My first professional gig was 'Once Upon a Mattress' at the Drury Lane Oakbrook... I was in the ensemble. I was one of the ladies in waiting, and I covered Winnifred.
Jessie Mueller
Those moments onstage when you realize what you and your compatriots are doing matters - someone in that room needs to hear that story, someone needs to escape or heal or learn or breathe, and remember, we're all in this together.
'White Christmas' is one of my favorite movies, so I've always just had a love for that kind of golden era musical.
My dad listened to a lot of James Taylor when I was growing up. We had a couple of his cassettes in the car, and we'd go on a lot of long family car trips. It was either strange musicals or James Taylor - or Whitney Houston. It was quite the combination there.
I always thought moving to New York would mean starting over in theater, because I had great work in Chicago and didn't want to become a waitress here.
My reason for leaving 'Beautiful', because I had such an amazing time on that show, was by the time I left, I had been doing the show for almost two years. I was a little burnt out.
I didn't really start performing until high school. My whole family is actually in the business, and started in the business in Chicago, so I was going to shows when I was a teeny-tiny kid, but I didn't really start performing until high school.
I always loved playing the sidekick, and that's what I expected - I didn't think I was pretty enough or diva enough to play the lead.
Some of the best actors think they're terrible; that's what keeps you connected to a vulnerability that makes it possible for people to empathize with you.
The important thing is the storytelling and having a script that makes you feel you're living and breathing through the characters.
I went to Syracuse University.
I'd been acting in Chicago since I came back after University, and I got a call from my agent saying, 'They're doing this revival of 'On a Clear Day,' and I actually auditioned when the team came through Chicago for the 'American Idiot' tour.
Directors didn't know what to do with me in college. I didn't really sound like a belter. I didn't look like a soprano. But in New York, I was in the right place at the right time, where my unusualness fit the bill.
Growing up, I never felt like the pretty girl.
I grew up watching the films of 'Carousel' and 'Oklahoma' and 'The Music Man' and 'My Fair Lady' - all the classic musicals of that golden era, The sort of more modern musical theater, or what was modern when I was at a ripe teenage age, I wasn't really listening to that stuff. I was really more raised on the classics.
'If I Loved You.' All the way. Totally intimidated by it. From the outside, it has this aura of being one of the greatest musical theater scenes ever written.
As an actor, you always use the tools of who you are and your experience of what you have to offer.
I'm glad to say I'm experiencing more of a conversation in my artistic workforce world than I ever have before. But it's a job, as an artist, to reflect the world we live in; that's our job.
In school, I really felt like I didn't fit a type. I think everybody had a hard time putting me in a category. They all sort of realized, 'Hmm, you don't really look like a soprano. You're not really a character belter.'
There's not millions of dollars riding behind something - so I think a lot of people took chances on me and cast me in roles in Chicago that I never would have gotten cast in possibly if I had come to New York right away. I got to be the not-your-typical-choice for a role.
If I've gotten to a point where people want to see something because I'm in it, I'm grateful and humbled. But having an awareness of that doesn't help me do what I need to do, I think.
I think it's the hardest thing to remind yourself you have to do it the way you would do it. Because no one else is going to do it that way. If you don't do it, then no one else will - and the world won't see it.
I've always loved the song 'It Might as Well Be Spring'.
I loved being in Cambridge. I think about it often. It was this great little capsule of time to me.
The thing I try to tell people who are just starting in the business is to listen to yourself, trust yourself, and be kind to yourself. And do the work to cultivate who you are and what your point of view is. Don't try to be like anybody else. That's what will make you an interesting artist.
This business is crazy-pants. We flit in and out of these fantasy worlds and these intense periods of work and camaraderie, and then it goes away, and you do it all over again.
I think the job of art and drama is to hold a mirror up to those things and say, 'What do you think about it?'
The thing that gives me great hope is that I think, if anything, our world now is ready to be, like, 'This stuff happens.' We're not trying to pretend like terrible things don't happen, that uncomfortable situations, uncomfortable behavior, unhealthy behaviors don't occur in our daily lives.
I watch Renee Fleming a lot. I listen to Renee Fleming a lot. She was like my built-in master class.
I didn't quite get 'If I Loved You.' I didn't understand what they're saying. 'Why are they saying if? Are they flirting? Is she being coy? Does she know what she's getting into?' I didn't understand this woman.
'What's the Use' is normally done with all the women onstage with Julie. Sometimes it's staged as a 'lay at my feet, dear children, and let me tell you the ways of life.' We felt like that wasn't really what was going on.
Oftentimes, I feel like the clock is on, and there's money at stake, and you gotta get up there and dance for grandma, and it better be great, and you better get it right.
I'm a sucker for a good country song.
I really feel strongly that we don't need to dumb things down for children.
