Keala Settle Is Falling in Love with Herself

Hellove Sunshine, Hey besties.

Today on the bright Side, we're joined by Tony nominated Broadway actor and singer Kala Settle. She's gearing up for the release of her latest project. You might have heard of it, the movie adaptation of the Broadway musical Wicked. So she's stopping by to get real about the role that put her on the map, and sheer why fame wasn't what she expected it to be. It's Monday, August fifth.

I'm Simone Boyce, I'm Danielle Robe and this is the bright Side from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together to share women's stories, to laugh, learn and brighten your day. Simone, it's time for on My Mind Monday, and it's an opportunity for us to start the week fresh with some new ideas, new perspectives. Do you ever feel like you need to change your environment to get that new perspective?

I feel like that more often than I am content with my environment. I just thought, I'm always like to switch it up. I feel like it brings new energy, new ideas.

That's exactly it.

It's that new energy and I have been needing to make some creative decisions, particularly to write some things lately, and I have felt so stuck, and so this weekend I rented an Airbnb for just one night to try and get the creative juices flowing. I got this house in Malibu. It was right on the beach, all windows. I fell asleep with the water crashing on the shore, and you know what happened?

What happened? Tell me?

I woke up with answers. Really, the ocean brought me the answers. I was writing like a mad woman.

You're like Mohana. The ocean just brings everything you need get to you.

I felt that way. So it was so nice.

I'm so happy for you. I love this for you.

Thank you. What's on your mind this Monday?

So, you know, as I've been watching Simone Biles and the Golden Girls absolutely dominate the Olympics, I've been thinking about that Malcolm Gladwell quote that we talk about all the time that it takes ten thousand hours to master a craft. But I've been wanting to take it a bit deeper and think about, Okay, what should those ten thousand hours actually look like? If we get granular with it, what do we do with those ten thousand hours? How do we make the most of them? And one theory

Pommelhorse guy pommeled harder than anyone has ever pommeled before. You know, everyone in my feet was posting about him. They're calling him gymnastics Clark Kent. He is superman. He had one job at the twenty twenty four Paris Olympics and it was to absolutely kill it.

But on the pommel horse.

Well, that's what I think is so interesting about him. And for context, it's been sixteen years since the US men's gymnastics team has meddled at the Olympics, but the Stars and Stripes are once again on the podium in men's gymnastics this year. And it's all thanks to him, thanks to never amain. Seriously, so here's what's different about him.

First of all, I'm so excited for him. There's all these memes of him sort of like sleeping on the bench on the sideline waiting and everyone's like, he's just napping waiting to pommel horse.

He's either sleeping or he's doing a Rubik's cube in nine seconds.

And I think what he's really doing is meditating and getting into this. But your explanation and story I think brings up a larger question, which is we're obsessed with multi hyphenates, yeah, in this world, And part of me loves that because I think for so long people were thought of as only being able to do one thing. Well,

Well, that's why I actually hate that phrase stay in your lane. I think it's so annoying.

Is particularly when it's directed at women, and I feel like it's directed at us more than other people oftentimes.

Yeah, I agree with you, And on the flip side of the idea of being a multi hyphen it, I do think that to be great at anything you do have to be singularly focused in many ways and just repeat it over and over and over again. I have a hard time juggling this because like, the creative brain in me wants to be able to do a few things, and the interviewer in me wants to just do that.

Yeah, how do you feel?

I feel this tension all the time, and where I've landed with it is I am a multi hyphen it. I don't know that I'm ever going to be able to just be a hyphen it a singular hyphen it. However, I think that one of those hyphens should be in bold and then the rest.

Oh, I like that are additive to it. I really like supplementary to it.

Yep, I really really like that.

So as always I can't pick. I think you should, I think you should have it all. I'm firmly standing in the nuance here.

Well, our guest today is someone who knows about that focus, that dedication to your craft.

Yeah, but she's also been known to rack the stage.

We have a Tony Award nominated actress here with us. Kala Settle has been in theatrical productions that have made enormous cultural impact. I'm talking Lamez Waitress, hair Spray one of my favorites. Sister act another favorite, And there's a show that's particularly close to her heart. She played Angelique in the West End production of Anne Juliette, and it was.

A role in the twenty seventeen film The Greatest Showman that launched her into the stratosphere and straight into my heart because her character, Letty's song this is Me became this gripping empowerment anthem. It almost became bigger than her, bigger than the film itself, and it really thrust Kayala into the Spotlight in a way that she never imagined. And then in twenty eighteen, the song won a Golden Globe for Best Original Song, So that was huge. It

And after considerable self work, self discovery, and what I really think was self love, she's now starring alongside Ariana Grande and Cynthia Rivo in the much anticipated film adaptation of Wicked coming this fall. So, Simon, let's see if she gives us a little inside.

Scoop on Wicked.

Yeah, we have to try, We gotta try, all right, We'll be back with Kayala Settle right after the break.

Kayala, Welcome to the bright Side.

Ah, thank you, thank you.

Simone and I grew up as theater kids, so We are really excited to learn about you and your professional path to some of the biggest stages. Wicked is coming out in late November, and I was excited to hear that you're originating a new role, one that did not exist in the theatrical performance. So when you're creating a character from scratch, what is the first thing that you do?

In general, it just depends on the genre of what you're doing. If you're doing like a live stage production versus a television production versus a film. The one constant through all of those is what is the small bit of you as a person that connects with each of those characters, with the knowledge and the bits and pieces that you have of yourself and what you want to put into the character.

As far as like creating a backstory for each character. What have they done before? What are they doing now? What are their hopes, what are their dreams, what are their fears? You know, all of those things. Yeah, coming to play. I'm very, very grateful for the career that I've had. Are clientsate career.

It sounds weird to me for the opportunities that I have that I continue to have and hope that I will continue to have more of them, because.

Art reflects life and it's a very important thing that we need to keep doing. So I'm very grateful for it and happy to do it, Kayla.

Whenever we speak to performers, they often trace their entire career back to watching this one show that really planted the theater bug in them, and they were like, man, I could see myself on that stage in that show. Was there a show that did that for you growing up?

No, No, there wasn't because I am Polynesian. My dad is from England and my mum was an indigenous Maori, so I saw no one that looked like me. And I was born in Rosen Hawai, which is as much as it is a part of the United States culturally speaking, in almost every aspect, it is not so leaving there and then.

Moving to the continental United States.

It's all magsaze in a way.

Growing up, who I was in reality didn't exist.

Not that I'm trying.

I'm not trying to go deep. These are just facts.

My question for you, then, is because I can really relate to that, I was very othered growing up, never really saw anyone, always always the other, always the only, always the first. Yeah, So when did that change for you? What was the experience or the moment that opened up your possibilities for you and made you believe that this career that you now have was possible.

Honestly, it just happened two months ago.

Really, what happened? What was the moment?

I had an opportunity to go and play a character called Angelique in the Australian touring production of and Juliet, which I've had the privilege and pleasure and honor to play a couple of times. I did the original reading of it in LA in twenty seventeen when.

I was a completely different person in a completely different life, And when I really got to do it was when I moved to the UK and had the chance to play it on the Western and then I was just recently given the opportunity to do it again because they were closing and the lovely, incredible talent that was playing and already was moving on to another show, but she needed to go before the show was closing, so they.

Had asked if I wanted to do it. And because my family on my mother's side is from New Zealand, and because I carry a valid New Zealand passport because of my mother. I absolutely jump at the chance. Because of where I was born and raised. It's very rare that you get to go back to New Zealand as an indigenous Maori, not physically there, and because it had been so long, and because life had happened a million

So does that makes sense?

Yeah, makes a lot of sense.

I just know that who I was was revitalized.

And the fear that I've had working in this industry, I'll be perfectly honest with you, dissipated because I remembered who I am and the fear went away.

I can feel it in how you're saying it more than even your words.

It sounds like you feel free.

Yeah, And so how does that manifest in your personal life now that you're back in London.

To be honest, when I was leaving, I was really scared to come back here. Because in our lives as we continue, if we allow ourselves to continue to grow and evolve, I left a different person and I came back a different person. In my personal lives, there are things that no longer mattered to me in the sense of, like every morning for decades, I worried about the way I looked and the way that, you know, my physical appearance,

I looked in the mirror.

And realized how much I fell in love with myself.

You're getting tierry talking about that.

Yeah, because it's it's you know, when you're when you're someone that is constantly for decades going out with going please love me, please love me, please love me, and all of these situations that happen and continue to recur so that you learn the lesson that you need to love yourself and you don't really want to pay attention to it and then you're given this gift of an experience, which for me it was just leaving just for six weeks and going back to where my mother's roots were

You've mentioned your mom a few times, and I want to better understand your childhood, Kayala. You were the oldest of five kids, and I read that your mom actually was not supportive of your path as an actor growing up.

Is that correct?

Yeah, that's correct. But that's because she wanted me. She wanted all of us to live the life that she had chosen for us. And because I was the oldest and I ended up having the skill set of whatever I had, my mother was hell bent on me being a.

Recording artist, which is why a lot of the physical appearance was coming into play, because back then it was like the late seventies early eighties and it was like Olivia Newton John.

However, my parents.

Bought the American Dream b BLN and Thinker, which was great for them because of where they came from. When you're a.

Child of immigrant parents, your entire life is spent going in between culture after culture, between culture, between accents, between dialects, between if you have it, the actual language, the other language that is being spoken. So for me, just personally, my entire life was spent surviving all of those things.

The code switching is exhausting, right, That's why I'm.

So tired of it, Because I can be and I understand that there's going to be bits and pieces where I speak and I sound like I'mori. There are bits and pieces of me that will still sound like ah't for bits and pieces of England. And then there are bits and pieces that I still sound like an American, an American in New York, an American in Hawaii, and American in La wherever you want to pick Kayla.

As I'm hearing you process all of this, it sounds like you have reached this place of liberation, but it's taken you a lot to get there. What was the catalyst for this period of growth?

My mother died. She died on the opened waitress in Cambridge, literally right forward Cone Core.

And because my mother was a very hard woman, but I don't blame her for being hard.

There weren't many people like her in the continental United States, and she had five children, which were basically a human fortress for her. So when my mother passed away, we had no reason to exist. And I will not speak for my other brothers and sisters because I'm sure they're still going through it. I know they are, but we all had to learn who we were almost ten years ago and meet each other for the first time.

Go back to those inner children.

Without knowing who the hell we were.

Have a question for you about fame, because I've read that you sort of have a conflicting relationship with it. Obviously, you love performing, that's you. That's so easy to tell in just speaking with you do. I love it, and it's electrifying when you're someone with your talent, it's electrifying to be on stage.

You're so lovely. Say that is so much.

That's the thing that makes me cry to hear that.

I'm very grateful.

Thank you. That's very You're very glind to say that.

That's kind of you to say, but I mean it.

If your mother wanted you to stop and you don't like fame, what makes you keep going.

That's a very good question, because humans are fascinating. The capability that we have to change.

The world with our energies. If we can all align, that's magic. That is magic, and when you feel those energies, wherever you.

Are in the world, you can sense it.

I've always been that person.

I've always been someone who.

Believes and has hope when all hope is gone because I've had to and I'm grateful for that, because I never ever want to lose hope.

Peb I never want to lose.

So we have to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with more from Kala Settle.

Stay with us, and we're back. Kayola, You're someone who gives me so much hope whenever I see you perform, and I know I'm not the only one who feels that way. I mean, seriously, watching you in The Greatest Showman as Letty singing this is Me gave me goosebumps and it still does.

But I read that for you.

You actually struggled in that spotlight with Wicked coming out in time for Thanksgiving? Have you thought about how you're going to handle the reception to this project and.

How you made me tell no Look, here's the deal.

I love doing what I do.

I absolutely love it. I love it so much that if I can't do it on a live stage, on an acting.

Platform, if I can't do it on a television show, if I haven't got the opportunity to do it on a film, I will find another way to do it. And I'm about to, ironically enough, I'm about to start going on the music end of it. A couple of years ago, I did my first ever and I was

Victim for the world.

That's a lot. That's a lot. Kerry. Yeah, you're the.

First person in an interview that ever said that to me, and I cannot say you I am you say that it is a lot because I I lost my mother and then all of a sudden it turned into this thing over and up literally overnight, and I was being put in the face of this and the face of that, people were expecting me to understand what it all was. And on top of it, I was allowing it all to happen because you know, for the greater good of the film, for everyone that was there, because they are

It in hearing you sort of pushing the fame away, which makes total sense. I think of UK mass singer and now that makes total sense to me because you get to perform without anybody realizing that it's you.

This is like the perfect job for you.

Ah. I absolutely loved it, and I are we allowed.

To custle this?

For sure?

Go for it?

Oh great.

I was shitting breaks wow box because I still thought that everyone could see me. So I was so afraid to sing some of these songs that I was hiding and tucking my face as far as I could thinking that I could just whisper.

And no one could hear me. I have a bloody by God, close you.

Well to catch everybody up.

You were dressed up as an air fryer, that's correct, which is hilarious when you're on that show.

Do you get any say in the costume that they put you in?

Yes, that was the.

First thing they showed me, and they couldn't even get out the explanation for it. They had all of these sketches and the first thing they showed me was this blind out sketch of an air fryer, and I said, that's.

The one, And do you choose what song you sing?

I tried to some of them. I did, and then there were a couple that the network had asked me to do, which I did guy absolutely, because I also knew that this was a learning experience for me. I understand very plainly in my life when things come and go in my life, every single thing is a lesson, whether it's a recurring lesson or a brand new lesson, and I need to learn something from it. That very early on that I got on that, and to always be when I'm learning now is to always be ready

You have no expectation at all.

You are here to just be as much love as you possibly can, because that's what you want, so be that for yourself. So I try and do that every second of every day. And sometimes I'm acceptable and sometimes I'm not. But that's the beauty of being a human. You can always go back and try and keep doing it again.

So when you decide to take on these roles in New Zealand, in Sydney, in la it requires a ton of travel. It's similar to the life of a comedian. Do you care about making your space a home in London or is it just a space that you pass through?

Now?

Of course I do.

I mean I've just got a penny I put in right before it. But to be fair, everything is been permanent. That's one of the one things I wish we could all understand. Nothing is set in stone. Everything is temporary. Yeah, I'm not going to be here forever, but I do know that while I'm here, I want a patio, So I'll go a patio.

While I'm here. I'm going to make sure my dog hats fresh food that I can get mailed and.

Delivered every month that I could put in a freezer. That's what I get.

When the time comes for us to leave, to go back to the States, to go to Australia, wherever to go, to Italy to go, the possibilities are endless.

Kay Ala.

I will be in theaters on opening day for Wicked. I will be cheering you on. And now that I've spoken to you, you can bet I'm going to tell whoever my friend is that's with me, like I know her, we had her on our podcast.

That's my friend.

But this is truly this is about to be a really big year for you, a really big season for you. It's really really exciting. What are you saying yes to in this season?

I'm saying yes always in this season learning saying yes to me. I will always check in with me every morning, every night. It may be like that, or it may be a meditation, or it may be a just lying in bed going how are you doing?

Thank you for being around. What I'm also saying.

Yes to is every energy that is also willing to say yes in the hopes that the next moment will be there for all of us, not just one group of people, not just one person for all of us.

I also think that's very Polynesian of you, Like, that's very much the Polynesian, that's the Polynesian spirit.

You're right.

If I remember going to New Zealand when we were kids, which was very rare. I think we went like twice, and every time we'd come back to Ha you with an empty suitcase because.

We left it all there because I didn't have it.

Yeah, you know, they didn't have it.

Our family lives, you know, everyone just knows all these beautiful star places in.

All Middle Ast and all that.

But when you get out into the guts of New Zealand, girls like a body all, let me tell you, you don't want to go by yourself.

Don't do not by yourself.

I'm totally that tourist that went to the Shire and just frolicked and did did did the American.

Thank you for your money, Thank you for your mon.

It is my pleasure. I will happily spend on a Shire experience. But truly New Zealand, I think about it all the freaking time. Lives rent Free in my head is like the most dentic, perfect place to live on this planet. And I know it's not like that in reality. But I also just I have so much respect though for how the New Zealand people live, how the Kiwis live, and also how much reverence, at least from the outside it seems there is for motory culture that we do

It's also a thing that in order to do that, you've got to dig deep. I mean, I was afraid to do that because it was so intense that it scared the living daylights out of me. Until I went home this last time and dealt with almost everything that I needed to deal with, and seeing my aunties and uncles and hearing them talk about how hard my mother was and how difficult she was and how they loved her.

From the United States of America.

It's that thing that you can go I can make a dream happen. If I can dream it, I can do it.

All of those things like.

That, who I am for the fast time in old man's fifty years.

I couldn't be more in.

Love with myself.

It's really freeing once you realize you don't have to choose. Yeah, yeah, that you can embrace all of it. Yes, Cala, thank you so much for coming on the bright side.

You guys are so lovely. Thank you for having me.

Thank you for your time.

Kayala Settle is a Tony nominated Broadway actress and singer. She'll appear in the upcoming movie adaptation of Wicked, coming to theaters this fall.

That's it for today's show.

Tomorrow, cookbook author and celebrity private chef Gobby Dalkin is here to talk about her fertility journey, grilling, and even slutty brownies.

Yes I just said slutty brownies.

You don't want to miss this thanks to our partners at Airbnb.

Listen and follow the bright Side on on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Simone Voice.

You can find me at simone Voice, on Instagram and TikTok.

I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok that's r o b A.

Y see you tomorrow, folks. Keep looking on the bright side.