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
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.
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.
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.'"
I'm not a victim. And the people who are victims of something, my heart is completely with them. But I'm not. I know I've been treated like a woman in this business [acting]. I mean I've got lots of stories, but they don't have any control over me.
By no means, I can't sing any rock and roll.
I've always wanted to do a Shakespeare play.
Everyone's story is different, and we can't really be inside them.
I don't ever sing classically when I am singing a contemporary score - I kind of try to fit in whatever needs to happen.
Shakespeare has great ability to skirt around a subject and portray human nature.
My great-grandfather, Peter O'Hara, was born in Ireland, I believe, in County Clare. His father, my great-great-grandfather, had actually come to America a generation before when times were very bad in Ireland. He worked in the Pennsylvania area and did well with horses and farming.
I'm a mother, and when you have children, there's a protection. You'll do a lot to protect them, to do what's best for them.
With a revival, you're compared to somebody else.
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.