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
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 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.
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.
That was my intention, was to have it be from the perspective of my high-school-aged self, and to try and emulate the music that I listened to at that time. So to write essentially like a pop-punk song about musicals. I wanted the dichotomy of the tone of the music with the lyrics and my singing voice.
I wanted other women to know there's no shame in talking about it. People don't say they're pregnant until the second trimester. I intellectually understand that you don't want the whole world to know your business, but at the same time what does that mean? You don't tell your employers you're pregnant, but then when you miscarry no one knows you miscarried. Miscarrying is a horrible painful event.
I really do love the Muppets. My sister used to call them the Muffets. She'd be like, "Can we watch the Muffets?" So anything that reminds me of how adorable my sister was, I'm a big fan of.
I didn't love stickers and unicorns and stuff, but just if I were to ride on the back of a beast to work, I want it to be a frickin' unicorn.
What's the worst, is when people clearly haven't researched you. One time an interviewer asked me if I do a lot of plays. I'm like, yeah. Have you Googled me? There's this thing called Google, and you can ask Google that question. Then you could come to me with informed questions that didn't make me feel like I am brand new to the world.