PODCAST: Helen Mirren, Kristin Chenoweth & More Featured in Tony Actress Roundtable

Earlier this month, Tony nominees Kristin Chenoweth, Helen Mirren, Carey Mulligan, Kelli O'Hara, Chita Rivera and Ruth Wilson sat down with THR's Scott Feinberg to discuss their lives, career and roles which could earn them a trophy when the 2015 Tony Awards take place on June 7th.

Listen to the podcast below!

Kristin Chenoweth shared that her current role in Broadway's ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY was one she has hoped to play for a long time. "While I was doing my Masters at OCU [Oklahoma City University], where Kelli and I went, my teacher told me about the role and I went, "Eh," you know?," explains the actress. "I was 22 at the time and didn't really think about it. And then several years ago, I was working with [Betty] Comden and [Adolph] Green, the composers, and they told me that I should do the part. And then we did a reading maybe three years ago and I went, "Oh, yes!" I loved Madeline Kahn from the Mel Brooks films, but wasn't even aware that she had done the original. But I hope that I have a little homage to her in there along with my own - obviously, we want everything that we do to be ours."

THE KING AND I's Kelli O'Hara spoke about reuniting with director Bartlett Sher, whom she previously worked with in The Light in the Piazza and South Pacific. "It feels like a homecoming in a really wonderfully comfortable place to be - the same director, the same musical director, my same dressing room! [laughs] It's a great place to build something with freedom. But it also is a very new thing - it's a new project and it's a new type of role for me, so [in those respects] it doesn't feel any bit the same, really. It just feels like a lot of freedom with a brand new thing. It's good."

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Photo: Eric Ryan Anderson/The Hollywood Reporter