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
Everyone has these ideas, especially about the middle of the country, about people being backwards and three-toothed.
'South Pacific' has a definite heaviness that people don't realize. It's got a seriousness and a message.
I've had great opportunities to show different sides of myself, but the challenge will always be getting either people to let you do it or finding the right things to do in order to do it.
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.
I think in this business [acting] there's the option to do a lot of things and say, "I don't care. I'm just going to do what I want," but what I do affects a lot of people.
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.
Sometimes I think people are famous because they're themselves and they do a role and you see them do it.
When doing a revival, you have a lot of people asking you questions about someone who played it before, and to me that's neither here nor there - it has no bearing on the material that I have to use. The material that is written down in a score and script that the writers originally used is what I use.
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.