Audra McDonald is the "Luckiest Survivor in the World"

playing Madam Guardrobe in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. The performance was so great one critic wrote that her name and the credits prompted theatergoers to erupt and cheers. I sat down with Audre before her debut this summer in London's West End, where she takes on Billie Holiday, whose life as a black female performer hits close to home specifically for me. I would say that there was an expectation on my part that things would get easier as

a result of being successful. You know, well, what do you mean, I They're going to make more money than I am, and yet we're doing the same thing we're playing. We're basically equal as far as the roles are concerned. Or um, what did you do to address that? If anything? I didn't. For I didn't do anything for a while I should have and I didn't. I just went along well. And especially you know, when you're an accurates, like you're always being told you should be grateful you've the job.

You know, you're being told that if you if you push too much, you're going to get a bad reputation from being yes, yes, and I there's actors that are infinitely less talented than you work all the time. You're just easy to be, easier to work with, and they don't. They don't. Cause in terms of being an African American performer, did that change? Well, I tell you, I mean, let me give you an example of how in some ways

it changed and didn't change. I have to I have to acknowledge the fact that I am someone who has had uh an incredible opportunity in terms of sort of breaking down barriers as far as like color blind casting, being color blind cast as Carrie Pepperidge in in Carousel, you know, or the fact that I played mother Abbess and the sound of Music Live, you know, and um, you know a lot of people have issues with that, but you know I was the one that got the

opportunity to do that. You know. Um, when I was doing Annie for ABC, they did a version of that with Kathy Bates and Victor Garber and m Alan Cumming and Kristin Cheneworth, and they cast me as Grace Ferrell. And there was a scene at the end where Grace Ferrell and and and Daddy Warbocks proposes to Grace Ferrell. At the end, the happy ending is happening, you know. Victor Warbox, Yes, he was my daddy. I love him too.

And actually you'll appreciate this. We were sitting around one day on the set and uh, you know, in the big gorgeous mansion that Daddy Warbos has and we were sitting between takes and I was sitting next to Victor and I just got a little emotionally said, Victor, what if this was really our house and we were really getting married and we had all this money in this life? And he said, in the just true Victor fashion, Darling, get ahold of yourself saying that, right. But anyway, so

we were film breaking, Yeah, we're filming. We're filming Annie and UM, so we shot the scene where you know, Daddy Warbocks gives Grace Ferrell the ring and it's lovely, and then UM, we get word that we have to

come in on a Saturday to do some reshoots. And Rob Marshall was directing UM and Neil Marin and Craigs Aiden, who are wonderful, wonderful producers and have been very kind to me over the years and give me a lot of work that cast me in Sound of Music as a mother abbesss and UM they said we have to do some reshoots, and then they took me aside and said, it turns out that Disney might be a little uncomfortable or the powers that be. I don't know if it

was Disney ABC, I don't know. We're comfortable. There might be some issues with Daddy Warbucks actually marrying Grace, so so we need to reshoot the scene and do it without you're hooking up with Daddy Warbucks giving and I. I was devastated. I was I was devastated. It was one of those things where you know you're starting to feel good, You're starting to feel like, oh, there's really change coming things are happening here, I am playing this role and and it's it's Annie, but nobody cares and

it's wonderful. Nobody else feel including Victor, I think everybody, and I think they were all kind of horrified. And you know, also, did they use in the product in the film? Rob said, Okay, so we're all going to come in on a Saturday. And you know how expensive that is when you're only shooting Monday to Friday, coming

on a Saturday just to reshoot the scene. So everybody comes in and we get dressed up in that moment for that scene, and Rob does one big master take of Daddy Warbucks, just sort of going, hey, and everybody, anybody,

it's great and this is great. This happened. Okay, looking at you kid, exactly you over there, you person, you and he got one shot, one master take, one shot, and then Rob said, okay, got that, so while we're here, and then he proceeded to reshoot other things that he thought he could make it, so he tanted the tank it.

He did tank it so they couldn't use it, so they ended up using where So you look in the film and Daddy Warbucks proposes to Grace Ferrell in that and that's because that's because of Rob, you know, and his courage. His courage. Absolutely. And then at the end of the year when the film came out, Time magazine said something or maybe it's a newsweek um, and he said that in Things that Happened this Year, Daddy Warbroocks

marries a black Grace Ferrell and nobody cares. So I don't know what that's the answer to, but it's just an issue of things that you know, you think, you get to a certain point where you know things are changing, and then boom, you're sort of slammed back into that reality. What are you in the middle of doing now? I can't remember what you're doing You're rehearsing some show? Yes, yes, yes, I've got a Lady Day was on the West End. You're gonna go to London? Yeah, I've never been. No, not,

I've never performed on the West End. That's that's what I mean. You've never performed over there? Not I performed, but never on the West End. I've never I've done like concerts and stuff that I've never done a show, yeah, yeah, yeah. What of the places outside of New York have you performed that's an interesting thing to think about. Well in terms of like concert work everywhere, but actual shows I've

only done, well, that's not true. I did the Secret Garden Tour a million years ago, so you know, you know, you do kind of a national tour, you go all over the place. Yeah, I did, but as you know, ensemble member, you know, and then I did Master Class is the only other one that I did. We did that in l a And at the Kennedy Center. We did the taper at the Kennedy Center, and Plays and Players in Philadelphia before we came into New York. But

that's been the nineties. Do you find that you stay in New York and try to stay in New York with that's home and that's easier for you, and well, yeah, I mean it is Broadway. It's Broadway, and that's where I want to be. Yeah, but especially since you know, since having kids, you know, well, I have a six month old, and I have a sixteen year old, and

I have two stepsons who are sixteen and thirteen. So it's a have a sixteen year old and that's yours, that's mine, and you have a six month old that's mine, that's yours. Yes, yes, you know what that's like, having a bit of a spread in between. She read a kid when you were very young, the sixteen year Well, that's very kind of you to say, Oh, I was thirty when I had my first and now I'm forty six and you want to have another baby, you know, I or you were drunk on a sailboat with your husband?

What happened? Which is it? Which is it? It's it's it's somewhere in between. It's really that the Broncos won the Super Bowl. Seriously, Oh my god, and my husband is a big Broncos fan. And nine months later the rest is Sally James McDonald swinson. Yeah, what are you gonna do? How was that for you? Because I mean I don't always want to ask. I was saying, how I want to do another show, but I don't want to be away at dinner time every night for four

to six months. What's that like? Do you bring the kids to the theater? I did, Well, I certainly did with my sixteen year old um when she was little, she was at the theater all the time with me. That was kind of the only way. And I imagine, well, I know for a fact, when I'm in London. Um, I'm staying very close to the theater, and she'll be

at the theater. And and if I were to get another Broadway show, I would just bring her there because you don't want to you don't want to miss anything, and you don't you don't want to make them feel like what about the baby? But yeah, the baby will come. Absolutely. She has to be with you right until the half hour.

That's what I've been doing now this year, you know, since i've had her, I've started back concertizing and literally I've had her backstage with either my husband when he can join me, or my babysitter, and um, I will sing and then run off stage and nurse her and then you know, go do your meet and greet or whatever. And actually during one concert she was really really fussy, and so my husband went on and performed, and I ran off stage and and and nurse her and called

her down and the right back on stage. Crazy crazy. Where did you meet him? Your husband? We met doing in the Shade, the show on Broadway back in two thousand and seven, so yeah, a long time ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was crazy time too. I Um, I met him and then my dad was killed in the plane crash like a couple of like about six weeks later. He was a high school principal. And when you grew up in California, but here we were born in Germany. I

was born in Germany. What was she doing over there? Here? He was in the he was in the army. And then, um, yeah, I was raised in Fresno, California. My dad was a high school principle and then he went on to become an associate superintendent of schools there. But his passion was flying, and he flew small planes and he had his own and he was he had just recently retired and he had his own plane that he was flying, And um, yeah, he where were you when you found that about that?

I was actually walking. I just finished the matinee of The Shade. We were still in previews, and I was walking with um my husband. He wasn't my husband at the time. He was just a friend at the time. We a bunch of us were walking to meet the rest of the cast to have you know, a post you know, Sunday matinee drink with the entire cast. And my step mom called and said my dad was remarried. Yes, he was remarried and your mom still alive. Yes, my mom.

First she lives next door to me in the yeah yeah, yeah, in Westchester. And when she retired and left town, yes, yes, but yeah, my stepmom called me and said, and I was just I was on fifty three Street between eighth and ninth Avenues, and it was it was it's interesting, you know in those moments, you know, you see what happens in film and you think it will be similar, you know, in real life, and it's it seldom is you know, as an act. Well, I didn't it didn't

compute what she was saying. You know. She said, your dad, dad had an accident while he was flying the plane and he didn't make it. And I kept saying, oh, I said, okay, so where is he now? And she said, Audre, he didn't make it. It's like, okay, well where Yeah. But I wasn't. It wasn't computing either, you know, and

I was just really stunned. And it took it took a day for me to really start to cry, you know, because it just it was close to him, yeah, yeah, very close, and it just wasn't making sense, you know. So it's interesting. I mean, it's it's been ten years on it will be ten years actually next week that his since his passing, and um. But it's just interesting. As an actor, this sounds so cold and callous and

it's not. It's not meant to be. But as an actor, there was a part of me that was sort of floating away from my body watching the scene, going, I don't think you're having the right reaction, you know, I don't. Yeah, yeah, that's not you know, if this were seen, you'd fall to the ground and and you know, break into a million pieces. And you're not doing that. You're you're playing the scene wrong. It's so strange. But actually I know exactly when I really started to cry about my dad's passing,

and it was I had I found out. We were getting ready to open a ten of The Shade, and so we're getting ready to go into a critics week where critics are coming and they're saying I'm saying I have to go, and they're saying, you're the star of the show. You can't leave as I have to. And so they canceled a couple of shows so I could fly home to California. This is for their profits funeral, and you can leave well, they know, they were just like,

how do we do this? You know? And actually was at the end of it was like right at Tony um, what's it called? When it's the cut off times? Qualification time? So everybody was like, we what do we do? So they were kind enough to cancel enough shows for me to run home for the funeral and trying to work that out with my step mom who was devastated and you know, really broken, and trying to keep her together and keep the family together and figure it all out.

And it wasn't until after the funeral you're saying hello to everybody, and I just kind of kept it together the whole time. And then as soon as I greeted like the person or something like a thousand people at his funeral. He was very very well known and very loved in Fresno, California, and his older sister came and said, how are you doing? And that's when I lost. When you emptied out, I emptied out. But it was you know,

but once again, that's not how I mean. Maybe maybe a good director, but that's not how I just imagined the film. An actress, you're always controlling and managing your feelings anyway, lovers and knobs and dials inside of us there was in the playing with all these were paid for, you know, So you moved to Fresno. When you grew up in Fresno beginning at what age? I was nine months old? Here's your little baby. So you're a child. And so there's there's the Order McDonald who grows up

in California. There's the Order McDonald who now is one of the princesses of the Broadway Theater. Yeah, there's like a mount Rushmore. It's you and burn it out and all these chicks. Now, who are these the greatest singers in the world? And I want to talk about the auder in between. So the order in between when you first start under the business, when people are hiring you, and as you're building your career in New York and singing,

what were they hiring you? Four? Well, I think it had more to do with if I look back on it now, and no one's ever asked me this, So kudos to you. Well, I do try, You've got you've got the talent um, But I think it had more to do with I wasn't what people were expecting. Um, you know, back in those days, can I say back

in those days, yeah, the early nineties. Um, you know, you'd go on audition for something and they'd see an African American girl and her twenties walk in, and I think they'd expect some big gospel voice or you know, they're like, can you be streets part you know, all those code words and whatnot, and I would sort of break out with the pseudo operatic voice that had Broadway qualities and was a bit goofy um and so I think it just intrigued people more than anything. I think

that's even how I got into Juilliard. When I auditioned for Juilliard, and I wasn't you know, I wasn't really wanting to pursue classical music, but I thought, I'll audition on the strength of my voice. That's that's my my strength. Was that a goal to go to Juilliard, Well, I wanted to go to New York. I wanted to live in New York. Juilliard was at Lincoln Center, you know, you know, the good beginning. Yeah, um, and I thought I'd be able to get like my acting classes in

nancing classes while I was there. I didn't realize that once you're in a program once you're in a department, you know, you shall not stray, you stay in that department, and you know. So I just went in there an audition, didn't really know what I was doing, and kind of riffed at the end of a Mozart area. You're not supposed to riff with Mozart, and I did, And I said, I was a mezzo soprano, and I'm singing subrette, you know, roles for them, showing them. I sang a subrette aria

from the note to de Figuro marriage Figuro. And so for people who don't know what soubrette is, what is that, I'm one of those people. By the way you do well. Soubrette is sort of like a really high light soprano, not necessarily coloratura, but she's like a young, sweet heroine type lighter sound, not like a full lyric soprano. And um so it's a lot of people say the ena rolls Despina or Celina, the little cute roles. So anyway, that's what I sang. I sang one of those areas.

But then I said, I'm a metzo soprano, which I just I was just that, just showing how much I didn't know how how little I knew. And they laughed at me and they said how old are you and I said, I'm said teen, and they just said okay, And I thought, well, I blew that. And then two weeks later they called me and said, we want you to come to Juilliard. But I don't think I think it was just intrigue on their party. You're there for

four years, Well would you start working? No? I was there for five years, but you finished there, you graduated from the Yeah, I had. I took a leave of absence because I had a suicide attempt actually while I was there, so I took a leave of absence. There's a lot that happened between the Order and Fresno, California and the Order who's on Broadway. Now, okay, we're going to cover as much of that as you care to in the time. I'm completely open about it. But so

you're in Juilliard. What years was that? That five years was from when to win? It was from So when you're there, was it trouble for you fitting in? Did you feel uncomfortable and out of place? There? Absolutely was that a part of what led you to do what you did. Yeah, I felt out of place artistically. I felt all my life growing up in Fresna, California, all I wanted to do was beyond Broadway. And and then I thought, you know, let me audition for Juilliard. Just

didn't think it through audition got in. So everybody back at home was like, Wow, Ordre got into Juilliard in New York. She's you know, she's gonna make it. And then I get to Juilliard and I'm studying classical musing, I'm like, this isn't what I want to do. I don't want to be an after singer. Why surely they're gonna let me go take some acting classes, surely it, and go do some dance less and surely it and go an audition for Broadway shows. No, you have to

just study, you know, if you are enjoying it. No, I and I felt I felt lost. I felt completely lost. I felt like I was off at But that that alone, I'm assuming, and tell me if I'm wrong, didn't lead you to do something drastic. What else? No? I mean, well, you know, to the extent you can say, yeah, well, you know, like I said, I'm open about it, because you know, I think I'm a case of it it

gets better, you know. But I so I was lost in terms of that, and then feeling like I couldn't just quit and go back home because I would look like a failure back at home. And you know, I had boy trouble while I was there. And so the culmination of being where I wanted to be in New York City, thinking I'm finally going to realize my dreams, stuck and failing miserably at Juilliard, not being able to admit to anybody at home what was going on, not being able to go home because I would have looked

like a failure. Living literally on Broadway on Broadway my apartment and my address was Broadway Broadway, the residentially the old Broadway I called the wild wild West, and in anything north of eighty six Street, forget it. You did not in your shield and a sword to go to the grocery store right, and to look at it now,

Oh my goodnes. But what I'm curious about is that the woman, the young woman from Fresno, who goes to New York and and and again let me put a fine point of this before you answer, which is, and you say you have boyd troubles? Are you dating a different kind of boy. Now, what, Julie, are the boys that were hard for you to understand? So I was, you know, I was that all the same? Well, I was just not be treated well by a boy. Yeah, boys are the same, alloy, Thank you, my guest has

been ever good night everybody. But but but, but but the reason I asked this, I want are you a fish out of water in every way? Yes? I was a fish out of water in every way except for the fact that I was in New York, which is what I knew I wanted. I knew that much was right, but everything I kept grounded, Yes, but everything else was wrong, and so in you know, in those days I was.

I couldn't see past the fact that I had gotten here and everything up to up to now had gone swimmingly, and all of a sudden it was all falling apart. And um, if you don't know my asking, what the what were the the the ramp up the time, and

what you were thinking and feeling? And the only reason I asked this for people who listen to this, who might be young people and artists who are experienced a certain kind of pain that you experience in this business that I think is very unique because you exude in your work. You seem so confident and so powerful. Well, I think it's because I'm now, I'm I'm where I'm supposed to be. I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm doing what I think. If you want to get

I don't know, you're not playing the inna roles anymore. No, no, no, But I mean it's it's more about I'm artistically fulfilled. I think my artistic soul is fulfilled. It's doing what it's supposed to do. You greet them what kid look copy to me? Not that she doesn't still find challenges coming up. Ardo McDonald talks about a song that's been rather hard to sing. Ardo McDonald isn't the only star

who struggled to find her voice. I mean when I tell people I was extremely shy that nobody believes me. Now that I think that people have to overcome yes, exactly. You know. I found a lot of comedians to be serious and and was withdrawn sometimes. So yeah, I think sometimes we overcome things by going after the very thing that really eludes us. To hear more about Renee Fleming story, go to Here's the Thing dot Org. This is Alec

Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing. If ever there was a track record that warranted Diva doom, it is Audre McDonald's. But despite her unparalleled fame, the Queen of Broadway is disarmingly humble, perhaps the mark of a

person who has endured great pain in her case. While studying at Juilliard, this was my third year and it had been just yet another year of floundering and doing poorly in all my class is, and teachers just saying, you know, you've got to get give over to your operatic sound, and me not wanting to, not knowing what that was, um. And when I would get close to an operatic sound, I'd say, I don't want to sound like that. So I felt like I was just being

pushed and they were doing their job rightfully. So this is like, this is your Juilliard to study. This is what you're gonna do to push me into a place that just wasn't me artistically. So that coupled with being one by yourself in New York and being treated poorly by um whatever his name was, what's his name, I were so going to say that no, no, no, no, no, he's he's fine. He's a great guy now, but in any rate. Um, so all of that combined with me being sort of like the great hope from my my

hometown too. You know, Ordre is gonna make it. If anybody's gonna make it on Broadway, it's going to be Audre. I the boy was the catalyst. That's sort of like, sort of broke that. It was a straw that broke the camel's back. But it was three years of I'm in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing. I'm failing miserably, but I'm here in Disneyland, where I'm supposed to be where I said I wanted to be. So I I I slit my wrists one night, and what happened? And

about this? Have you written about this? I haven't. I guess I should. I speak about it all the time, but maybe one day I'll write about it. And found, Um, I slit my wrists and then realized what I had done and called the student affairs director who I had become close with, and said, I helped me, and someone came and helped you, and they helped me, and they took me to a mental hospital. Um, it's interesting, this

mental hospital still there. Um, Gracie Square Hospital. It's next door to um my uh my O B G y n who delivered my six month old uh circuit that so I almost didn't make it, and now I made it. And it was I had to pass it, you know, every week to go to my O. B G y n appointment, I had to pass Gracie Square Hospital. And every time I passed it, there was a part of me just you know, waddling down the street. Pregnatives can be some twenty nine years later, I would, um, I would.

I felt such relief and joy and and you know a sense of yes, I I get I get the big picture. Now one month in the school year was that that that happened. It was January or February. So at the midpoint, let's say, and you take off obviously, and you come back when you come back the following fall,

you don't. I came back, um the following fall for a little bit, and then I got an opportunity to audition for something that ended up end up being the Secret Garden actually, and I asked the you know, administration office and my the dean, what I should do, and they said, you know, go do that It's okay, take the time off to go do that. It seems like that's where you want to be. So and they they probably didn't want to disappoint you at that point. At that point you want to go and do it. Yeah,

we don't ever want to get your way. You know. The thing is there was actually a lot, not a lot, but they had a special arrangement with Gracie Square Hospital. They were a couple of other Juilliard students there that I had wondered what had happened to I was there. I was at the hospital for mean Gray Square I think is private hospital. I was there for a month. Um. They evaluated me and said you you're not going anytime soon? Um, and did that change you? I was so heavily medicated,

they I was heavily medicated. When you say that, it's so compelling to me because when I see you, I think of you. I think of you like you know, you're so strong, your personality and performed. I view you as the person that's going to go I'm going back into the burning building to save the baby. Well that is me now, but I think maybe that experience helped make me that now. I mean, look, I'm still. I mean, everybody's a mess, always a mess, I you know, and

I what, I understood a lot going on. Yeah, and I realized, you know, I'm someone who suffers from depression, and but I've learned in the years a how to deal with it be to find you know, find my joy and see you to realize that, like alcoholism, it's something that you wake up every day and you say, yeah, that's still something that I have to deal with, as opposed to saying, oh, I'm just not depressed anymore. Just

but to learn how to cope with that. And my my art gives me a lot of joy and keeps me, keeps me strong. So what's the first job you do? This is a tired question, but I can't help back asking, especially with something like you, what's the first job wouldn't you do? When you sit there and go I got this. I think I got this, Like I'm over the no known meaning you know that the sky is the limit

for you. You're out there and you're doing it and you're connecting to that material you know, and you go, I think I really really have a shot at my dream coming true. Here. It was Sally Murphy and she was she was Julie Jordan and I played Carrie Pepperridge. And who was the guy Michael Hayden was Yes, yes, yes, Nick.

Lincoln Center, which is also crazy for me to then open, you know, in in Carousel at Lincoln Center, where at Vivian Momont Theater where you can look up and I can see the school that I, you know, had a hard time in. And and I remember standing in those in those windows at Juniiard looking at Vivian Beaumont, seeing Patti Lapone performing there, and going why am I not doing that? And then how do you feel? Um like

luckiest survivor in the world. I mean, and I felt a sense of gratitude, a sense of relief, and a sense of Okay, I get it. I now get that I was on my path. Out the window of one place is your future. Out the window of Juilliard where you try to snuff yourself, is the Vivian Beaumont where you're going to do Carousel. Across the streets, always a vistaf you what might have been, what have been? What was? Which was something not bad and wonderful? Yeah, I mean

babies and Tony Awards and all that stuff. I think, I think what I realized is there's a bigger picture. And I think, you know, it's very easy to you know, just get into tunnel vision, especially when you're young and you know it's only you that you're having to think about. And not that that's a bad thing, but it's just easy to get buried very quickly, um, under emotion and and fear and disappointment and all that. And um, I just think that I learned to have a bigger picture

about life. Once you become extraordinarily successful in the You won your first Tony Award for what show Carousel? And you how old your child and you when you were you were fresh out of that situation, went far that far removed from that situation. It was two and a half years away from that two and a half years later, which is nothing. Yeah, you win a Tony Award and you've won six Tony Awards. Yes, you won the most Tony Awards of anybody. Are you tired with somebody? You're

tired with you? No? Not, that's true. You know. I love when people. I love when people sit there and they go, oh, I don't know, I don't keep tracking that. I go, you liar, your Tony's lined up. Not you people in general. I doubt you do actually, but to embarrass you even more than I already had, good God, you are enormously talented and everything clicks, and you're very very successful, and you're a gorgeous woman. Well you're you're

a gorgeous woman. And what did that do in terms of your career, meaning that you could have gone and made films and done a television series? Did you have a lot of offers to do that you swept aside? No, I've never had those offers. I mean, I did one television series series once where I played the best friend in Private Practice to the main character Private Practice. Kate Walsh played Addison Montgomery and I played her. Did you

do that? I did it for five six years. The show ran for seve in years, and I did it for five or six years. But No, Hollywood is never really banged down to my doors. And I think that's because, um, you're very kind to say I'm gorgeous, but I don't think i'm the typical sort of look. I'm also a big girl, and I'm proud of that, and I'm fine

with that. But you know, it's it's interesting when you go to Hollywood, and you see these people on the movie screens your entire life, and then you see them in person and they're all like one fourth of that paper airplane. What the hell? You don't look well a cheeseburger, No, No, I mean in the same will look terrible. But it's just for me. It's just like I. I you know, I think size wise that has something to do with it.

And I and I don't know that that's where I'm at my strongest, you know, And I think we works so hard to develop this perchure in Now what's that like for you to have to go out and ring yourself out again? Well? The process for me, I I go really inside. I get really quiet. People around me think that I'm angry with them before I do a show because I just get very quiet, and I go inside and and stay still. And I'm not I'm not one to kind of jump around and go visit other

dressing rooms. I just I have to kind of go in and be super super super quiet and still, because yeah, because in a minute, you're gonna have to turn all of your insides out. And so if I'm giving all that out beforehand, I will have nothing to get the hardest ones for you, Lady Day. Absolutely that was by myself on stage for an hour and forty five minutes, just having to give it and especially living that life that she lad I have have to live that on stage every night. Um that I was no fun to

be around before the show. After the show, I was involved, because that's very common. Yes, because I was real that was over until the next You know, it's interesting. I know I can remember who. Oh maybe it was Kathy Bates. I can't remember who said this to me, but I said, well, why don't you ever come back to Broadway or do a show on Broadway? And I think it was Cathy Page said, oh, honey, oh that's hard. It's hard, and she's right, you know it is because especially when you think, Okay,

I've done it, I've given in good performance. I got through that. You know, when you're doing a film, you're like, great, it's in the can, and now I'm off to Cabo or whatever, you know. But Broadway it's like, and now I have to do that again tomorrow night, and then the next night after that, in the next and it's a blessing. At the end of every day. I got to go to work you have that whole day and

what happens in that day in the world. The worst thing for me when I was acting was when I have a wonderful, fun day and then I had to go to work and ring myself out and so I'm trying to go do the Scottish play. Yes, for me, it was always on Sunday Mattenee's. When you're headed to your Sunday Mattinee and you're walking down Ninth Aven and you're seeing everybody outside either at a street fair or having wine and runch, and I can't tell you how

many sun in the sun. I can't really tell you how many times you're walking down Ninth Ave and you just want to take your hand and swipe a lot of food off at those sidewalk tables. To say that's not fair, of course not. I mean it's I'm doing what I wanted to do my entire life. But there is that people are counting on you. Yes, that's amazing. When I did Street Card, I got really sick and

I missed the show. I was out for it for a weekend, but to say, out of days in the Sunday and I missed the show, But I go downstairs. I lived on Central Park West. I go downstairs. I crossed over to Broadway on eighties six and Broadway on the northeast corner. I'm going to cross over to William's Chicken and get my soup. Yes, And I'm there and this little woman looks up to me. It's like seven

o'clock at night. It's a it's a Friday night or a Saturday night rather, and she looks up at me, this little owlish from when she goes, aren't you supposed to be on Broadway right now? Us town? Flipping town. I have a story like that too. I mean, we were it was a New Year's Eve and Ethan Hawk had been able to we were doing Henry the Fourth at Lincoln Center, and he've been able to get the entire cast invited to the plays and Players Club with

a what's the club over on the Players Club? Players Club? Yes, for New Year's Eve. So we're all there and we're all celebrating, and it's wonderful, but we're, you know, in and amongst you know, the actual members of this club. And it's New Year's Eve and I'm doing a play. And I was still young, and I thought I'm going to have a cigarette, you know, whine, I'm gonna have a cigarette. And I don't smoke as a rule, but I just decided as New Year's Eve, I'm going to

have wine and cigarettes and it'll be fun. So I was smoking out on the little terrorists they have out there, smoking my cigarette. I'm chatting with some of my cast members and an older woman who's a member of the players come. She comes up to me and she said, I'd say, your order, McDonald, but it couldn't possibly be home because she wouldn't be smoking, destroying her instruments. She wouldn't be smoking. And then she just sort of marched off. Now,

who are people who in your life? In your career, one might assume you've sung the song, sang the songs of pretty much everyone you want to sing. Where there's there one that's gotten by. Is there some composer whose music you want to sing that you haven't? Say No, I wouldn't say that. I mean there's always young I I have always championed the work of new young musical theater composer, So I'm always looking for new work to do.

There are certain songs that I stay away from um because I don't feel that I can do them properly. For example, um one that I have not been able to conquer that I have tried a couple of times and never done in public because I can't conquer it is being alive. I saw in time. I cannot as much as that song moves me, as much as it means to me. Every time I try and sing it, I fail. So I I have not done it in public and I and I won't until I figure it out. And that is that strange. No, No, I mean, I'm

sure there's people it's like in place. I mean, I'm trying to I'm trying to think of writers. Do you have writers whose work you steer clear of as a performer because you don't you don't get it, so you don't know how to bring it to life. Not that you don't enjoy watching. I might enjoy watching, you know, whatever. I want to have in the theater. Life itself is so filled with oddities now and surreal crap going on with the government and everything. I want to see something

which is really I want to honesty now. I need to have a like auction. I need a big hit of honesty. You know that's interesting I was listening to a performer on the way down here who I absolutely meyer, whose work I admire, and they were singing a song that didn't, in my mind, seem quite right for them. Not that they weren't singing it beautifully, but I thought, I don't think they believe this. I don't. I think

they're trying something and they don't believe it. And and there's a part of me that thought, why am I thinking that about them? I do that stuff all the time. But I think you're right. There is something going on right now, and the zeitgeist as sort of like you're, everybody is needing truth and needing needing something to ground them.

And where is reality any satire? And my last question for you is, first of all, describe for me, if you would, as I try to always think about people in your profession and who do what you do as well as you do, a moment when you're on stage and you used to go out there at night and you'd sing a song and you knew you were going to kill these people, you know, the minute that you sang that song, the way you said that you could almost feel the people just getting destroyed by that song.

Is that in a Lady Day as well. Well, I think in the beginning with Lady Day, because I think no one thought that I could find her voice, you know, because I'm a soprano. So it's like, what are you doing with the soprano doing Lady Day, you know, trying to be Billy Holiday. She doesn't have it in her,

and I didn't think I had it in me. And so some nights, you know, the show opens and the first thing I do is sing before I even start speaking, and so the audience and you can tell that the audience is waiting to hear is she gonna get it? And on nights that I really felt that I was really lined up, really lined up with Billy. I had had enough, you know, of her perfume on, and I had the makeup right, and I had the gin behind my ears so I could smell like what she must

have smelled like in those days. And I would open my mouth and sing the first all I know is I'm in love with you, um, and you'd hear sometimes i'd hear the audience gasp, and that's when I'd be like, Okay, I got that right now, sustain it for the next hour and forty five minutes, you know, and I'd feel that, I'd think, Okay, they're they're taking the journey with me. And there were nights where that wouldn't happen. I think, okay, I gotta drag him on this journey to you know.

But every once in a while there'd be that moment of and every every once a while here people go, oh my god, oh no is I'm in low you eve in the you said that we are through. I know that's your lave. Yes can't go I under whew. Lad has got the final line of a review from The Evening Standard for her recent West End debut as Billie Holiday doubles as a review of Audre herself quote yet still she stands broken but indomitable to the last unquote.

This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the Thing, and darling, if that's not enough, I'll luin. If things