Words matter. These are the best Audra McDonald Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
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.
Without theater, I don’t think I would have thought I was a smart person or excelled at anything.
When I wanted to audition for a dinner-theater junior troupe in my hometown, I needed to have a piece of musical theater music to sing. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to use. My mom and dad suggested that I sing ‘Edelweiss’ because I knew it from the music box.
I loved my time doing ‘Private Practice’ in Los Angeles, and I was quite challenged and excited to learn about the art of television, but I missed being on the stage.
I used to practice Tony speeches in my bathroom with my hairbrush.
The authentic Gullah dialect is actually very clipped, and so it would sound almost Jamaican and be very odd to an American audience’s ears. It’s not the typical Southern dialect that we’re used to.
I don’t see myself as a perfectionist.
Anytime I get the chance to sing or work with Michael John, it is such an incredibly fertile and incredibly creative and safe and encouraging environment – and challenging, too, because he is so collaborative!
Parenthood is an adventure.
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.
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.
I used to think I needed to have drama at all times, or I wouldn’t have the fuel for the performance. Now I know that’s not true. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel it, but I recognize it when I do and put the brakes on. And if the performance isn’t what it might have been once, I’ve learned not to judge myself as much.
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 believe in not whistling backstage and not saying the name of the Scottish play.
I find that I’m just drawn to anything that’s going to challenge me as an actress. So, anything that’s going to help me grow.
The arts are so important not only to society but to ourselves as human beings. It keeps in touch with our own humanity. So access to the arts in any way, shape, or form is vital.
I auditioned for Julliard because I wanted to live in New York, and I wanted to be on Broadway at the time. Julliard seemed like right way to get there.
The authentic Gullah dialect is actually very clipped, and so it would sound almost Jamaican and be very odd to an American audience’s ears. It’s not the typical Southern dialect that we’re used to. It has a much more percussive rhythm to it.
All you can do is do good work, and do the good work for the sake of doing the good work and your evolution as an artist. That’s what’s most important to me.
I’ve been so lucky, with incredible mentors along the way, that now I need to be that for someone else.
I used to be really into Bikram yoga.
I just wanted to go to New York and be on Broadway, but then I was accepted by Juilliard, where they trained me in classical voice. It was great in the end, but at the time, I thought, ‘What am I doing here? This is not my path.’ But it was absolutely my path and where I was meant to be.
