Growing up I studied classically and did lots of shows in school.

I love working with a cast and a group of people every day, which is different than recording because you're usually pretty isolated and alone. They serve as a good balance for each other.

I sing in many different colors and, hopefully, they add up to a great performance that, after you leave the theater, makes you feel like I've really shared something of myself.

I like to originate new roles and characters for musical theater.

I'm trying to focus on original material. That is what I've had my luck with.

I wish I had read more and majored in literature rather than theatre. I think I would have been a better artist for it. I am trying to play catch-up now.

There are lots of things I'm acquainting myself with now to be a more well-rounded person.

A lot of my fans are young and hip and enjoy my pop album and know the lyrics to those songs as well, which is a real compliment to me.

I have a wide spectrum, a wide demographic. I have the young girls, I have the gay community, I have many regular theatergoers. I do feel a tremendous responsibility and pride to be a role model for some of these young people.

I would love to play 'Funny Girl' or 'Evita,' but I idolize the women who have played those parts. I don't know if there needs to be another version of those shows.

You get to relive your childhood when you have a baby and you see these toys and these books you read when you were little - the innocence that you are able to maintain because you have to find that again in order to connect with your child keeps you in a special state of mind.

I started singing weddings and bar mitzvahs at 15, lying about my age. It was a great discipline.

After 'Rent,' I tried to make a record, and it didn't work out, and it was the Broadway community that welcomed me back. It's where I feel the most understood, most at home.

I find that, maybe because I'm also a singer, I hear music in characters all the time, even if they don't sing. I hear what affects me in my heart.

I think as women, the smarter and more powerful we are, the more it can be threatening and alienating to other people, more than with men. That's something we need to support each other with.

As an artist, you have to express yourself. I make no excuses for my versatility. I grew up singing classical arias, but I love rock n' roll and jazz standards.

All performers get on stage because they need to feel love from an audience. I might appear confident, but those three seconds before I get out there, I'm a mess. But I have to take the risk; otherwise, I'd be miserable and would feel like I wasn't seeing through my personal destiny.

I'm more comfortable revealing myself than hiding behind metaphors. I respond to artists who reveal something of themselves.

The truth is I love musical theater and always have.

I will never leave the theater. My heart is there, and I love being on stage 8 times a week.

I'm not great at multi-tasking, so when I do one thing... I like to do it 100%.

I'm constantly trying to work on the person that I am and work on my shortcomings, and I guess I want people to know that it's ok to be a work in progress, as long as you keep trying to figure it out. But that search and that discovery is what makes life kind of rich, and it's what makes life rich... period.

I tend to have a pattern of playing misunderstood characters.

I think I hid my singing talent from a lot of my friends at school because I didn't want to alienate anyone. If everyone was singing along in the car to a Madonna song, I didn't join in because when we're younger we're afraid of sticking out or showing off, when in fact we should own those things that make us really unique.

I always like to sing barefoot.

'Rent,' for me, was a significant time in my life because it was my first break. It was my first professional job. I also met my husband in that cast, Taye Diggs.

I don't think I ever really knew the right words to 'Hava Nagilah,' which isn't great for a Jewish singer.

The more success you get, you start to be harder on yourself or more afraid of the looking glass. You have to learn to build a thicker skin because people are paying more attention.

Performing live on stage is such a community, whether it's my musicians or a cast of a show that I'm in. And then when you're in the studio or on set, it's a much more solitary experience. Both can serve me at different times in my life. And when I go back and forth from one to the other, it helps me appreciate all of them much better.

It's the face and the body and the thing that we hide inside that can keep us from the world, but my voice is my voice.

I've met so many of my idols, but the one person that has eluded me is Bono. But because he's done 'Spider-Man,' I keep thinking maybe, through a Broadway connection, somehow our paths will eventually merge.

I pretty much have no life outside of the theatre. I go home every night, and I put the TV on, and I veg out and order food.

That's what I love about songwriting - that you can write something about your own experiences and think it's completely specific to you, and then people can take away a completely different meaning for themselves. I really love that. I think you've been successful at writing a song when it has a larger life than yourself.

I was once an extra in a Bruce Springsteen video where they did a live performance video at Tramps. I forget the name of the song.

I definitely use my music to kind of alleviate my stress and get me through specific moments in time where I'm just being really tough on myself.

I love my husband very much. I knew it was real true love because I felt like I could be myself around that person. Your true, true innermost authentic self, the stuff you don't let anyone else see, if you can be that way with that person, I think that that's real love.

You can't be the vulnerable, transparent, raw person required to be an artist, and then cover that stuff up and meet the world with some kind of armor on. It just doesn't go.

Who am I, if I'm not this singer with big high notes? I identify with my voice. But I'm more than just the acrobatics.

For singers, I believe we can sing in a lot of keys. I know I have this big range, but the point is to find a key that emotionally connects people.

Love yourself for who you are, and trust me, if you are happy from within, you are the most beautiful person, and your smile is your best asset.

You are a human being and are allowed to be imperfect, and you are allowed to be flawed. There is a lot of beauty in your imperfections, in your uniqueness.

I had a different perception of what a relationship or love is like. I was all giddy-headed and fairytale about it in my head, but it's so different. There's a lot of restraint that you've got to have, compromising in certain situations - and you've got to have a lot of respect.

I don't want my personal life to become a part of public domain. It is something that is sacred and means a lot to me. I don't want it to become some frivolous gossip column.

I think marriage is beautiful, but I have mixed feelings about it.

I was always a very self-conscious person and was picked on for my body type. I used to feel low and sad all the time, but didn't know I was suffering from depression and Body Dysmorphic Disorder till I got help.

I'm happy I'm doing films at a slow pace rather than doing anything and everything.

I don't think I will ever understand Bollywood. And I'm happy about that because it is a big, crazy, world. It's too complicated and chaotic to understand.

I like being thrown out of my comfort zone.

I do use social media as a gateway into my personal life, but only to a certain extent. When I don't want to, I pull the blinds down.

My father worked as a mechanical draftsman at Mazagaon Docks and is a Catholic. My mum was a Muslim, so my parents broke quite a few rules to get married.