Kelli O'Hara

“My mom's side of the family is from Arkansas!”

“I love to play things that are out-of-the-box. It's just that I don't always get the chance to do it!”

“I'm proud to be Irish.”

“I've always wanted my characters to have more dimension and realistic cores than the ingenue material often provides. It's been a challenge.”

“There is such a cliche to certain roles that all I can do is to try to make them realistic and work for the times, and so the audience actually won't see me as a caricature of something, but rather as an actual person.”

“I don't have that many family and friends.”

“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.”

“I've always wanted to do a Shakespeare play.”

“When you step out and do a song in a musical, the easier thing to do is make it funny. But when those transitions become necessary, when they aren't camp, that, to me, is magic. I've done musical comedies and enjoyed them, but subject matter that's deeper and more realistic is always what's appealed to me most.”

“I never really try to watch the movie of the things I've been in.”

“When I was a kid, I would sing in people's living rooms and for different little family things.”

“In my special place, room service could only consist of my husband making me a breakfast of eggs, avocados, and hummus. And coffee with milk.”