January 9, 2024 • 40 mins
As we prepare to launch our fourth season at iHeartRadio, we’re revisiting some of host Alec Baldwin’s favorite episodes from the archives. In this episode, Alec speaks with actress, singer and Broadway star Audra McDonald. Much like the staggering beauty of her voice, Audra McDonald is impossible to ignore. The only artist to sweep all four acting categories at the Tony’s, she’s the most decorated Broadway star of all time. Reviews of her award-winning performances overflow with accolades, describing her stage presence as “spellbinding,” “haunting,” and “genius.” But for the California native, things haven’t always been easy. In this 2017 conversation, McDonald talks to Alec about getting into Juilliard, making it on Broadway, and the suicide attempt that helped shape who she is today.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, it's Alec Baldwin here. Before we launch our next
season of Here's the Thing at iHeartRadio in January, I
thought I'd play some of my favorite shows from the archives.
Audra McDonald occupies a unique place in the American theater.
With six Tony Awards, she has the most of any
actress in history. She is renowned for her work in
(00:23):
opera as well as in films and on television. Here
is my conversation with Audra.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
McDonald svens.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Hoatchuny.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Much like the staggering beauty of her singing, Audra McDonald
is impossible to ignore. The only person to sweep all
four acting categories at the Tonys, she's one of the
most decorated Broadway stars of all time. Reviews of her
award winning performances overflow with accolades. She's spellbinding, radiant, and
(01:21):
wrenchingly human. This year, the Julliard graduate took on her
first voice over role, playing Madame Gardrobe in Disney's Beauty
and the Beast. The performance was so great one critic
wrote that her name and the credits prompted theatergoers to
erupt in cheers. I sat down with Audre before her
(01:42):
debut this summer in London's West End, where she takes
on Billy Holliday, whose life as a black female performer
hits close to home.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Specifically for me, I would say that there was an
expectation on my part that things would get easier as
a result of being successful. You know, well, what do
you mean, they're going to make more money than I am,
and yet we're doing the same thing, we're playing we're
basically equal as far as the roles are concerned.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Or what did you do to address that? If anything?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
I didn't. For I didn't do anything for a while
I should have, and I didn't. I just went along well.
And especially you know, when you're an actor, it's like
you're always being told you should be grateful you've got
the job, you know.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
So being told that if you if you push too much,
you're going to get a bad reputation for being Yes, yes,
and I those actors that are infinitely less talented than
you all the time.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
They're just easy to easier to work with, and they
don't they don't cause in terms of.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Being an African American performer, did that change?
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Well, I tell you, I mean, let me give you
an example. Of how in some ways it changed and
didn't change. I have to I have to acknowledge the
fact that I am someone who has had uh an
incredible opportunity in terms of sort of breaking down barriers
as far as like color bland casting, being color blind,
cast as Carrie Pepperridge in Carousel, you know, or the
(03:04):
fact that I played Mother Abbess and the Sound of
Music Live, you know, and you know a lot of
people have issues with that, but you know, I was
the one that got the opportunity to do that. You know,
when I was doing Annie for ABC, they did a
version of that with Kathy Bates and Victor Garber and
Alan Comming and Kristin Chenowith, and they cast me as
(03:26):
Grace Ferrell and there was a scene at the end
where Grace Ferrell and Daddy Warbocks proposes to Grace Ferrell
at the end, the happy endings happening, you know.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
And Victor was Daddy Warbucks.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Yes, he was my daddy. I love him too. And
actually you'll appreciate this. We were sitting around one day
on the set and you know, in a big, gorgeous
mansion that Daddy war Books has and we were sitting
between takes, and I was sitting next to Victor and
I just got a little emotional. I said, Victor, what
if this was really our house and we were really
getting married and we had all this money and this life.
(04:00):
And he said, in the just true Victor fashion, Darling,
get a hold of yourself. You can totally hear Victors
saying that, right. But anyway, so we were film king Barriers. Yeah,
we're filming. We were filming Annie, and so we shot
the scene where you know, Daddy Warbucks gives Grace Farrell
the ring and it's lovely, and then we get word
(04:21):
that we have to come in on a Saturday to
do some reshoots. And Rob Marshall was directing, and Neil
Maren and Craig Zayden, who were wonderful, wonderful producers and
have been very kind to me over the years and
give me a lot of work. That cast me in
Sound of Music as mother Abbess, and they said we
have to do some reshoots, and then they took me
(04:43):
aside and said, it turns out that Disney might be
a little uncomfortable or the powers that be. I don't
know if it was Disney abcre I don't know. We
are comfortable. There might be some issues with Daddy Warbucks
actually marrying Grace. So forty year was this nineteen ninety
nine nine, So we need to reshoot the scene and
(05:04):
do it without.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
You're hooking up the Daddy Warbucks.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Giving Yeah, And I was devastated. I was I was devastated.
It's one of those things where you know you're starting
to feel good, You're starting to feel like, oh, there's
really change coming. Things are happening here. I am playing
this role and it's it's Annie, but nobody cares.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
And it's what did everybody else feel? Including Victor?
Speaker 3 (05:27):
I think everybody and I think they were all kind
of horrified, and you know, and.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
Also did they use the product in the film?
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Rob said, Okay, so we're all going to come in
on a Saturday, and you know how expensive that is
when you're only shooting Monday through Friday. Come in on
a Saturday just to reshoot the scene. So everybody comes
in and we get dressed up in that moment for
that scene, and Rob does one big master take of
Daddy Warbucks just sort of going, hey and bait buddy
(05:55):
a buddy, It's great in this great this happened okay,
exactly you over there, you person, you and he got
one shot, one master take one shot. And then Rob said, okay,
got that, so while we're here, and then he proceeded
to reshoot other things that he thought he could make
(06:15):
photos it, so he tanked to it.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
He did tank it so they couldn't use it.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
So they ended up using where so you look in
the film and Daddy Warbucks proposes to Grace Ferrell in
that and that's because that's because of Rob, you know,
and his courage, his courage. Absolutely. And then at the
end of the year when the film came out, Time
magazine said something, or maybe it was a newsweek and
of he said that in Things that Happened this Year,
Daddy Warbucks Marry is a black Grace Ferrell and nobody cares.
(06:43):
So I don't know what that's the answer to, but
it's just an issue of things that you know, you think,
you get to a certain point where you know things
are changing, and then boom, you're sort of slammed back
into that reality.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
What are you in the middle of doing now?
Speaker 3 (06:56):
I can't remember you rehearsing some show. Yes, Yes, I've
Got a Lady Day was on the West End.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
You're going to go to London.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Yeah, I've never been. No, I've never performed on the
West End.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
That's what I mean. You've never performed over there.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Not I performed, but never on the West End. I've
never I've done like concerts and stuff that I've never
done a show.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
You never did a legit show over there? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
So what of the places outside of New York have
you performed? That's an interesting thing to think about.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Well, in terms of like concert work everywhere, but actual shows,
I've only done, Well, that's not true. I did the
Secret Garden Tour million years ago. So you do kind
of a national tour, you go all over the place. No, La, Yeah,
I did it, but as you know, ensemble member, you know,
and then I did Masterclass is the only other one
that I did. We did that in LA and at
(07:41):
the Kennedy Center. We did the taper at the Kennedy
Center and plays and players in Philadelphia before we came
into New York. But that's been the nineties.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Do you find that you stay in New York and
try to stay in New York if that's home and
that's easier for you, and well.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
Yeah, I mean it is Broadway.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
It's Broadway, and that's where I want to be. Yeah,
but especially since you know, since having kids, you know,
I mean, do you have no Well, I have a
six month old, and I have a sixteen year old,
and I have two step sons who are sixteen and thirteen.
So it's you have a sixteen year old and it's yours,
that's mine.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
And you have a six month old that's mine, that's yours.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Yes, yes, you know what that's like, having a bit
of a spread in between.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
You had a kid when you were very young, the
sixteen year.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Old, Well, that's very kind of you to say. No,
I was thirty when I had my first and now
I'm forty six.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
And you want to have another baby?
Speaker 3 (08:31):
I you know, I or you were drunk on a
sailboat your husband?
Speaker 4 (08:35):
What happened? Which is it?
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Which is it? It's it's it's somewhere in between. It's
really that the Broncos won the Super Bowl. Seriously, my god,
and my husband is a big Broncos fan, and nine
months later history the rest is Sally James McDonald's wins. Now, yeah,
what are you gonna dow?
Speaker 4 (08:54):
Was that for you?
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Because I mean, I don't always want to ask. I
was saying, how I want to do another show, but
I don't want to be away at dinner time every night. Yeah,
for four to six months, that's what's that like?
Speaker 4 (09:04):
Do you bring the kids to the theater?
Speaker 3 (09:06):
I did, well, I certainly did with my sixteen year old.
When she was little, she was at the theater all
the time with me. That was kind of the only way.
And I imagine, well, I know for a fact, when
I'm in London, I'm staying very close to the theater,
and she'll be at the theater. And and if I
were to get another Broadway show, I would just bring
(09:28):
her there because you don't want to You don't want
to miss anything, and you don't you don't want to
make them feel like.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
What about the baby?
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Yeah, the baby will come. Absolutely, she has to just
be with you right up till the half hour. That's
what I've been doing now this year. You know, since
i've had her, I've started back concertizing and literally I've
had her backstage with either my husband when he can
join me, or my babysitter, and I will sing and
then run off stage and nurse her and then you know,
(09:56):
go do your meet and greet or whatever. And actually
during one concert she was really really fussy, and so
my husband went on and performed, and I ran off
stage and nursed her and called her down and ran
back on stage. Crazy. Crazy.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Where did you meet him? Your husband?
Speaker 3 (10:09):
We met doing one hundred and ten in the Shade,
the show on Broadway back in two thousand and seven. Yeah,
it was a long time ago, really, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
it was a crazy time too. I I met him
and then my dad was killed in the plane crash
like a couple of weeks, like about six weeks later.
Do your dad he was a high school principal that
(10:31):
you grew up in California? Yeah, but you were born
in Germany. I was born in Germany.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
What was he doing over there?
Speaker 3 (10:35):
He was in the he was in the army. Yeah,
and then yeah, I was raised in Fresno, California. My
dad was a high school principal and then he went
on to become an associate superintendent of schools there. But
his passion was flying, and he flew small planes and
he had his own and he was he had just
recently retired and he had his own plane that he
was flying. And yeah, he had where were you that
(10:59):
I was actually walking. I just finished the matinee of
one hundred and in the shape. We were still in previews,
and I was walking with my husband. He wasn't my
husband at the time, he was just a friend at
the time. A bunch of us were walking to meet
the rest of the cast to have you know, a
post you know, Sunday matinee drink with the entire cast.
And my stepmom.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
Called and said her dad was remarried.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Yes, he was remarried. And your mom still yes, my mom,
she lives next door to me in the city. Yeah, yeah,
or yeah, in Westchester. When she retired she left town
breath yes, yes, but yeah. My stepmom called me and said,
and I was just I was on fifty third Street
between eighth and ninth Avenues, and it was it was
(11:45):
It's interesting, you know in those moments, you know, you
see what happens in film and you think it'll be similar,
you know, in real life, and it's it seldom is,
you know, as an act Well, I didn't. I didn't
compute what she was saying. You know, she said, your dad,
dad had an accident while he was flying the plane
and he didn't make it. And I kept saying, oh.
(12:07):
I said, okay, so where is he now? And she said, Audra,
he didn't make it. I was like, okay, well where
is Yeah? But I wasn't. It wasn't computing either, you know,
and I was just really stunned. And it took it
took a day for me to really start to cry,
you know, because it just it ver close to him, yeah, yeah,
(12:27):
very close, and it just wasn't making sense, you know.
So it's interesting. I mean, it's been ten years on
it'll be ten years actually next week that he's since
his passing, and but it's just interesting. As an actor,
this sounds so cold and callous and it's not. It's
not meant to be. But as an actor, there was
a part of me that was sort of floating away
from my body watching the scene, going, I don't think
(12:47):
you're having the right reaction, right, you know, I don't
think process. Yeah, yeah, that's not you know, if this
were a scene you'd fall to the ground and you know,
break into a million pieces, and you're not doing that.
You're you're playing the scene. It's so strange. But actually
I know exactly when I really started to cry about
my dad's passing and it was I I found out.
(13:09):
We were getting ready to open one hundred and ten
in the Shade, and so we're getting ready to go
into critics Week where critics are coming and they're saying
I'm saying I have to go, and they're saying, you're
the star of the show. You can't leave as I
have to. And so they canceled a couple of shows
so I could fly home to California.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
This is for their father's funeral. Yeah, they said, you
can't leave.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Well know, they were just they were like, how do
we do this? You know? And actually it was at
the end of it was like right at Tony, what's
it called it? When it's the cutoff time? Qualification time?
So everybody was like, what do we do? So they
were kind enough to cancel enough shows for me to
run home for the funeral and trying to work that
out with my stepmom who was devastated and you know,
(13:49):
really broken, and trying to keep her together and keep
the family together and figure it all out. And it
wasn't until after the funeral you're saying hello to everybody.
And I just kind of kept it together the whole time.
And then as soon as I agreed it like the
thirtieth person or something here, like a thousand people at
his funeral. He was very, very well known and very
loved in Fresno, California. And his older sister came and said,
(14:14):
how you doing.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
And that's when I lost it, when you emptied out.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
I emptied out. But it was you know, But once again,
that's not how I mean. Maybe maybe a good director,
but that's not how I just imagine the film.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
It was an actress.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
You're always controlling and managing your feelings. Anyway, there was
the lovers and knobs and dials inside of us. They
was in there playing with all the yes.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
Of course that we get paid for. You know.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
So you moved to Fresno when you grew up in
Fresno beginning at what age?
Speaker 3 (14:40):
I was nine months old?
Speaker 4 (14:41):
To me, here's your little baby. So you're a child.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
And so there's the Order of McDonald who grows up
in California. Yeah, there's the Order of McDonald, who now
is one of the princesses of the Broadway Theater. There's
like a Mount Rushmore. It's you and burned Itad and
all these chicks. Now, who are these the greatest singers
in the world, and I want to talk about the
order in between. So the order in between when you
(15:05):
first started into the business, when people are hiring you,
and as you're building your career in New York and singing,
what were they hiring you for?
Speaker 3 (15:12):
Well, I think it had more to do with if
I look back on it now, and no one's ever
asked me this, So kudos to you. Well, I do try,
You've got the talent, but I think it had more
to do with I wasn't what people were expecting, you know,
back in those days. Can I say back in those days, yeah,
(15:34):
the early nineties. You know, you'd go an audition for
something and they'd see an African American girl in her
twenties walk in, and I think they'd expect some big
gospel voice, or you know, they're like, can you be
street smart? You know all those code words and whatnot,
and I would sort of break out with the pseudo
operatic voice that had Broadway qualities and was a bit goofy,
(15:57):
and so I think it just intrigued people and anything.
I think that's even how I got into Juilliard. When
I auditioned for Juilliard and I wasn't you know, I
wasn't really wanting to pursue classical music, but I thought,
I'll audition on the strength of my voice. That's that's
my strength.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Was that a goal to go to Juilliard?
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Well, I wanted to go to New York. I wanted
to live in New York Juilliard. Was it Lincoln Center,
you know, you know.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
The good beginning.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Yeah, And I thought I'd be able to get like
my acting classes in nancing class as well. I was there.
I didn't realize that once you're in a program, once
you're in department, you know, you shall not stray. You
stay in that department, and you know, so I just
went in there an audition, didn't really know what I
was doing, and kind of riffed at the end of
a Mozart area. You're not supposed to rift with Mozart,
(16:38):
and I did. And I said, I was a meto
soprano and I'm singing subrette, you know, roles for them,
showing them. I sang a subrette Aria from the note
to figure out maryagifigure out.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
And so for people who don't know what subrette is,
what is that? I'm one of those people.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
By the way you, Dorett, Well, Subrette is sort of
like a really high light soprano, not necessarily coloratura, but
she's like a young, sweet heroin hype lighter sound, not
like a full lyric soprano. And so it's a lot
of people say the ena roles despina, or it's theerlena,
the little cute roles. So anyway, that's what I sang.
(17:13):
I sang one of those arias. But then I said
I'm a mezzo soprano, which I just was just that
just showed how much I didn't know, how little I do.
And they laughed at me and they said how old
are you And I said I'm seventeen and they just
said okay, And I thought, well, I blew that. And
then two weeks later they called me and said we
want you to come to Juilliard. But I don't think
(17:35):
I think it was just intrigue on their part.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Are you there for four years? Well, would you start working?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
No? I was there for five years, but.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
You finished there, you graduated from there?
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Yeah, I took a leave of absence because I had
a suicide attempt actually while I was there, So I
took a leave of absence there's a lot that happened
between the Order and Fresnor, California and the Order who's
on Broadway.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Now, okay, we're going to cover as much of that
as you care to time.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
I'm completely open about it.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
So you're in Juilliard, Yeah, what years was that? That
five years was from when to when?
Speaker 3 (18:07):
It was from nineteen eighty eight to nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Right, So when you're there, was it trouble for you
fitting in? Did you feel uncomfortable and out of place?
Speaker 2 (18:15):
There?
Speaker 4 (18:15):
Absolutely was that a part of what led you to
do what you did.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Yeah, I felt out of place artistically. I felt all
my life growing up in Prest, California, all I ever
wanted to do was beyond Broadway. And then I thought,
you know, let me audition for Juilliard. Just didn't think
it through audition, got in. So everybody back at home
is like, wow, Udra got into Juilliard in New York.
She's you know, she's gonna make it. And then I
get to Juilliard and I'm studying classical music. I'm like,
(18:40):
this isn't what I want to do. I don't want
to be an apt for singer. Why surely they're going
to let me go take some acting classes, surely go
do some dance lists, and surely didn't go an audition
for Broadway shows. No, you have to just study, you know.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
You are enjoying it.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
No, And I felt lost. I felt completely lost. I
felt like I was.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
Offered about that.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
But that alone, I'm assuming, if I'm wrong, didn't lead
you to do something drastic.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
What else?
Speaker 3 (19:03):
No, I mean, well, you know, to an extent, you
can say, yeah, well, you know, like I said, I'm
open about it, because you know, I think I'm a
case of it. It gets better, you know. But I
so I was lost in terms of that, and then
feeling like I couldn't just quit and go back home
because I would look like a failure back at home
And you know, I had boy trouble while I was there.
(19:23):
And so the culmination of being where I wanted to
be in New York City, thinking I'm finally going to
realize my dreams, stuck and failing miserably at Juilliard, not
being able to admit to anybody at home what was
going on, Not being able to go home because I
would have looked like a failure living literally on Broadway
on Broadway my apartment. My address was Broadway twenty five
(19:46):
oh eight Broadway third. I lived with the residential the
old Broadway like well, the wild wild West.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
Anything north of Baby sixth Street, forget it.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
You did not in those days.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
You shield and a sword to go to the grocery store.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Right and crazy to look at it now, Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
But what I'm curious about is that the woman, the
young woman from Fresno, who goes to New York. And again,
let me put a fine point of this before you answer,
which is, and you say you have boy troubles? Are
you dating a different kind of boy now with Juliet No,
the boys that were hard for you to understand?
Speaker 3 (20:21):
No, I was, you know I was.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Was that all the same?
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Well? I was just not being treated well by a boy. Yeah,
boys are the same.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
All boys in the same week. Yeah, Ok, thank you.
My guest has been Augum McDonald. Everyone, good night, everybody.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
No, but but but but The reason I asked this,
I want to are you a fish out of water
in every way?
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Yes? I was a fish out of water in every
way except for the fact that I was in New York,
which is what I knew I wanted. I knew that
much was right, but everything else I kept you grounded, yes,
but everything else was wrong. And so you know, in
those days, I was, you know, twenty twenty one. I
couldn't see past the fact that I had gotten here
and everything up to up to now had gone swimmingly,
(21:02):
and all of a sudden it was all falling apart.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
And if you don't mind my asking what what were
the the ramp up the time and what you were
thinking and feeling. And the only reason I asked this
for people who listen to this, who might be young
people and artists who experience a certain kind of pain
that you experience in this business that I think is
very unique, because you exude in your work. You seem
so confident and so powerful.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Well, I think it's because I'm now, I'm I'm where
I'm supposed to be. I'm doing what I'm supposed to
be doing. I'm doing what I think if you want
to get I don't.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
Know, you're not playing the Eena roles anymore, No.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
No, no, But I mean it's more about I'm artistically fulfilled.
I think my artistic soul is fulfilled. It's doing what
it's supposed to do.
Speaker 5 (21:56):
You agree, look cappy to me.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Not that she doesn't still find challenges coming up. Audra
McDonald talks about a song that's been rather.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Hard to sing.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Audra McDonald isn't the only star who struggled to find
her voice.
Speaker 6 (22:29):
I mean when I tell people I was extremely shy
and nobody believes me.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
Now that's the thing that people have to overcome.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 6 (22:36):
You know, I've found a lot of comedians to be
extraordinarily serious and draws withdrawn sometimes, So yeah, I think
sometimes we overcome things by going after the very thing
that really eludes us.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
To hear more about Renee Fleming's story, go to Hear's
Thething dot org. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening
to Here's the Thing. If ever there was a track
record that warranted dividom, it is Audra McDonald's. But despite
her unparalleled fame, the Queen of Broadway is disarmingly humble,
(23:11):
perhaps the mark of a person who's endured great pain
in her case. While studying at Juilliard.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
This was my third year and it had been just
yet another year of floundering and doing poorly in all
my classes, and teachers just saying you know, you've got
to give over to your operatic sound, and me not
wanting to, not knowing what that was. And when I
would get close to an operatic sound, I'd say, I
don't want to sound like that. So I felt like
(23:40):
I was just being pushed and they were doing their
job rightfully. So this is like, this is your Juilliard
to study. This is what you're going to do to
push me into a place that just wasn't me artistically.
So that coupled with being you know, twenty twenty one
by yourself in New York and being treated poorly by
whatever his name was, what's his name, We're that no, no, no, no, no,
(24:07):
he's he's fine. He's a great guy now. But at
any rate, So all of that combined with me being
sort of like the great hope from my hometown too.
You know, Order's gonna make it. If anybody's gonna make
it on Broadway, it's going to be Order. I I
the boy was the catalyst that sort of like sort
of broke that. It was a star that broke the
(24:27):
camel's back. But it was three years of I'm in
the wrong place, doing the wrong thing. I'm failing miserably
but I'm here in Disneyland, where I'm supposed to be,
where I said I wanted to be.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
So I sord you do.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
I I slit my wrists one night.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
What happened? And written about this?
Speaker 3 (24:48):
I haven't, I guess I should. I speak about it
all the time, but maybe one day I'll write about it.
Found you, I I I slipped my wrists and then
realized what I had done and called the Sudent affairs
director who I had become close with, and.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Said, I helped me, and someone came and helped you.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
And they helped me, and they took me to a
mental hospital. It's interesting this mental hospital still there, Gracie
Square Hospital. It's next door to my ob gyn who
delivered my six month old.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
That's what a circuit that is. So I almost didn't
make it, and now I made it and I'm in this.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
I had to pass it, you know, every week to
go to my obgyn appointment, I had to pass Gracie
Square Hospital. And every time I passed it, there was
a part of me just, you know, waddling down the
street pregnant as can be. Some twenty nine years later,
I would I would. I felt such relief and joy
and you know, a sense of yes, I get the
(25:52):
big picture.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Now, what month in the school year was that that
that happened.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
It was January or February.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
So it was at the midpoint.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Let's say, and you take off office and you come
back when you come back the following fall, you don't.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
I came back the following fall for a little bit,
and then I got an opportunity to audition for something
that ended up that I ended up being the secret
Garden actually, and I asked the you know, administration office
and my the dean, what I should do, and they said,
you know, go do that. It's okay, take the time
(26:24):
off to go do that. It seems like that's where
you want to be.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
So and they probably didn't want to disappoint.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
You at that point.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
At that point they were like, sure, go go, you
want to go sing on.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Go go do it.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
Yeah, we don't ever want to get your way.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
You know. The thing is there was actually a lot,
not a lot, but they had a special arrangement with
Gracie Square Hospital. There were a couple of other Juilliard
students there that I had wondered what had happened to
I was there. I was at the hospital for me,
but Grace's Square, I thinks private hospital. I was there
for a month. They evaluated me and said, you you're
not going anytime soon.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
And did that change you?
Speaker 3 (27:02):
I was so heavily medicated. I was heavily medicated.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
When you say that, it's so compelling to me because
when I see you, I think of you. I think
of you like you know, you're so strong your personality
and performance. I view you as a person that's going
to go. I'm going back into the burning building to
save the baby.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Well that is me now, yeah, but I think maybe
that experience helped make me that now. I mean, look,
I'm still a mess. I mean everybody's a mess, always
a mess, I you know, and I when I understood
a lot going on, Yeah, and I realized, you know,
I'm someone who suffers from depression. But I learned in
the years a how to deal with it. B to
find you know, find my joy and see to realize that,
(27:42):
like alcoholism, it's something that you wake up every day
and you say, yeah, that's still something that I have
to deal with, as opposed to saying, oh, I'm just
not depressed anymore. Just but to learn how to cope
with that, and my art gives me a lot of
joy and keeps me, keeps me strong.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
So what's the first job you do?
Speaker 1 (28:00):
This is a tired question, but I can't help back
and ask you, especially with somebody like you, what's the
first job when you do?
Speaker 4 (28:06):
When you sit there and go, I got this.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
I think I got this, like I'm over the.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
No no meaning you know that the sky is the
limit for you. You're out there and you're doing it,
and you're connecting to that material, you know, and you go,
I think I really really have a shot at my
dream coming true.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Here.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
It was Sally Murphy and she was she was Julie Jordan,
and I played Kerry Pippridge and it was the guy
Michael Hayden was with Hayden, Yes, yes, yes, Nick Heitner
at Lincoln Center, which is also crazy for me to
then open, you know, in Carousel at Lincoln Center, where
at Vivian Momont Theater where you can look up and
I can see the school that I, you know, had
(28:45):
a hard time in and and I remember standing in
those in those windows at Juilliard looking at Vivian Beaumont,
seeing Patty Lapone performing there and going why am I
not doing that? And then how'd you feel like the
(29:05):
luckiest survivor in the world. I mean, and I felt
a sense of gratitude, a sense of relief, and a
sense of Okay, I get it. I now get that
I was on my path.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Out the window of one place is your future. Out
the window of Juilliard where you try to snuff yourself
is the Vivian Beaumont where you're going to do.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
Carousel across the street. It's always a vista for you
what might.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Have been was, which was something not bad and wonderful? Yeah,
I mean babies and Tony Awards and all that stuff.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
I think, I think what it realizes there's a bigger picture.
And I think, you know, it's very easy to, you know,
just get into tunnel vision, especially when you're young and
you know it's only you that you're having to think about.
And not that that's a bad thing, but it's just
easy to get buried very quickly under emotion and fear
and disappointment and all that. And I just think that
(30:01):
I learned to have a bigger picture about life.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
We're taking a break, so stay with us. Once you
become extraordinarily successful, in the busin You won your first
Tony Award for what show?
Speaker 4 (30:15):
For Carousel? And you're how old?
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Twenty three?
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Your child and you when you you were fresh out
of that situation, You weren't far that far removed from
that situation.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Was two and a half years away from that situation
and a.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Half years later, which is nothing. Yeah, you win a
Tony Award and you've won six Tony Awards. Yes, you
won the most Tony Awards of anybody. Are you tied
with somebody you're tied with?
Speaker 3 (30:33):
No? Not with that.
Speaker 7 (30:39):
No.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
I love.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
I love when people sit there and they go, oh,
I don't know. I don't keep track of that. I go, you, liar,
you got all your Tonys lined up?
Speaker 3 (30:46):
They do.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
No, I'm not you. I'm saying, but people in general,
I doubt you do. To actually, but to embarrass you
even more than I already have.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Oh good god.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
You are enormously talented and everything clicks, and you're very,
very successful, and you're gorgeous woman. Well you're a gorgeous woman.
And what did that do in terms of your career,
meaning that you could have gone and made films and
then a television series. Did you have a lot of
offers you swept aside.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
No, I've never had those offers. I mean, I did
one television series once where I played the best friend
in Private Practice to the main character show Private Practice,
Kate Walsh played Addison Montgomery and I played her best friend.
Speaker 4 (31:27):
Did you do that?
Speaker 3 (31:28):
I did it for five six years. The show ran
for seven years, and I did it for five or
six years. But no, Hollywood has never really banged down
on my doors. And I think that's because you're very
kind to say I'm gorgeous, but I don't think I'm
the typical sort of look. I'm also a big girl,
and I'm proud of that, and I'm fine with that.
But you know, it's interesting when you go to Hollywood
(31:50):
and you see these people on the movie screens your
entire life, and then you see them in person and
they're all like one fourth of them a taper airplay.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
What the hell didn't look well?
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Do you want a cheeseburger?
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (32:02):
No, no, no, I mean it's saying look terrible, but it's
just for me. It's just like I, you know, I
think size wise that has something to do with it,
and I and I don't know that that's where I'm
at my strongest right, you know, And I think.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
We work so hard to develop this perch you're in.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Now, what's that like for you to have to go
out and wring yourself out again?
Speaker 4 (32:20):
Process every night?
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Well, the process for me, I go really inside. I
get really quiet. People around me think that I'm angry
with them before I do a show because I just
get very quiet and I go inside and stay still,
and I'm not. I'm not one to kind of jump
around and go visit other dressing rooms. I just I
have to kind of go in and be super super
super quiet and still because focus. Yeah, because in a minute,
(32:45):
you're going to have to turn all of your insides out,
and so if I'm giving all that out beforehand, I
will have nothing to get.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
One of the hardest ones for you, Lady Day.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
Absolutely that was by myself on stage for an hour
and forty five minutes, just having to give it and
especially living that life that she led. I have to
have to live that on stage every night. That I
was no fun to be around before the show. After
the show, I was a ball.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
Because that's very common.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Yes, because I was thrilled it was over until the
next you know, it's interesting. I know I can remember who. Oh,
maybe it was Kathy Bates. I can't remember who said
this to me, but I said, well, why don't you
ever come back to Broadway or do a show on Broadway?
And I think it was Kathy Bage. She said, oh, honey,
oh that's hard. It's hard, and she's right, you know
it is, because especially when you think, Okay, I've done it,
I've given a good performance. I got through that. You know,
(33:33):
when you're doing a film, you're like, great, it's in
the can and now I'm off the cub or whatever,
you know. But Broadway it's like, and now I have
to do that again tomorrow night, and then the next
night after that, the next and it's a blessing.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
At the end of every day.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
I gotta go to work exactly, you have that whole
day and what happens in that in the world. The
worst thing for me when I was acting was when
I have a wonderful, fun day and then I had
to go to work and wring myself out and some
drive to go do the Scottish play.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Yes, for me, it was always on Sunday matinee. When
you're headed to your Sunday matinee. You're walking down ninth
Abue and you're seeing everybody outside, either out of street
fair or having wine and runch.
Speaker 4 (34:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
And I can't tell you how many I saw in
the sun. I can't tell you how many times you're
walking down ninth Aaber you just want to take your
aunt and swipe all the food off of those sidewalk tables.
It's like, that's not fair. No, of course not. I
mean it's I'm doing what I wanted to do my
entire life. But there is that.
Speaker 4 (34:22):
People are counting on you. Yes, amazing.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
When I did Street Car, I got really sick and
I missed the show. I was out for it for
a weekend, the two Saturdays and the Sunday, and I
missed the show. But I go downstairs. I lived on
Central Park West. I go downstairs. I cross over to
Broadway an eighty sixth and Broadway on the northeast corner.
I'm gonna cross over to William's Chicken, Yes, and get
my soup.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
And I'm there and this little woman looks up to me.
It's like seven o'clock at night. It's a it's a
Friday night or a Saturday night. Rather and She.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
Looks up to me, this little owlish woman. She goes,
aren't you supposed to be on Broadway right now? And
I thought this town, flip and town.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
I have a story like that too. I mean, we
were it was a New Year's Eve and Ethan Hawk
had been able to we were doing Henry the Fourth
at Lincoln Center, and he'd been able to get the
entire cast invited to the plays and Players Club or
a what's the club over on lads players Club? Yes,
for New Year's Eve. So we're all there and we're
all celebrating, and it's wonderful, but we're, you know, in
and amongst you know, the actual members of this club.
(35:22):
And it's New Year's Eve and I'm doing a play.
And I was still young, and I thought, I'm gonna
have a cigarette, you know, why not, I'm gonna have
a cigarette. And I don't smoke as a rule, but
I just decided it's New Year's Eve, I'm gonna have
wine and cigarettes and it'll be fun. So I was
smoking out on the little terrorists they have out there.
I'm smoking my cigarette. I'm chatting with some of my
(35:43):
cast members and an older woman who's a member of
the plays Club. She comes up to me and she said,
I'd say you're Audra McDonald, but it couldn't possibly be
her because she wouldn't be smoking, never destroying her instrument.
She wouldn't be smoking. And then she just sort of march, Now.
Speaker 4 (36:01):
Who are people who in your life? In your career?
Speaker 1 (36:06):
One might assume you've sung the song, sang the songs
of pretty much everyone you want to sing. Where is
there one that's gotten by you? Is there some composer
whose music you want to sing that you haven't sang.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
No, I wouldn't say that. I mean there's always young compo.
I am always championed the work of new, young musical
theater composers, so I'm always looking for new work to do.
There are certain songs that I stay away from because
I don't feel that I can do them properly. For example,
one that I have not been able to conquer that
I have tried a couple of times and never done
in public because I can't conquer it is Being Alive
(36:38):
by Sondheim. I cannot. As much as that song moves
me and as much as it means to me, every
time I try and sing it, I fail. So I
have not done it in public, and I won't until
I figure it out. And that is that strange?
Speaker 1 (36:52):
It is No, No, I mean, I'm sure there's people.
It's like in plays. I mean, I'm trying to roles.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
I'm trying to think of. Right.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Do you have writers whose work you steer clear of
as a performer because you don't you don't get it,
so you don't know how to bring it to life.
Not that you don't enjoy watching.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
I might enjoy watching, you know, whatever. I want to
have in the theater. Life itself is so filled with
oddities now and surreal crap going on with the government
and everything. I want to see something which is really
I want some honesty. No, I need to have a
like oxygen. I need a big hit of honesty.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
I you know, that's interesting. I was listening to a
performer on the way down here who i'd absolutely admire,
whose work I admire, and they were singing a song
that didn't, in my mind, seem quite right for them.
Not that they weren't singing it beautifully, but I thought,
I don't think they believe this. I don't. I think
they're trying something and they don't believe it, and there's
a part of me that thought, why am I thinking
(37:47):
that about them? I do that stuff all the time.
But I think you're right. There is something going on
right now in the zeitgeist that's sort of like everybody
is needing truth and needing needing something to ground them
and where is reality?
Speaker 4 (37:59):
Any sat tire?
Speaker 1 (38:00):
And my last question for you is, well, first of all,
describe for me, if you would, as I try to,
always think about people in your profession and who do
what you do as well as you do a moment
when you're on stage and you used to go out
there at night and you'd sing a song and you
knew you were going to kill these people, you know,
the minute that you sang that song, the way you
said that you could almost feel the people just getting
(38:22):
destroyed by that song.
Speaker 4 (38:24):
Is that in a Lady Day as well?
Speaker 3 (38:26):
Well? I think in the beginning with Lady Day, because
I think no one thought that I could find her voice,
you know, because I'm a soprano. So it's like, what
are you doing with's the soprano doing Lady Day? You know,
trying to be Billie Holiday. She doesn't have it in
her And I didn't think I had it in me.
And so some nights, you know, the show opens and
the first thing I do is sing before I even
(38:46):
start speaking, and so the audience and you can tell
that the audience is waiting to hear is she going
to get it? And on nights that I really felt
that I was really lined up, really lined up with Billy.
I had I had enough, you know, of her perfume on,
and I had the makeup right, and I had the
gin behind my ears so I could smell like what
she must have smelled like in those days. And I
(39:09):
would open my mouth and sing the first all I
know is I'm in love with you, and you'd hear
sometimes i'd hear the audience gasp, and that's when I'd
be like, Okay, I got that right now. Sustain it
for the next hour and forty five minutes, you know,
and I'd feel that. I'd think, Okay, they're they're taking
the journey with me. And there were nights where that
wouldn't happen. I'd think, Okay, I got a drag them
(39:31):
on this journey too, you know. But every once in
a while there'd be that moment of and every once
in a while to hear people go, oh my god,
ah and know is I'm in low.
Speaker 7 (39:49):
Ye in there you said that we are through. I
know that that should know a yes, care go I
wonder where Allah has gone.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
The final line of a review from The Evening Standard
for her recent West End debut as Billie Holiday doubles
as a review of Audra herself. Quote, yet still she
stands broken but indomitable to the last unquote. I'm Alec Baldwin.
Here's the thing.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
Is brought to you by iHeart Radio.
Hey, it's Alec Baldwin here. Before we launch our next
season of Here's the Thing at iHeartRadio in January, I
thought I'd play some of my favorite shows from the archives.
Audra McDonald occupies a unique place in the American theater.
With six Tony Awards, she has the most of any
actress in history. She is renowned for her work in
(00:23):
opera as well as in films and on television. Here
is my conversation with Audra.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
McDonald svens.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Hoatchuny.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Much like the staggering beauty of her singing, Audra McDonald
is impossible to ignore. The only person to sweep all
four acting categories at the Tonys, she's one of the
most decorated Broadway stars of all time. Reviews of her
award winning performances overflow with accolades. She's spellbinding, radiant, and
(01:21):
wrenchingly human. This year, the Julliard graduate took on her
first voice over role, playing Madame Gardrobe in Disney's Beauty
and the Beast. The performance was so great one critic
wrote that her name and the credits prompted theatergoers to
erupt in cheers. I sat down with Audre before her
(01:42):
debut this summer in London's West End, where she takes
on Billy Holliday, whose life as a black female performer
hits close to home.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Specifically for me, I would say that there was an
expectation on my part that things would get easier as
a result of being successful. You know, well, what do
you mean, they're going to make more money than I am,
and yet we're doing the same thing, we're playing we're
basically equal as far as the roles are concerned.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Or what did you do to address that? If anything?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
I didn't. For I didn't do anything for a while
I should have, and I didn't. I just went along well.
And especially you know, when you're an actor, it's like
you're always being told you should be grateful you've got
the job, you know.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
So being told that if you if you push too much,
you're going to get a bad reputation for being Yes, yes,
and I those actors that are infinitely less talented than
you all the time.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
They're just easy to easier to work with, and they
don't they don't cause in terms of.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Being an African American performer, did that change?
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Well, I tell you, I mean, let me give you
an example. Of how in some ways it changed and
didn't change. I have to I have to acknowledge the
fact that I am someone who has had uh an
incredible opportunity in terms of sort of breaking down barriers
as far as like color bland casting, being color blind,
cast as Carrie Pepperridge in Carousel, you know, or the
(03:04):
fact that I played Mother Abbess and the Sound of
Music Live, you know, and you know a lot of
people have issues with that, but you know, I was
the one that got the opportunity to do that. You know,
when I was doing Annie for ABC, they did a
version of that with Kathy Bates and Victor Garber and
Alan Comming and Kristin Chenowith, and they cast me as
(03:26):
Grace Ferrell and there was a scene at the end
where Grace Ferrell and Daddy Warbocks proposes to Grace Ferrell
at the end, the happy endings happening, you know.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
And Victor was Daddy Warbucks.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Yes, he was my daddy. I love him too. And
actually you'll appreciate this. We were sitting around one day
on the set and you know, in a big, gorgeous
mansion that Daddy war Books has and we were sitting
between takes, and I was sitting next to Victor and
I just got a little emotional. I said, Victor, what
if this was really our house and we were really
getting married and we had all this money and this life.
(04:00):
And he said, in the just true Victor fashion, Darling,
get a hold of yourself. You can totally hear Victors
saying that, right. But anyway, so we were film king Barriers. Yeah,
we're filming. We were filming Annie, and so we shot
the scene where you know, Daddy Warbucks gives Grace Farrell
the ring and it's lovely, and then we get word
(04:21):
that we have to come in on a Saturday to
do some reshoots. And Rob Marshall was directing, and Neil
Maren and Craig Zayden, who were wonderful, wonderful producers and
have been very kind to me over the years and
give me a lot of work. That cast me in
Sound of Music as mother Abbess, and they said we
have to do some reshoots, and then they took me
(04:43):
aside and said, it turns out that Disney might be
a little uncomfortable or the powers that be. I don't
know if it was Disney abcre I don't know. We
are comfortable. There might be some issues with Daddy Warbucks
actually marrying Grace. So forty year was this nineteen ninety
nine nine, So we need to reshoot the scene and
(05:04):
do it without.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
You're hooking up the Daddy Warbucks.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Giving Yeah, And I was devastated. I was I was devastated.
It's one of those things where you know you're starting
to feel good, You're starting to feel like, oh, there's
really change coming. Things are happening here. I am playing
this role and it's it's Annie, but nobody cares.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
And it's what did everybody else feel? Including Victor?
Speaker 3 (05:27):
I think everybody and I think they were all kind
of horrified, and you know, and.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
Also did they use the product in the film?
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Rob said, Okay, so we're all going to come in
on a Saturday, and you know how expensive that is
when you're only shooting Monday through Friday. Come in on
a Saturday just to reshoot the scene. So everybody comes
in and we get dressed up in that moment for
that scene, and Rob does one big master take of
Daddy Warbucks just sort of going, hey and bait buddy
(05:55):
a buddy, It's great in this great this happened okay,
exactly you over there, you person, you and he got
one shot, one master take one shot. And then Rob said, okay,
got that, so while we're here, and then he proceeded
to reshoot other things that he thought he could make
(06:15):
photos it, so he tanked to it.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
He did tank it so they couldn't use it.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
So they ended up using where so you look in
the film and Daddy Warbucks proposes to Grace Ferrell in
that and that's because that's because of Rob, you know,
and his courage, his courage. Absolutely. And then at the
end of the year when the film came out, Time
magazine said something, or maybe it was a newsweek and
of he said that in Things that Happened this Year,
Daddy Warbucks Marry is a black Grace Ferrell and nobody cares.
(06:43):
So I don't know what that's the answer to, but
it's just an issue of things that you know, you think,
you get to a certain point where you know things
are changing, and then boom, you're sort of slammed back
into that reality.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
What are you in the middle of doing now?
Speaker 3 (06:56):
I can't remember you rehearsing some show. Yes, Yes, I've
Got a Lady Day was on the West End.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
You're going to go to London.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Yeah, I've never been. No, I've never performed on the
West End.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
That's what I mean. You've never performed over there.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Not I performed, but never on the West End. I've
never I've done like concerts and stuff that I've never
done a show.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
You never did a legit show over there? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
So what of the places outside of New York have
you performed? That's an interesting thing to think about.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Well, in terms of like concert work everywhere, but actual shows,
I've only done, Well, that's not true. I did the
Secret Garden Tour million years ago. So you do kind
of a national tour, you go all over the place. No, La, Yeah,
I did it, but as you know, ensemble member, you know,
and then I did Masterclass is the only other one
that I did. We did that in LA and at
(07:41):
the Kennedy Center. We did the taper at the Kennedy
Center and plays and players in Philadelphia before we came
into New York. But that's been the nineties.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Do you find that you stay in New York and
try to stay in New York if that's home and
that's easier for you, and well.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
Yeah, I mean it is Broadway.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
It's Broadway, and that's where I want to be. Yeah,
but especially since you know, since having kids, you know,
I mean, do you have no Well, I have a
six month old, and I have a sixteen year old,
and I have two step sons who are sixteen and thirteen.
So it's you have a sixteen year old and it's yours,
that's mine.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
And you have a six month old that's mine, that's yours.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Yes, yes, you know what that's like, having a bit
of a spread in between.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
You had a kid when you were very young, the
sixteen year.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Old, Well, that's very kind of you to say. No,
I was thirty when I had my first and now
I'm forty six.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
And you want to have another baby?
Speaker 3 (08:31):
I you know, I or you were drunk on a
sailboat your husband?
Speaker 4 (08:35):
What happened? Which is it?
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Which is it? It's it's it's somewhere in between. It's
really that the Broncos won the Super Bowl. Seriously, my god,
and my husband is a big Broncos fan, and nine
months later history the rest is Sally James McDonald's wins. Now, yeah,
what are you gonna dow?
Speaker 4 (08:54):
Was that for you?
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Because I mean, I don't always want to ask. I
was saying, how I want to do another show, but
I don't want to be away at dinner time every night. Yeah,
for four to six months, that's what's that like?
Speaker 4 (09:04):
Do you bring the kids to the theater?
Speaker 3 (09:06):
I did, well, I certainly did with my sixteen year old.
When she was little, she was at the theater all
the time with me. That was kind of the only way.
And I imagine, well, I know for a fact, when
I'm in London, I'm staying very close to the theater,
and she'll be at the theater. And and if I
were to get another Broadway show, I would just bring
(09:28):
her there because you don't want to You don't want
to miss anything, and you don't you don't want to
make them feel like.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
What about the baby?
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Yeah, the baby will come. Absolutely, she has to just
be with you right up till the half hour. That's
what I've been doing now this year. You know, since
i've had her, I've started back concertizing and literally I've
had her backstage with either my husband when he can
join me, or my babysitter, and I will sing and
then run off stage and nurse her and then you know,
(09:56):
go do your meet and greet or whatever. And actually
during one concert she was really really fussy, and so
my husband went on and performed, and I ran off
stage and nursed her and called her down and ran
back on stage. Crazy. Crazy.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Where did you meet him? Your husband?
Speaker 3 (10:09):
We met doing one hundred and ten in the Shade,
the show on Broadway back in two thousand and seven. Yeah,
it was a long time ago, really, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
it was a crazy time too. I I met him
and then my dad was killed in the plane crash
like a couple of weeks, like about six weeks later.
Do your dad he was a high school principal that
(10:31):
you grew up in California? Yeah, but you were born
in Germany. I was born in Germany.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
What was he doing over there?
Speaker 3 (10:35):
He was in the he was in the army. Yeah,
and then yeah, I was raised in Fresno, California. My
dad was a high school principal and then he went
on to become an associate superintendent of schools there. But
his passion was flying, and he flew small planes and
he had his own and he was he had just
recently retired and he had his own plane that he
was flying. And yeah, he had where were you that
(10:59):
I was actually walking. I just finished the matinee of
one hundred and in the shape. We were still in previews,
and I was walking with my husband. He wasn't my
husband at the time, he was just a friend at
the time. A bunch of us were walking to meet
the rest of the cast to have you know, a
post you know, Sunday matinee drink with the entire cast.
And my stepmom.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
Called and said her dad was remarried.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Yes, he was remarried. And your mom still yes, my mom,
she lives next door to me in the city. Yeah, yeah,
or yeah, in Westchester. When she retired she left town
breath yes, yes, but yeah. My stepmom called me and said,
and I was just I was on fifty third Street
between eighth and ninth Avenues, and it was it was
(11:45):
It's interesting, you know in those moments, you know, you
see what happens in film and you think it'll be similar,
you know, in real life, and it's it seldom is,
you know, as an act Well, I didn't. I didn't
compute what she was saying. You know, she said, your dad,
dad had an accident while he was flying the plane
and he didn't make it. And I kept saying, oh.
(12:07):
I said, okay, so where is he now? And she said, Audra,
he didn't make it. I was like, okay, well where
is Yeah? But I wasn't. It wasn't computing either, you know,
and I was just really stunned. And it took it
took a day for me to really start to cry,
you know, because it just it ver close to him, yeah, yeah,
(12:27):
very close, and it just wasn't making sense, you know.
So it's interesting. I mean, it's been ten years on
it'll be ten years actually next week that he's since
his passing, and but it's just interesting. As an actor,
this sounds so cold and callous and it's not. It's
not meant to be. But as an actor, there was
a part of me that was sort of floating away
from my body watching the scene, going, I don't think
(12:47):
you're having the right reaction, right, you know, I don't
think process. Yeah, yeah, that's not you know, if this
were a scene you'd fall to the ground and you know,
break into a million pieces, and you're not doing that.
You're you're playing the scene. It's so strange. But actually
I know exactly when I really started to cry about
my dad's passing and it was I I found out.
(13:09):
We were getting ready to open one hundred and ten
in the Shade, and so we're getting ready to go
into critics Week where critics are coming and they're saying
I'm saying I have to go, and they're saying, you're
the star of the show. You can't leave as I
have to. And so they canceled a couple of shows
so I could fly home to California.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
This is for their father's funeral. Yeah, they said, you
can't leave.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Well know, they were just they were like, how do
we do this? You know? And actually it was at
the end of it was like right at Tony, what's
it called it? When it's the cutoff time? Qualification time?
So everybody was like, what do we do? So they
were kind enough to cancel enough shows for me to
run home for the funeral and trying to work that
out with my stepmom who was devastated and you know,
(13:49):
really broken, and trying to keep her together and keep
the family together and figure it all out. And it
wasn't until after the funeral you're saying hello to everybody.
And I just kind of kept it together the whole time.
And then as soon as I agreed it like the
thirtieth person or something here, like a thousand people at
his funeral. He was very, very well known and very
loved in Fresno, California. And his older sister came and said,
(14:14):
how you doing.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
And that's when I lost it, when you emptied out.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
I emptied out. But it was you know, But once again,
that's not how I mean. Maybe maybe a good director,
but that's not how I just imagine the film.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
It was an actress.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
You're always controlling and managing your feelings. Anyway, there was
the lovers and knobs and dials inside of us. They
was in there playing with all the yes.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
Of course that we get paid for. You know.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
So you moved to Fresno when you grew up in
Fresno beginning at what age?
Speaker 3 (14:40):
I was nine months old?
Speaker 4 (14:41):
To me, here's your little baby. So you're a child.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
And so there's the Order of McDonald who grows up
in California. Yeah, there's the Order of McDonald, who now
is one of the princesses of the Broadway Theater. There's
like a Mount Rushmore. It's you and burned Itad and
all these chicks. Now, who are these the greatest singers
in the world, and I want to talk about the
order in between. So the order in between when you
(15:05):
first started into the business, when people are hiring you,
and as you're building your career in New York and singing,
what were they hiring you for?
Speaker 3 (15:12):
Well, I think it had more to do with if
I look back on it now, and no one's ever
asked me this, So kudos to you. Well, I do try,
You've got the talent, but I think it had more
to do with I wasn't what people were expecting, you know,
back in those days. Can I say back in those days, yeah,
(15:34):
the early nineties. You know, you'd go an audition for
something and they'd see an African American girl in her
twenties walk in, and I think they'd expect some big
gospel voice, or you know, they're like, can you be
street smart? You know all those code words and whatnot,
and I would sort of break out with the pseudo
operatic voice that had Broadway qualities and was a bit goofy,
(15:57):
and so I think it just intrigued people and anything.
I think that's even how I got into Juilliard. When
I auditioned for Juilliard and I wasn't you know, I
wasn't really wanting to pursue classical music, but I thought,
I'll audition on the strength of my voice. That's that's
my strength.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Was that a goal to go to Juilliard?
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Well, I wanted to go to New York. I wanted
to live in New York Juilliard. Was it Lincoln Center,
you know, you know.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
The good beginning.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Yeah, And I thought I'd be able to get like
my acting classes in nancing class as well. I was there.
I didn't realize that once you're in a program, once
you're in department, you know, you shall not stray. You
stay in that department, and you know, so I just
went in there an audition, didn't really know what I
was doing, and kind of riffed at the end of
a Mozart area. You're not supposed to rift with Mozart,
(16:38):
and I did. And I said, I was a meto
soprano and I'm singing subrette, you know, roles for them,
showing them. I sang a subrette Aria from the note
to figure out maryagifigure out.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
And so for people who don't know what subrette is,
what is that? I'm one of those people.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
By the way you, Dorett, Well, Subrette is sort of
like a really high light soprano, not necessarily coloratura, but
she's like a young, sweet heroin hype lighter sound, not
like a full lyric soprano. And so it's a lot
of people say the ena roles despina, or it's theerlena,
the little cute roles. So anyway, that's what I sang.
(17:13):
I sang one of those arias. But then I said
I'm a mezzo soprano, which I just was just that
just showed how much I didn't know, how little I do.
And they laughed at me and they said how old
are you And I said I'm seventeen and they just
said okay, And I thought, well, I blew that. And
then two weeks later they called me and said we
want you to come to Juilliard. But I don't think
(17:35):
I think it was just intrigue on their part.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Are you there for four years? Well, would you start working?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
No? I was there for five years, but.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
You finished there, you graduated from there?
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Yeah, I took a leave of absence because I had
a suicide attempt actually while I was there, So I
took a leave of absence there's a lot that happened
between the Order and Fresnor, California and the Order who's
on Broadway.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Now, okay, we're going to cover as much of that
as you care to time.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
I'm completely open about it.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
So you're in Juilliard, Yeah, what years was that? That
five years was from when to when?
Speaker 3 (18:07):
It was from nineteen eighty eight to nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Right, So when you're there, was it trouble for you
fitting in? Did you feel uncomfortable and out of place?
Speaker 2 (18:15):
There?
Speaker 4 (18:15):
Absolutely was that a part of what led you to
do what you did.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Yeah, I felt out of place artistically. I felt all
my life growing up in Prest, California, all I ever
wanted to do was beyond Broadway. And then I thought,
you know, let me audition for Juilliard. Just didn't think
it through audition, got in. So everybody back at home
is like, wow, Udra got into Juilliard in New York.
She's you know, she's gonna make it. And then I
get to Juilliard and I'm studying classical music. I'm like,
(18:40):
this isn't what I want to do. I don't want
to be an apt for singer. Why surely they're going
to let me go take some acting classes, surely go
do some dance lists, and surely didn't go an audition
for Broadway shows. No, you have to just study, you know.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
You are enjoying it.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
No, And I felt lost. I felt completely lost. I
felt like I was.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
Offered about that.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
But that alone, I'm assuming, if I'm wrong, didn't lead
you to do something drastic.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
What else?
Speaker 3 (19:03):
No, I mean, well, you know, to an extent, you
can say, yeah, well, you know, like I said, I'm
open about it, because you know, I think I'm a
case of it. It gets better, you know. But I
so I was lost in terms of that, and then
feeling like I couldn't just quit and go back home
because I would look like a failure back at home
And you know, I had boy trouble while I was there.
(19:23):
And so the culmination of being where I wanted to
be in New York City, thinking I'm finally going to
realize my dreams, stuck and failing miserably at Juilliard, not
being able to admit to anybody at home what was
going on, Not being able to go home because I
would have looked like a failure living literally on Broadway
on Broadway my apartment. My address was Broadway twenty five
(19:46):
oh eight Broadway third. I lived with the residential the
old Broadway like well, the wild wild West.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
Anything north of Baby sixth Street, forget it.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
You did not in those days.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
You shield and a sword to go to the grocery store.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Right and crazy to look at it now, Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
But what I'm curious about is that the woman, the
young woman from Fresno, who goes to New York. And again,
let me put a fine point of this before you answer,
which is, and you say you have boy troubles? Are
you dating a different kind of boy now with Juliet No,
the boys that were hard for you to understand?
Speaker 3 (20:21):
No, I was, you know I was.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Was that all the same?
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Well? I was just not being treated well by a boy. Yeah,
boys are the same.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
All boys in the same week. Yeah, Ok, thank you.
My guest has been Augum McDonald. Everyone, good night, everybody.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
No, but but but but The reason I asked this,
I want to are you a fish out of water
in every way?
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Yes? I was a fish out of water in every
way except for the fact that I was in New York,
which is what I knew I wanted. I knew that
much was right, but everything else I kept you grounded, yes,
but everything else was wrong. And so you know, in
those days, I was, you know, twenty twenty one. I
couldn't see past the fact that I had gotten here
and everything up to up to now had gone swimmingly,
(21:02):
and all of a sudden it was all falling apart.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
And if you don't mind my asking what what were
the the ramp up the time and what you were
thinking and feeling. And the only reason I asked this
for people who listen to this, who might be young
people and artists who experience a certain kind of pain
that you experience in this business that I think is
very unique, because you exude in your work. You seem
so confident and so powerful.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Well, I think it's because I'm now, I'm I'm where
I'm supposed to be. I'm doing what I'm supposed to
be doing. I'm doing what I think if you want
to get I don't.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
Know, you're not playing the Eena roles anymore, No.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
No, no, But I mean it's more about I'm artistically fulfilled.
I think my artistic soul is fulfilled. It's doing what
it's supposed to do.
Speaker 5 (21:56):
You agree, look cappy to me.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Not that she doesn't still find challenges coming up. Audra
McDonald talks about a song that's been rather.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Hard to sing.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Audra McDonald isn't the only star who struggled to find
her voice.
Speaker 6 (22:29):
I mean when I tell people I was extremely shy
and nobody believes me.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
Now that's the thing that people have to overcome.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 6 (22:36):
You know, I've found a lot of comedians to be
extraordinarily serious and draws withdrawn sometimes, So yeah, I think
sometimes we overcome things by going after the very thing
that really eludes us.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
To hear more about Renee Fleming's story, go to Hear's
Thething dot org. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening
to Here's the Thing. If ever there was a track
record that warranted dividom, it is Audra McDonald's. But despite
her unparalleled fame, the Queen of Broadway is disarmingly humble,
(23:11):
perhaps the mark of a person who's endured great pain
in her case. While studying at Juilliard.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
This was my third year and it had been just
yet another year of floundering and doing poorly in all
my classes, and teachers just saying you know, you've got
to give over to your operatic sound, and me not
wanting to, not knowing what that was. And when I
would get close to an operatic sound, I'd say, I
don't want to sound like that. So I felt like
(23:40):
I was just being pushed and they were doing their
job rightfully. So this is like, this is your Juilliard
to study. This is what you're going to do to
push me into a place that just wasn't me artistically.
So that coupled with being you know, twenty twenty one
by yourself in New York and being treated poorly by
whatever his name was, what's his name, We're that no, no, no, no, no,
(24:07):
he's he's fine. He's a great guy now. But at
any rate, So all of that combined with me being
sort of like the great hope from my hometown too.
You know, Order's gonna make it. If anybody's gonna make
it on Broadway, it's going to be Order. I I
the boy was the catalyst that sort of like sort
of broke that. It was a star that broke the
(24:27):
camel's back. But it was three years of I'm in
the wrong place, doing the wrong thing. I'm failing miserably
but I'm here in Disneyland, where I'm supposed to be,
where I said I wanted to be.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
So I sord you do.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
I I slit my wrists one night.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
What happened? And written about this?
Speaker 3 (24:48):
I haven't, I guess I should. I speak about it
all the time, but maybe one day I'll write about it.
Found you, I I I slipped my wrists and then
realized what I had done and called the Sudent affairs
director who I had become close with, and.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Said, I helped me, and someone came and helped you.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
And they helped me, and they took me to a
mental hospital. It's interesting this mental hospital still there, Gracie
Square Hospital. It's next door to my ob gyn who
delivered my six month old.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
That's what a circuit that is. So I almost didn't
make it, and now I made it and I'm in this.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
I had to pass it, you know, every week to
go to my obgyn appointment, I had to pass Gracie
Square Hospital. And every time I passed it, there was
a part of me just, you know, waddling down the
street pregnant as can be. Some twenty nine years later,
I would I would. I felt such relief and joy
and you know, a sense of yes, I get the
(25:52):
big picture.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Now, what month in the school year was that that
that happened.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
It was January or February.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
So it was at the midpoint.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Let's say, and you take off office and you come
back when you come back the following fall, you don't.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
I came back the following fall for a little bit,
and then I got an opportunity to audition for something
that ended up that I ended up being the secret
Garden actually, and I asked the you know, administration office
and my the dean, what I should do, and they said,
you know, go do that. It's okay, take the time
(26:24):
off to go do that. It seems like that's where
you want to be.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
So and they probably didn't want to disappoint.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
You at that point.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
At that point they were like, sure, go go, you
want to go sing on.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Go go do it.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
Yeah, we don't ever want to get your way.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
You know. The thing is there was actually a lot,
not a lot, but they had a special arrangement with
Gracie Square Hospital. There were a couple of other Juilliard
students there that I had wondered what had happened to
I was there. I was at the hospital for me,
but Grace's Square, I thinks private hospital. I was there
for a month. They evaluated me and said, you you're
not going anytime soon.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
And did that change you?
Speaker 3 (27:02):
I was so heavily medicated. I was heavily medicated.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
When you say that, it's so compelling to me because
when I see you, I think of you. I think
of you like you know, you're so strong your personality
and performance. I view you as a person that's going
to go. I'm going back into the burning building to
save the baby.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Well that is me now, yeah, but I think maybe
that experience helped make me that now. I mean, look,
I'm still a mess. I mean everybody's a mess, always
a mess, I you know, and I when I understood
a lot going on, Yeah, and I realized, you know,
I'm someone who suffers from depression. But I learned in
the years a how to deal with it. B to
find you know, find my joy and see to realize that,
(27:42):
like alcoholism, it's something that you wake up every day
and you say, yeah, that's still something that I have
to deal with, as opposed to saying, oh, I'm just
not depressed anymore. Just but to learn how to cope
with that, and my art gives me a lot of
joy and keeps me, keeps me strong.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
So what's the first job you do?
Speaker 1 (28:00):
This is a tired question, but I can't help back
and ask you, especially with somebody like you, what's the
first job when you do?
Speaker 4 (28:06):
When you sit there and go, I got this.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
I think I got this, like I'm over the.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
No no meaning you know that the sky is the
limit for you. You're out there and you're doing it,
and you're connecting to that material, you know, and you go,
I think I really really have a shot at my
dream coming true.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Here.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
It was Sally Murphy and she was she was Julie Jordan,
and I played Kerry Pippridge and it was the guy
Michael Hayden was with Hayden, Yes, yes, yes, Nick Heitner
at Lincoln Center, which is also crazy for me to
then open, you know, in Carousel at Lincoln Center, where
at Vivian Momont Theater where you can look up and
I can see the school that I, you know, had
(28:45):
a hard time in and and I remember standing in
those in those windows at Juilliard looking at Vivian Beaumont,
seeing Patty Lapone performing there and going why am I
not doing that? And then how'd you feel like the
(29:05):
luckiest survivor in the world. I mean, and I felt
a sense of gratitude, a sense of relief, and a
sense of Okay, I get it. I now get that
I was on my path.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Out the window of one place is your future. Out
the window of Juilliard where you try to snuff yourself
is the Vivian Beaumont where you're going to do.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
Carousel across the street. It's always a vista for you
what might.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Have been was, which was something not bad and wonderful? Yeah,
I mean babies and Tony Awards and all that stuff.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
I think, I think what it realizes there's a bigger picture.
And I think, you know, it's very easy to, you know,
just get into tunnel vision, especially when you're young and
you know it's only you that you're having to think about.
And not that that's a bad thing, but it's just
easy to get buried very quickly under emotion and fear
and disappointment and all that. And I just think that
(30:01):
I learned to have a bigger picture about life.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
We're taking a break, so stay with us. Once you
become extraordinarily successful, in the busin You won your first
Tony Award for what show?
Speaker 4 (30:15):
For Carousel? And you're how old?
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Twenty three?
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Your child and you when you you were fresh out
of that situation, You weren't far that far removed from
that situation.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Was two and a half years away from that situation
and a.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Half years later, which is nothing. Yeah, you win a
Tony Award and you've won six Tony Awards. Yes, you
won the most Tony Awards of anybody. Are you tied
with somebody you're tied with?
Speaker 3 (30:33):
No? Not with that.
Speaker 7 (30:39):
No.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
I love.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
I love when people sit there and they go, oh,
I don't know. I don't keep track of that. I go, you, liar,
you got all your Tonys lined up?
Speaker 3 (30:46):
They do.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
No, I'm not you. I'm saying, but people in general,
I doubt you do. To actually, but to embarrass you
even more than I already have.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Oh good god.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
You are enormously talented and everything clicks, and you're very,
very successful, and you're gorgeous woman. Well you're a gorgeous woman.
And what did that do in terms of your career,
meaning that you could have gone and made films and
then a television series. Did you have a lot of
offers you swept aside.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
No, I've never had those offers. I mean, I did
one television series once where I played the best friend
in Private Practice to the main character show Private Practice,
Kate Walsh played Addison Montgomery and I played her best friend.
Speaker 4 (31:27):
Did you do that?
Speaker 3 (31:28):
I did it for five six years. The show ran
for seven years, and I did it for five or
six years. But no, Hollywood has never really banged down
on my doors. And I think that's because you're very
kind to say I'm gorgeous, but I don't think I'm
the typical sort of look. I'm also a big girl,
and I'm proud of that, and I'm fine with that.
But you know, it's interesting when you go to Hollywood
(31:50):
and you see these people on the movie screens your
entire life, and then you see them in person and
they're all like one fourth of them a taper airplay.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
What the hell didn't look well?
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Do you want a cheeseburger?
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (32:02):
No, no, no, I mean it's saying look terrible, but it's
just for me. It's just like I, you know, I
think size wise that has something to do with it,
and I and I don't know that that's where I'm
at my strongest right, you know, And I think.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
We work so hard to develop this perch you're in.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Now, what's that like for you to have to go
out and wring yourself out again?
Speaker 4 (32:20):
Process every night?
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Well, the process for me, I go really inside. I
get really quiet. People around me think that I'm angry
with them before I do a show because I just
get very quiet and I go inside and stay still,
and I'm not. I'm not one to kind of jump
around and go visit other dressing rooms. I just I
have to kind of go in and be super super
super quiet and still because focus. Yeah, because in a minute,
(32:45):
you're going to have to turn all of your insides out,
and so if I'm giving all that out beforehand, I
will have nothing to get.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
One of the hardest ones for you, Lady Day.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
Absolutely that was by myself on stage for an hour
and forty five minutes, just having to give it and
especially living that life that she led. I have to
have to live that on stage every night. That I
was no fun to be around before the show. After
the show, I was a ball.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
Because that's very common.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Yes, because I was thrilled it was over until the
next you know, it's interesting. I know I can remember who. Oh,
maybe it was Kathy Bates. I can't remember who said
this to me, but I said, well, why don't you
ever come back to Broadway or do a show on Broadway?
And I think it was Kathy Bage. She said, oh, honey,
oh that's hard. It's hard, and she's right, you know
it is, because especially when you think, Okay, I've done it,
I've given a good performance. I got through that. You know,
(33:33):
when you're doing a film, you're like, great, it's in
the can and now I'm off the cub or whatever,
you know. But Broadway it's like, and now I have
to do that again tomorrow night, and then the next
night after that, the next and it's a blessing.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
At the end of every day.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
I gotta go to work exactly, you have that whole
day and what happens in that in the world. The
worst thing for me when I was acting was when
I have a wonderful, fun day and then I had
to go to work and wring myself out and some
drive to go do the Scottish play.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Yes, for me, it was always on Sunday matinee. When
you're headed to your Sunday matinee. You're walking down ninth
Abue and you're seeing everybody outside, either out of street
fair or having wine and runch.
Speaker 4 (34:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
And I can't tell you how many I saw in
the sun. I can't tell you how many times you're
walking down ninth Aaber you just want to take your
aunt and swipe all the food off of those sidewalk tables.
It's like, that's not fair. No, of course not. I
mean it's I'm doing what I wanted to do my
entire life. But there is that.
Speaker 4 (34:22):
People are counting on you. Yes, amazing.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
When I did Street Car, I got really sick and
I missed the show. I was out for it for
a weekend, the two Saturdays and the Sunday, and I
missed the show. But I go downstairs. I lived on
Central Park West. I go downstairs. I cross over to
Broadway an eighty sixth and Broadway on the northeast corner.
I'm gonna cross over to William's Chicken, Yes, and get
my soup.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
And I'm there and this little woman looks up to me.
It's like seven o'clock at night. It's a it's a
Friday night or a Saturday night. Rather and She.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
Looks up to me, this little owlish woman. She goes,
aren't you supposed to be on Broadway right now? And
I thought this town, flip and town.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
I have a story like that too. I mean, we
were it was a New Year's Eve and Ethan Hawk
had been able to we were doing Henry the Fourth
at Lincoln Center, and he'd been able to get the
entire cast invited to the plays and Players Club or
a what's the club over on lads players Club? Yes,
for New Year's Eve. So we're all there and we're
all celebrating, and it's wonderful, but we're, you know, in
and amongst you know, the actual members of this club.
(35:22):
And it's New Year's Eve and I'm doing a play.
And I was still young, and I thought, I'm gonna
have a cigarette, you know, why not, I'm gonna have
a cigarette. And I don't smoke as a rule, but
I just decided it's New Year's Eve, I'm gonna have
wine and cigarettes and it'll be fun. So I was
smoking out on the little terrorists they have out there.
I'm smoking my cigarette. I'm chatting with some of my
(35:43):
cast members and an older woman who's a member of
the plays Club. She comes up to me and she said,
I'd say you're Audra McDonald, but it couldn't possibly be
her because she wouldn't be smoking, never destroying her instrument.
She wouldn't be smoking. And then she just sort of march, Now.
Speaker 4 (36:01):
Who are people who in your life? In your career?
Speaker 1 (36:06):
One might assume you've sung the song, sang the songs
of pretty much everyone you want to sing. Where is
there one that's gotten by you? Is there some composer
whose music you want to sing that you haven't sang.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
No, I wouldn't say that. I mean there's always young compo.
I am always championed the work of new, young musical
theater composers, so I'm always looking for new work to do.
There are certain songs that I stay away from because
I don't feel that I can do them properly. For example,
one that I have not been able to conquer that
I have tried a couple of times and never done
in public because I can't conquer it is Being Alive
(36:38):
by Sondheim. I cannot. As much as that song moves
me and as much as it means to me, every
time I try and sing it, I fail. So I
have not done it in public, and I won't until
I figure it out. And that is that strange?
Speaker 1 (36:52):
It is No, No, I mean, I'm sure there's people.
It's like in plays. I mean, I'm trying to roles.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
I'm trying to think of. Right.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Do you have writers whose work you steer clear of
as a performer because you don't you don't get it,
so you don't know how to bring it to life.
Not that you don't enjoy watching.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
I might enjoy watching, you know, whatever. I want to
have in the theater. Life itself is so filled with
oddities now and surreal crap going on with the government
and everything. I want to see something which is really
I want some honesty. No, I need to have a
like oxygen. I need a big hit of honesty.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
I you know, that's interesting. I was listening to a
performer on the way down here who i'd absolutely admire,
whose work I admire, and they were singing a song
that didn't, in my mind, seem quite right for them.
Not that they weren't singing it beautifully, but I thought,
I don't think they believe this. I don't. I think
they're trying something and they don't believe it, and there's
a part of me that thought, why am I thinking
(37:47):
that about them? I do that stuff all the time.
But I think you're right. There is something going on
right now in the zeitgeist that's sort of like everybody
is needing truth and needing needing something to ground them
and where is reality?
Speaker 4 (37:59):
Any sat tire?
Speaker 1 (38:00):
And my last question for you is, well, first of all,
describe for me, if you would, as I try to,
always think about people in your profession and who do
what you do as well as you do a moment
when you're on stage and you used to go out
there at night and you'd sing a song and you
knew you were going to kill these people, you know,
the minute that you sang that song, the way you
said that you could almost feel the people just getting
(38:22):
destroyed by that song.
Speaker 4 (38:24):
Is that in a Lady Day as well?
Speaker 3 (38:26):
Well? I think in the beginning with Lady Day, because
I think no one thought that I could find her voice,
you know, because I'm a soprano. So it's like, what
are you doing with's the soprano doing Lady Day? You know,
trying to be Billie Holiday. She doesn't have it in
her And I didn't think I had it in me.
And so some nights, you know, the show opens and
the first thing I do is sing before I even
(38:46):
start speaking, and so the audience and you can tell
that the audience is waiting to hear is she going
to get it? And on nights that I really felt
that I was really lined up, really lined up with Billy.
I had I had enough, you know, of her perfume on,
and I had the makeup right, and I had the
gin behind my ears so I could smell like what
she must have smelled like in those days. And I
(39:09):
would open my mouth and sing the first all I
know is I'm in love with you, and you'd hear
sometimes i'd hear the audience gasp, and that's when I'd
be like, Okay, I got that right now. Sustain it
for the next hour and forty five minutes, you know,
and I'd feel that. I'd think, Okay, they're they're taking
the journey with me. And there were nights where that
wouldn't happen. I'd think, Okay, I got a drag them
(39:31):
on this journey too, you know. But every once in
a while there'd be that moment of and every once
in a while to hear people go, oh my god,
ah and know is I'm in low.
Speaker 7 (39:49):
Ye in there you said that we are through. I
know that that should know a yes, care go I
wonder where Allah has gone.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
The final line of a review from The Evening Standard
for her recent West End debut as Billie Holiday doubles
as a review of Audra herself. Quote, yet still she
stands broken but indomitable to the last unquote. I'm Alec Baldwin.
Here's the thing.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
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