Quotes from Laura Benanti

I think that I come off as, 'Nothing bothers me, I don't care! I'm funny and sassy.' But I'm deeply sensitive. Not only about myself but to others. Not to pat myself on the back, empathy is a quality I've cultivated over my life. It came naturally to me as a child.

I think we've become a TV culture, where we forget the live performer in front of us can see us. I think there is a self-centeredness that happens. There's nothing more important than what you are doing in that moment. So, unless it's an emergency, put your phone away.

If people don't like your act, it feels a little bit more like they don't like you as opposed to they didn't like that character... It's weird because on one hand, we make our living from being permeable and vulnerable, but we also have to have very thick skin.

I think that people are most comfortable when they can put you in a box - and that's very easy to do that when someone can put you in more serious roles. I'm not blaming them for that - it's just up to me to show people what I can do.

My parents were in 'Brigadoon' on Broadway when I was a couple of years old.

I was not a fan of the Bush administration, as I think many of us were not.

My biggest influence is someone I really don't know at all: Tina Fey. Smart, funny, beautiful, self-deprecating, also a mom and a wife.

I think there's that weird bastardization where musical theatre actors are treated as almost like vaudevillians or circus performers - that we're somehow not good actors because we sing and dance.

I was always a little adult. Even as a little kid, I just couldn't understand why I was surrounded by all these kids. I took things very seriously.

I try to give the appearance that I have it all together and that I know what I'm talking about, but at the end of the day, I think I might be full of crap.

People don't say they're pregnant until the second trimester. I intellectually understand that you don't want the whole world to know your business, but at the same time, what does that mean? You don't tell your employers you're pregnant, but then when you miscarry, no one knows you miscarried. Miscarrying is a horrible, painful event.

I was pregnant, and, like, 'Being a mom's going to be easy!' And now I'm like, 'Great.'

There's a lot of pressure on Broadway. There's this feeling that the show has to be a commercial success and the producers have to make their money back and Tonys and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I love doing concerts. For me, it's the favorite thing I do. I get to communicate with the audience in a direct way.

Most people don't even get to be on TV, so I got to be on TV a bunch of times... I feel so lucky that I get to go back and forth between television and theater.

I was in Nashville quite a bit when I shot 'Nashville,' and I was in Los Angeles when I shot in 'Supergirl'.

I think that every therapist that I know, including my dad and my sister, have their own issues. But that empathy is what makes them good at their job.

I've met a lot of famous people that I just thought were so unbelievable. For me, meeting Julie Andrews was probably the highlight of my life.

I do think musical-theater actors can get a bad rap, and I see why. There is a certain slickness - there's nothing better than an amazing musical, but an okay musical can be one of the worst times you've ever had.

Usually, in musical theater, if you sing operatically or if you sing in a legit style, you're the heart of the show. You maybe get to be moving and do dramatic stuff, but it's very rare to be that funny.

Well, I'm grateful for all the experiences that I've had.

I do think that having the villain be a woman is just as feminine, because we're not just saying, 'Women are wonderful and made of marshmallows,' but women can be anything. They can be amazing superheroes, or they can be dastardly villains, and everything in between.

I grew up loving musicals. My mom had records of original cast recordings, and one of them was 'She Loves Me.' I wore that thing out singing along to Barbara Cook when I was eight years old.

My favorite show tune has got to be Stephen Sondheim's "I Remember Sky." It's probably the saddest song of all time I sing it to myself in the mirror. No, I am kidding. That's the joke.