Quotes from Kelli O'Hara

I don't read reviews, because if you believe the good ones, you have to believe the bad.

I don't mind talking about my family and how to balance it all. But, in today's world, we should probably be asking both women and men about work and family and how to balance the two.

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.

I'm an actress. I'm not putting my life on the line for any great cause. I don't step out too boldly about anything except my children and family.

I've always wanted my characters to have more dimension and realistic cores than the ingenue material often provides. It's been a challenge.

There is such a cliche to certain roles that all I can do is to try to make them realistic and work for the times, and so the audience actually won't see me as a caricature of something, but rather as an actual person.

I feel so rich in my emotions and in my life and so grateful when I'm home and so grateful when I'm at work.

I don't ever think about the roads I didn't take because I spend too much time thinking what's ahead. I don't go backwards.

Every part has its relief when I'm done with it.

I've had great opportunities to show different sides of myself, but the challenge will always be getting either people to let you do it or finding the right things to do in order to do it.

It's always hard - it's a little counterintuitive to leave your baby at any point during the infancy.

I love playing an ingenue, and I love doing revivals, and I will continue to do that.

To play a character is to inhabit the world and the life of that character.

When you step out and do a song in a musical, the easier thing to do is make it funny. But when those transitions become necessary, when they aren't camp, that, to me, is magic. I've done musical comedies and enjoyed them, but subject matter that's deeper and more realistic is always what's appealed to me most.

I love feeling like I have purpose and maybe that's the purpose I'm giving myself.

I'm proud to be Irish.

Shakespeare has great ability to skirt around a subject and portray human nature.

If I get tickled in a certain way, I actually lose the ability to stand. I don't mean to, but something happens to my knees, and I fall on the ground.

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.

The hardest role that I've ever tried to play was Clara Johnson in 'Light in the Piazza' at Lincoln Center. It was the least fun I've ever had, but the most beautiful experience I've ever had. I could not understand her. I could not put my feet in her shoes. I came home every night, and I was depressed.

In my special place, room service could only consist of my husband making me a breakfast of eggs, avocados, and hummus. And coffee with milk.

My father named me Kelli because 'Kelli O'Hara' just sounded so Irish.

Your Western ideas about love are ridiculous. A woman is put on earth to please a man and a man should have many women, and a woman should only have one man.

Everyone's story is different, and we can't really be inside them.