bit older and you think, "And by 'different' I mean 'pretty awesome but just not like me.'"