If you can hear music, you can hear the musicality of the way someone speaks. It's easier to nail down the way that they talk. So much of it is listening, just like in acting. If you're listening, you pick up the nuance of why a person behaves the way that they behave.
My favorite show tune has got to be Stephen Sondheim's 'I Remember Sky.' It's probably the saddest song of all time; I sing it to myself in the mirror. No, I am kidding. That's the joke.
A lot of times, when you're the leading lady, you get to sing heartwarming songs and that's it, and people don't get a sense of who you truly are.
For me, Kate McKinnon can do no wrong. She is an absolute genius. She's a hero of mine. Melissa McCarthy is hilarious.
I am not so secretly a comedian. I write a lot of my own material if you've seen videos I've done. I write jokes.
If people don't like your act, it feels a little bit more like they don't like you as opposed to they didn't like that character... It's weird because on one hand, we make our living from being permeable and vulnerable, but we also have to have very thick skin.
I was a little girl who grew up idolizing musical-theatre stars.
When I was 5 years old, I was coming up the stairs, and I saw my mom standing there, singing 'A Quiet Thing' a cappella, and it was such a differentiating moment for me. I realized that we are separate from each other - she has dreams and goals.
That's all TV acting is. Like, let me find my mark and seem like I'm still acting. Sometimes they'll put sandbags there, but then it's even funnier because you're walking and you're, like, stepping into sandbags, so now you look like you're having a seizure.
I do think that having the villain be a woman is just as feminine, because we're not just saying, 'Women are wonderful and made of marshmallows,' but women can be anything. They can be amazing superheroes, or they can be dastardly villains, and everything in between.
I think that people are most comfortable when they can put you in a box - and that's very easy to do that when someone can put you in more serious roles. I'm not blaming them for that - it's just up to me to show people what I can do.
I do think musical-theater actors can get a bad rap, and I see why. There is a certain slickness - there's nothing better than an amazing musical, but an okay musical can be one of the worst times you've ever had.
Well, I'm grateful for all the experiences that I've had.
I try to give the appearance that I have it all together and that I know what I'm talking about, but at the end of the day, I think I might be full of crap.
I think that every therapist that I know, including my dad and my sister, have their own issues. But that empathy is what makes them good at their job.
There's a lot of pressure on Broadway. There's this feeling that the show has to be a commercial success and the producers have to make their money back and Tonys and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I was not a fan of the Bush administration, as I think many of us were not.
My mother was an actress and my voice teacher, an incredible voice teacher. My biological father is an actor, and my stepfather, who raised me along with my mother, is a psychotherapist. I was always supported in creative ventures.
I don't think theater is dying, and musicals are a great American art form. We've got apple pie, jazz and musical theater.
Musical theatre is my first love.
