Laura Benanti
Laura Benanti
Laura Ilene Benantiis an American actress and a singer. She played Louise in the 2008 Broadway revival of Gypsy, winning the Tony Award, and appeared in the stage musical Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown in 2010, winning the Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. She played Baroness Elsa Schräder in the 2013 NBC television production of The Sound of Music Live! and in 2015 began playing twin sisters...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Actress
Date of Birth15 July 1979
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
I do think that there is an almost more old fashioned mentality to the way musical theatre people and actresses especially are treated.
I always love to see singing on television; any form of a musical is exciting to me.
There's an infantilization that happens to actresses in general - musical theatre, straight theatre, television, film - we're spoken to like children. Actors are spoken to like children a lot of the time.
I think it's good to have an old fashioned musical as well as new musicals. There's a lot of room for different shows.
Do I want to write a musical? No. I like to do musicals.
I think there's that weird bastardization where musical theatre actors are treated as almost like vaudevillians or circus performers - that we're somehow not good actors because we sing and dance.
Musical theatre is my first love.
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.
Food is the most basic forum for discussing things like love and the absence of love; how we hurt ourselves and how we heal ourselves.
I was not a fan of the Bush administration, as I think many of us were not.
I was a little girl who grew up idolizing musical-theatre stars.
I actually enjoy Britney Spears. Not as a singer but as a performer. I just enjoy watching her. I think, 'You are so brave.'
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.
Just standing next to Zoe Caldwell made me a better actress, ... He said some amazing things that I will keep with me for the rest of my life.