Quotes from Jessie Mueller

In school, I really felt like I didn't fit a type. I think everybody had a hard time putting me in a category. They all sort of realized, 'Hmm, you don't really look like a soprano. You're not really a character belter.'

I think the job of art and drama is to hold a mirror up to those things and say, 'What do you think about it?'

'If I Loved You.' All the way. Totally intimidated by it. From the outside, it has this aura of being one of the greatest musical theater scenes ever written.

I've always loved the song 'It Might as Well Be Spring'.

'What's the Use' is normally done with all the women onstage with Julie. Sometimes it's staged as a 'lay at my feet, dear children, and let me tell you the ways of life.' We felt like that wasn't really what was going on.

Oftentimes, I feel like the clock is on, and there's money at stake, and you gotta get up there and dance for grandma, and it better be great, and you better get it right.

The thing that gives me great hope is that I think, if anything, our world now is ready to be, like, 'This stuff happens.' We're not trying to pretend like terrible things don't happen, that uncomfortable situations, uncomfortable behavior, unhealthy behaviors don't occur in our daily lives.

The important thing is the storytelling and having a script that makes you feel you're living and breathing through the characters.

Those moments onstage when you realize what you and your compatriots are doing matters - someone in that room needs to hear that story, someone needs to escape or heal or learn or breathe, and remember, we're all in this together.

I really feel strongly that we don't need to dumb things down for children.