I'm grateful that I feel the way that I do - to make choices based on a lot of people's feelings - even though it has been hard at times, especially when I was younger, but I feel like it has led me down the right road for me. I'm very happy with what has come of that.

Kelli O'Hara

Categorized in : People Choices Grateful

If you act brave, you can seem brave, and if you do it enough, you can talk yourself into believing you're brave.

Kelli O'Hara

enough brave believe

When I'm given an opportunity with music and goodness, then I want to do that [play that role]. I want to go all the way to the edge of that and make it as big as I can.

Kelli O'Hara

play opportunity way

I suppose there are a lot of reasons to be jaded or sarcastic or bitter in life, but I hang on to the reasons why life is beautiful.

Kelli O'Hara

sarcastic reason-why beautiful

We can make choices, but we can be vulnerable; we can do the wrong thing, but the wrong thing for all the right reasons. I think it [life] is basically about forgiveness, and not about someone else forgiving you, but you forgiving yourself. I think we all want a lot of that.

Kelli O'Hara

forgiving choices thinking

I was raised in Oklahoma. I was actually born in Tulsa, but I grew up in a small town on the west side of Oklahoma called Elk City on a farm, where my dad grew up, actually.

Kelli O'Hara

oklahoma dad cities

When you're pregnant, things-at least for me-get very sincere and very wholesome, and it's about family, and singing becomes about warmth.

Kelli O'Hara

pregnant sincere singing

You always want to be the person who doesn't need to be included, but it feels damn good to be among you people. My first Broadway show was Master Class, and I saw Audra McDonald. The one that sealed the deal was Ragtime, with Marin Mazzie. My first big role was with John Lithgow, and he taught me the ropes. Norm Lewis sang the night I met my husband. It makes me feel like I have a family.

Kelli O'Hara

mcdonalds husband night

Sometimes I think people are famous because they're themselves and they do a role and you see them do it.

Kelli O'Hara

roles people thinking

By no means, I can't sing any rock and roll.

Kelli O'Hara

rock-and-roll rocks mean

I've been singing since I was nine or ten.

Kelli O'Hara

ten singing nine

I loved to sing and I loved to act, and I didn’t want to continue opera because I wanted to act.

Kelli O'Hara

opera want wanted

Sometimes I'm considered, I guess, a subtle actor. Maybe I'm less of a showman and more just trying to tell the story. I don't know what the perception is. I just want to tell the story so the story as a whole works as opposed to just making sure that I work.

Kelli O'Hara

perception stories trying

I think anything emotional adds to your acting and singing, no matter what it is that you go through. It will always add to it, never take away.

Kelli O'Hara

singing emotional thinking

I want to work, but I certainly am not going to be clawing at empty things when I can completely fill up my bucket with them - the other is a waste of my time.

Kelli O'Hara

buckets waste want

Our natural thing to do when we break away from our parents and our family is to decide in how many ways they were wrong and bad, and the older you get you start to realize, "By 'bad' I mean 'different'" and then you get a little bit older and you think, "And by 'different' I mean 'pretty awesome but just not like me.'"

Kelli O'Hara

parent mean thinking

I think a lot of the way I live my life is not just for me, which has sometimes been a burden. A lot of the choices I make are in order to make them [my parents] proud.

Kelli O'Hara

choices order thinking

I think in this business [acting] there's the option to do a lot of things and say, "I don't care. I'm just going to do what I want," but what I do affects a lot of people.

Kelli O'Hara

acting people thinking

I mean, it feels like a homecoming in a really wonderfully comfortable place to be - the same director, the same musical director, my same dressing room! [laughs] It's a great place to build something with freedom.

Kelli O'Hara

musical laughing mean

If a man thinks you're beautiful or thinks you're strong or thinks you're smart, take the power and use it, but don't need it.

Kelli O'Hara

smart strong beautiful

I'm not a victim. And the people who are victims of something, my heart is completely with them. But I'm not. I know I've been treated like a woman in this business [acting]. I mean I've got lots of stories, but they don't have any control over me.

Kelli O'Hara

heart mean people