Audra McDonald

I certainly miss playing piano, and I really wish I did it more - it's really a very therapeutic thing to do for me. I just need to be home for more than a few minutes to be able to play more, I guess. ”

I love talking with elderly people. ”

When you become a parent, it blows you open in ways that you never thought possible in terms of a level of love that I know I never thought I could possibly have. ”

I used to practice Tony speeches in my bathroom with my hairbrush. ”

I choose things that challenge me. I was afraid of the camera - that's why I chose to do 'Private Practice.' It's not like I left the theater. ”

I never in a million years thought that my life would unfold the way it has. ”

Not to get too sort of mystical, but I believe in fate. I believe when roles are presented to me in my life they're for a very specific reason, something for me to learn. ”

I came from a really musical family. I studied classical piano because my grandparents were piano teachers, but started doing musical theater at age nine in Fresno, California, and went to a performing arts high school. That was my life. ”

I grew up in a nonprofit theater company in the heartland of central California, so I am very aware of the importance that company had not only on my life but my community. ”

There's a lot of traps you can fall into when you are playing someone who existed. If it comes out just as impersonation, that's bad; it has to be an embodiment. You have to live it, not just sound and look like it. ”