- I have to say this your wife, the last time she was on,
we were talking about music and she's so into music.
So I didn't get to ask her.
Do you, did you ever get into music or musicals
or do any kind of theater like that?
- No, I could not sing my way out of a paper bag.
I did though at Carnegie
get cast in the, it was a,
I think a director's master's project.
Do you remember the musical Godspell?
- Yeah.
- Right.
And Godspell was created there and I was in it.
I got cast in it and it was just horrible.
And I mean, it really, (Kelly and audience laugh)
it didn't come together.
It didn't come together until like the last night,
but halfway through the rehearsal process,
I got Bell's palsy.
- What? - You know what
Bell's palsy is?
It's like, you know,
you take a pencil and you draw down the center of your face
and one side literally is paralyzed.
So my reaction to getting Bell's palsy was,
oh, thank God I'm out of this turkey.
(Kelly and audience laugh) - Oh my God,
I love the silver lining.
Oh my God, did that freak you out?
That I don't, what?
Doesn't that kind of come and go sometimes?
- Yeah.
Yeah,
I was lucky.
I was lucky, but it was, it was so humbling.
You had to tape the side that drooped
into a smile at night and sleep, you know,
with this Scotch Tape doing this, or you,
I was a smoker back then, so you'd smoke.
And one eye would blink normally,
and the other one would be like ahh.
(Kelly and audience laugh)
- Oh my gosh, that's horrible.
I really wanna see your one man show about your life.
So, Holly, you won an Oscar for The Piano, but,
and you play the piano beautifully,
but you don't like to play in front of people, right?
- No, no, no, no.
I grew up playing the piano and I totally loved playing.
It was a real passion.
But I can never play in front of people,
it made me too nervous.
So when we, when we were shooting the movie,
The Piano, I just had the piano on the set all the time.
It was part of my contract that the piano was always there.
So that any time that when the crew
was setting up for the next shot,
I would play all of the time.
I would play in front of them,
It was like background noise for them.
They didn't pay any attention to me.
And that kind of freed me
to be able to play in front of them,
because they were gonna be my only audience
when we were actually rolling, and I was doing the songs.
So I got used to them, they got used to me.
Sometimes they would actually request different songs
while they were setting up,
or somebody would say,
"Oh wow, that sounded really good."
And that gave me the confidence
to be able to perform in front of that small audience,
which was that incredible crew.
- Yeah, I was gonna say,
it's usually more intimidating in a small setting like that,
to mess up or anything.
Do you think it helped because you're,
you're in character, so you don't feel like
it's you? - Did you always
like to sing in front of people?
Were you always able to just like,
was that something
you always felt free about? - Here's the thing,
I've never been nervous on stage singing, but I did,
and my musical director is probably laughing over there.
He's taught me a couple of my songs on piano
that I was gonna do on tour at different points or whatever.
And I will sit in my house and I will play and I will sing,
and it will be fine, it'll be beautiful.
Like, well, not great.
I just mean it will be good.
And then once we get to rehearsal, I just freak out,
I'd be like, "Nope, I'm just gonna sing."
I don't even know why I did all that work,
I'm never gonna do it.
Like, I just, I don't know why,
I've never been nervous singing,
so I don't know how to deal with the nerves of doing,
'cause I've also played guitar on tour,
but I'm pretty sure they just like, you know, turn me down,
like had the other band up, layer the other members up.
But I just,
I'm very focused,
like hyper-focused, and I'm such a storyteller.
Like, I love a story, I love lyrics, I love singing
that I don't like to be distracted
in front of people when I'm performing.
But the difference is I'm playing me,
like, it's me in real life.
You're playing like in The Pianos,
in The Piano, you're playing someone else.
So, is that kind of easier
because it's a little bit of like,
you know, removal of yourself?
- Yes.
I think that that definitely makes it somewhat easier.