Annaleigh Ashford
We actually found some home videos, some really funny footage of me when I was around 3 years old. I come up to the camera to do a Nixon impression. I don't know who taught me that, but I come up to the camera and said, 'I am not a crook.' I got a really good laugh. You see me register that bringing joy to people is a positive thing.
I don't know how to explain it, but ever since I was a little girl, I knew that I wanted to perform.
I feel that since I was a little, little person, I knew that one of my life goals was to tell stories and bring joy to people.
I always try to have a positive and warm intention that is not about me. It is easy to make everything about yourself. But you take the weight off when we make it about the audience. It's about the joy you can bring to somebody else instead of the joy that you get from doing it.
There are certain performers that the gay community receives and recognizes with love, and my whole life, I've always responded to those same artists.
I've always felt very attuned to, and at home in, the gay community.
I grew up listening to cabaret. At 7 and 8 years old, I was already singing like a club performer.
You have to be so honest in comedy.
In the comedy world, there's always been one woman to five men. I think that's changing, that we're being respected more as writers and comedians.
I played Tina Denmark in Ruthless the Musical when I was 9 at the Theatre on Broadway in Denver.Collection: Musical
My mom is a gym teacher, and shes not musically inclined, but she always wanted to help me out with music as best she could.Collection: Mom
I’ve always felt very attuned to, and at home in, the gay community.Collection: Home
I made my performance debut in New York City downtown on the Lower East Side in college doing awkward performance art as a go-go dancer at Lady Starlight's Party. And I never thought that my love for mediocre performance art and bad mime would ever come to use in my career as an actor. But my fantasies came true and I got to play Maureen in Rent.Collection: Art