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By Beth Herstein
 I recently
had the pleasure of talking to Laura Bell Bundy, the effervescent
performer. Bundy
is only 23 years old, seemingly young for a retrospective. However,
she is already a seasoned veteran of stage, screen and television,
with the Radio City Christmas Show and a few years in the popular
soap opera "The Guiding Light" to her credit.
Bundy is also well known to theater fans. She first won accolades
and garnered several major award nominations over a decade ago,
in the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle award winner Ruthless!. More recently, she created the role of Amber Von
Tussle in Hairspray and served as Kristin Chenoweth's standby
in Wicked. She also writes and performs music with her
childhood friend and writing partner, Amber Rhodes.
Bundy, who was in Los Angeles at the time, talked to me by
telephone. Her warmth and charm were evident throughout our
conversation, as were her her maturity and confidence. She discussed
Shameless!, her career so far and her plans for the future.
Talkin Broadway: What can you tell me about your
upcoming cabaret show?
Laura Bell Bundy: It is called Shameless! The Life and
Times of Laura Bell Bundy. I wanted to call it If Jon Bonet
Had Lived, but people were afraid that was a little too off
color. Shameless! is kind of a spin-off on Ruthless!.
And I call it Shameless! because I have no shame. I hope I
dont offend anybody, but I might. Its not a regular cabaret show,
where the performer sings a few songs and has some patter. I play
characters - whether its myself at eight, or my mother, or Julie
Andrews, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, hookers. Im playing
all of those people while they are or I am explaining the story of
my life.
I think the only thing you have to offer, if youre doing a show
like that, is a really great idea or else your own personal story,
and then making that interesting and entertaining. So, hopefully it
will be entertaining. It will be very high energy. I dont know
exactly what will happen. Im the kind of performer who, when I get
out on the stage - whatever it is I rehearsed, gets exaggerated or
turned around. I really get a kick out of spontaneity. Its like a
drug. So, who knows what will happen!
TB: Especially before a live audience. Joes Pub is a
great space, very intimate.
LBB: Theres nothing like being stuck out on the stage,
with everybody watching you, expecting to be entertained. Youve got
to think of something to do! I started out so young that my comfort
zone is on the stage. Just stick me on a stage and Im comfortable.
Thats a nice thing to have if you want to be an actor.
As for the show, its definitely a challenge. I take the parts of
my life experience that will be entertaining. And how will they be
entertaining? They wont be if theyre all told by Laura Bell Bundy,
and if theyre all sung by Laura Bell Bundy. But, they will be
entertaining if Judy Garland is singing about them, or Julie
Andrews, or Elaine Stritch.
I sing lots of songs, I do parodies. I do a parody based on
Hairspray. I do a parody of me as a little girl doing
Ruthless!. I do a medley of all the people I admire - being
them, actually. And, I touch on my parents splitting up. As if I
were an old lady and looking back on my life.
My grandfather [who also appeared in the first Pepsi Cola radio
commercial] was a radio announcer and a D.J. in the forties. I
learned about all the great old music from him - people like Tony
Bennett and Rosemary Clooney. In Kentucky this was ... you know, a
five-year-old singing Ive Got Rhythm and Good Morning Heartache
... it was a little weird.
TB: These were the grandparents who were married for over
50 years?
LBB: Yes, my grandparents have been married, I believe 53
years now. And, you know what? Theyre still in love. He still calls
her his bride. To me, that is really something to aspire to. In my
show, I touch briefly on being a product of a broken home. I do the
whole Im a rebellious teenager in my show - as Britney Spears.
The thing is that, especially in the time we live in, theres almost
an assumption that youll get married until you get divorced. And
its really nice to have a good example of a long lasting love. My
parents split up when I was 14 and divorced when I was 16, and my
career took a toll on their relationship.
TB: Your mom moved with you to New York and your dad
stayed in Kentucky.
LBB: My dad owns a company back in Kentucky, and he had
his business to attend to. So he would come back and forth, and we
would go back and forth. And, that went on for around
four-and-a-half years, from when I was nine until I turned fourteen.
My career was kind of going crazy and I had to have a parent with
me, so my mom stayed with me. What do two parents do when they have
a child starring in an Off-Broadway show? Its a very weird
position. You dont want to take that opportunity away from your
child, who is the most important thing in your life. But, your
marriage is important too. How do you balance that?
TB: You made the decision to return to Kentucky when you
were 14, so that you could attend high school with people who
werent in show business.
LBB: I had been going to the Professional Childrens
School in New York, and its a great school, but everyone there is a
professional. Professional musicians, professional dancers,
professional ice skaters, chess players, actors. I wanted to go to
school with football players and normal kids who were going to go to
classes and go to dances. I wanted to go to the high school that you
see in the movies. And I got that for sure, the complete experience.
I also wanted to be with my dad again. I wanted my family back
together and my mom really wanted that, too. I think they both did.
But I got home and two months later they broke up. So, there went
that. It was kind of difficult to deal with.
TB: At the same time, it sounds like you had a lot of
maturity and presence of mind at a young age to be making decisions
in a mature way about your career, and about how to keep a balance
in your life.
LBB: I have older sisters, but the youngest is around 12
years older than me and the other is 19 years older. They were never
really around. So I was around adults. I was around my mom and dad
and my grandparents. I was also around gay men in Chelsea, and all
the directors and other actors I worked with. Also, I was a
professional. I had to be a grown up. In any child actor, youll see
this part of them that is very mature. They talk like adults, they
carry themselves like adults, and theyre very responsible when it
comes to thinking and talking and making plans for themselves. Its
really bizarre, actually.
Because I had that professionalism at a young age, my parents
never treated me like a child. I mean, I was always my mom and dads
little girl. And I played with Barbie. I was - well, Im still a
kid. Ill never grow up. Because I like being a kid. But, because I
had a sense of responsibility at a young age, my parents respected
me enough to treat me like an adult and ask me how I felt about
things. They didnt discard my opinions because I was a child. I am
really happy for that, because I trust my own instincts now and I
trust my decisions. Im fearless. My parents instilled that
confidence in me. Its really one of the best things that I got out
of being in the business as a young child.
TB: Youve worked with people like Marie Osmond (in
The Sound of Music) and Deborah Gibson (in Gypsy), who
started out pretty young also. Did you find that you had a lot in
common?
LBB: When I worked with Marie, I was younger than she was
when she did the Donny and Marie show. I think she had
empathy for all the kids in that show. She is such a jokester and
such a big kid, and she was really good to all of us. She would have
us come on her tour bus if we didnt want to take the flight, and we
would all stay in these little beds on the bus and watch old
episodes of Donny and Marie or anything else we wanted to do,
and she would take us to movies. I think she was trying to make sure
we managed to have a childhood while we were on the tour.
 TB: And Ruthless! - what did that
part meant to you?
LBB: Ruthless! was a monumental part of my life. I
didnt ever audition for it. I was nine, and I was doing the Radio
City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular, the first professional
theater gig I had in New York City. Marvin Laird was the musical
director. I was the principal girl who did Clara in The
Nutcracker and sang the songs, and this, that and the other.
When Marvin met me, I remember him taking me over to the piano and
having me do scales. I was going all up and down the piano. Because
I had been a mimic as a kid, I could mimic an opera singer and it
would sound like an opera singer. Very bizarre. So, right away, he
said, Theres this show Ive been working on that youd be perfect
for. Its based on The Bad Seed. I have to introduce you to
the writer and director. So, I met with the writer and director,
Joel Paley, and I started working on this show called Seedy,
which eventually became Ruthless!.
We did readings of it when I was nine, and when I was ten, and we
workshopped it. We opened Off Broadway several months later. The
experience of being nominated for the Drama Desk and Outer Critics
Circle Awards - I didnt understand what the Drama Desk and Outer
Critics Circle Awards were. It wasnt a Tony or an Academy Award, so
I didnt get it. Now, I think, Wow, that was awesome! But, then, I
said, Ok, thats cool. Now, wheres my doll?
Joel and Marvin were great. I dont think you can teach someone
comedic timing, but I do think you can make it grow and bring it to
life and make it something. Whatever it was, they made that happen,
especially Joel Paley. He was giving me new monologues to do every
night - he was constantly changing the show, but he trusted me.
Looking back at it - I know I was a kid, but I remember it as if
I were an adult then. Even though I didnt quite understand it, I
enjoyed doing the show. I didnt do it because of my career, but
because I loved doing it. I never called in sick. I did go off to
make two movies. One of those times, Britney Spears came in and did
my part for a week.
Ruthless! in general was the beginning of my learning how
to do musical comedy, and it has really shaped who I am as an
actress. I have to attribute my bitchy comedy to Ruthless!. I
went into my audition for Hairspray, and Ruthless! was
mentioned. I think it helped me. They thought, Oh, thats the
little girl from Ruthless!, shes perfect for Amber von
Tussle. Its that same evil child who smiles and then grits her
teeth and says something completely off color.
TB: You were with Hairspray from early in its
development.
LBB: It was just after my nineteenth birthday. I was
doing the soap opera "Guiding Light" at the time. I did the first
Hairspray reading in May of 2000. It was a blast. I knew then
that the show was going to be a hit.
When the show opened and all of the success happened, I thought,
I know Im going to take the experience for granted. I knew it,
because it was my first Broadway show. I was starring as a
supporting lead character, and the show was huge. It moved right
into pop culture. And I took so much pride in it because Id been in
it from the beginning. When youre in a role early on in the
development, youre part of the creative process.
Also, Id gotten to know a lot of the people from the three years
before, so there was a family and a unity there. You take a part
that youve created, you take your first Broadway show, and you
already love the people youre working with before the show opens,
and it's a hit! You think, this could not be better. [Laughs.]
Except I could be making more money. Really, though, Hairspray
was a show that I would have wanted to do for free.
TB: It also sounds like you found a collaborator in Kerry
Butler. Youre out in L.A. with her now, pitching a show?
LBB: She was here last week, and we went to several
studios to pitch a few ideas we have for television shows. Im also
working on some other TV ideas and Im developing, as a producer, a
Broadway musical that Im not participating in. I want to completely
focus my energies on making the show come to life, as opposed to
being an actor in it. Theres not really a role for me in it,
anyway. Its based on the music of a very well known Grammy Award
winning band and Ive been meeting with the band and working on it.
Its a little too soon to speak more about it, but its really
exciting, because in my heart its like my next Hairspray.
Its something Im really passionate about and I believe in.
TB: Earlier, you mentioned that you were on "The Guiding
Light." How did it prepare you for the theater?
LBB: Its the best training you can ever get! Theres
nowhere else where youre going to have to memorize forty pages of
lines a day and be pretty and cry on cue. A lot of people think
there are teleprompters. There are no teleprompters. And, unlike
film, you dont get to do it twenty times until you get it right.
You sit down with it, dress rehearse it and then tape it. If you
screw it up they go back and pick it up. But, thats it.
On top of that, your character is making out and dancing on bar
counters. She gets kidnaped and she dates a Mafia member. Her
parents are getting divorced; shes in an earthquake. Its
ridiculous, all the things that happen. You play about 50 characters
while youre on the show, because of all those story lines.
The other actors on the show were so talented. Like Kim Zimmer
and Robert Newman. Kim Zimmer is like the Atlantic Ocean. She can
turn those waterworks on and off on cue and theyre so real,
theyll make you cry in the middle of the scene, even if youre not
supposed to. From that experience, I was able to get in touch with a
deeper side of my emotions, and my work became more grounded as a
result. There were times on the soap when I got carried away and I
became that person. You really get deeply into it; theres no better
training than that.
Another thing that acting in a soap opera does is give you
confidence. If you have 12 pages of lines to learn for an audition,
you go, This is nothing! Im learning 30 pages every day. You go
in very relaxed and very comfortable, and when you do the scene,
its like all the other scenes that you have done. So you have one
up on people just in the sense of confidence. Which is a huge deal.
Linda Hart (who played Bundys mother in Hairspray) told me
once, fear is 50 per cent of acting. Being fearless, that is. If you
go into an audition and you cant move because youre worried about
not getting the job - you wont get the job.
TB: I read your ["Guiding Light"] characters life story.
She had a pretty crazy life.
LBB: Oh, my God! She was like a psycho. But, psychos
good.
TB: Is it more interesting for you to play than balanced?
LBB: Hell, yeah! I am way more a character actor. Psycho
kind of goes with character. If you can do extremes well, youre a
character actor. If a character is really even-keeled and balanced,
to me its really boring to play. And, its also hard for me to play
because I want to make them crazy. [Laughs].
TB: What was your experience in Wicked like?
LBB: Were talking about extremes and craziness in a
character. Glinda was crazy. She was so afraid of herself. She cared
so much about other peoples opinions and thoughts that she was able
to shut somebody out. But she was comfortable enough with herself
and had enough of a conscience to let that person - Elphaba - in and
teach her something. Theres this whole element of friendship, and
this element of wanting to be successful.
I used to say that Glinda was really a Munchkin, and that she had
to prove herself to her family, which is what made her so ambitious.
That was my backstory. There was a lot to her. This first half of
the show, shes young, kind of fun and flighty - a little bit of a
smart ass. And, shes sassy. Then, in the second half, shes grown
up, shes got more depth, and her vulnerability is showing. To me,
it was like playing two different characters who were only connected
by story. And, that was really fun for me, because I was able to
take from my soap opera experience the groundedness and
connectedness at the end of the second act, and really be able to
feel something for Elphaba.
TB: How was it being a standby?
LBB: I think its the hardest thing a person could ever
do. I have so much respect for a person who covers a lead actor - or
covers a character, period. Anybody whos an understudy, standby,
swing, whatever. You could be told that you are going to have a
dress rehearsal or a tech rehearsal or a rehearsal with the rest of
the cast before you go on, but that probably wont happen. I never
had a dress rehearsal. When I was up in the bubble [from which
Glinda descends in the opening scene], it was the second time I had
ever been in the bubble. The curtains were opening; and, I was
suspended above the air, in costumes I had never worn before, a wig
Id never worn before, in a bubble Id hardly ever been in. My palms
were so sweaty, I thought I was going to drop the wand onto the
stage. Then I had to sing, and the first thing I had to sing was
opera! [hums] The whole time I was thinking, Holy shit! There are
so many people out there! Im not thinking about what Im supposed
to be thinking about - which is what the character is doing and
feeling. [Laughs] I wasnt acting at all, I was freaking out!
In one respect, being able to get through that experience made me
more confident. Because, if I can do a leading role and continue to
do it and have my timing get better without having rehearsals or
anything, then I can do anything. Im really glad that, as a result
of having done it, I will never ever take those people who do this
for granted. [Being a standby is] not so good on the ego. Theres a
comfort that the people in the cast have with someone they do the
show with every day, and they never will have that with the standby.
That always has to be understood. But that still makes it harder for
the new person, because they will never be what the other person is
used to. Now, I got nothing but support and love from the people in
Wicked. I never felt anything that was weird or negative when
I went on in the show. Also, people were happy with what I did. But,
that isnt always the case. And, its rarely the actors fault. Its
always that they werent rehearsed enough, or they werent cast
correctly, or the other actors arent responding to them. In
retrospect, Im so glad that I did it. Altogether, it was a good
learning experience, and very valuable, even though I wasnt as
connected to it as to Hairspray.
TB: It sounds like the confidence you talked about
earlier, that your parents instilled in you, gives you poise and a
sense of boundless ability to try things. That is really admirable.
LBB: Thank you. And, well, I have a lot of things going
on, because Im a lot of different people. I guess Im not
certifiably schizophrenic [laughs], but you know what I mean. Life
is too short to not do everything!
My musical career is very exciting. I love writing in general -
and I love writing music with my singing partner. Amber [Rhodes] is
a brilliant songwriter and we have a country/rock/pop group and a
band. Weve played in Nashville, and, were trying to make that
something now. Im not tied down at this moment to eight shows a
week, which is weird for me. But its nice because I dont have to
worry about not being able to go to Nashville if I have to go - or
shoot a pilot - or something like that.
The scariest thing is when youve created a lot of projects that
are important to you, that arent paying you anything. Like a music
career or pitching shows or developing a musical. Those are things
that pay off after theyve happened. In the meantime, you put a lot
of time into them and you have to be available for those things to
work out. You dont want to sacrifice them, but its also important
that you eat. So, theres this balance. You ask yourself: Will this
job help me along in my career, or as an actress, or with other
projects - or will it stop me from doing those things? Will it
prohibit me from doing the other projects that I care about? Thats
kind of how you have to make a decision.
I love doing music. The music industry is really hard to break
into right now, but Im not in a rush. If its meant to be, it will
happen.
TB: Based on your years of experience, its as if youre
a little old lady. But, actually, youre a very young one. So you
can take your time and see what happens with it.
LBB: Yeah. But, even though Im only 23, I have this
drive to make things happen sooner than when they should happen, or
when the universe will allow them to happen. I think thats because
Ive been working so long. People look and me and they go, Wow,
youve really done a lot for 23. And I say, Yeah, because Ive
been working since I was six.
Im so thankful for my head start. I would not be in the position
Im in right now without the knowledge that I have. It could have
all happened, but I wouldnt understand the value of it if it had
happened quickly. I had a mom who sacrificed a lot for me, so that I
would not have to be waiting tables and going on open calls. I may
still have to wait tables, but I wont have to go to open calls.
That is a huge step.
A lot of people, straight out of college, ask me how to get
started. A person my age getting started in the business has to get
a job to get an agent. But, how are they going to get jobs without
an agent? You have to go to every open call, do readings and do
short films. Youve got to hold two jobs, take acting and dance
classes. You have to bust your butt.
TB: To get around it, you have to keep chipping away,
getting little things done. Also, you have to develop a thick skin.
Because there are always going to be obstacles and rejections, or
people who like or dont like your work.
LBB: Yeah. You know how they say never to read your
reviews? You cant. You were directed one way. And you dont argue
with your directors - you have to trust them - and if you get a bad
review, its like, Oh, well, onto the next thing. People might
never forget your review, but its very important that you forget
your review - whether its great or its crap. Because, every job is
going to be different, every character is going to be different.
And, like you were saying, when youre getting started there are all
these obstacles.
I would love to talk to young actors and help figure out a really
good, solid plan for young people to pursue their dreams. Help them
figure out what they need to do emotionally, fiscally, and in terms
of training and auditioning. Also, how to find job opportunities if
youre a musician or artist or whatever. It would be really nice for
someone to be there for that. I mean, Im sure there are programs
out there. But, most of them are $1000 or more. Why cant someone
just be nice and donate it? Maybe thats what Ill do!
TB: I read that you deferred college to do The Guiding
Light, but that you still intend to go back, and maybe study
psychology.
LBB: When I was in Hairspray, I went back to NYU
and took sociology. I loved it. I loved psychology as well. I do
want to go back to school for business and philosophy. Even if
its when Im 80 years old that I get the degree. Its really
important for people to continue to educate themselves and be well
read. Otherwise, youre not utilizing your mind. Its such a gift to
be able to use your mind, and stay fresh and keep up with current
events.
TB: To have a retrospective show is an interesting choice
at your age. It must be interesting for you as well. Do you feel
like youre growing, learning things about yourself as youre
putting the show together?
LBB: Its like psychoanalysis! I mean, there are parts in
the one-woman show where Im afraid of being able to get through.
But, Ill do it! I know Ill do it.
Shameless! The Life and Times of Laura Bell Bundy
Produced by Lynn Shaw
Directed by Jamie McGonnigal
Musical direction by John McMahon
Press Index
Photos:
BenStrothmann.com Source:
http://www.talkinbroadway.com/rialto/past/2004/09_02_04.html
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