Lea Salonga Quotes

I was 17 when I auditioned for 'Miss Saigon.' I really grew up doing that show. I pretty much knew, almost a year into 'Miss Saigon,' that I was going to be a performer, that I was going to be singing and acting.

I think that if an audience is truly appreciative of a performance, they will show it. Sometimes though, there are little differences, and there are audiences that are very reserved even though they are enjoying the show.

I was doing TV work, theatre work, and some film work in the Philippines when I left.

Love your enemies ... it's not always an easy tenet to live by ... and I have more often than not been inclined to wish my enemies ill than well.

I took some voice lessons here and there as a teenager but nothing too serious. I started taking it more seriously when I was in Miss Saigon. I needed to improve my technique in order to survive doing that show as many time a week as I was doing it. It's not an easy show to sing, so I needed all the help I could get.

My singing technique is really strong and I have to thank my teachers for really instilling a sense of discipline about how to sing properly and how to maintain your voice in a run.

When I was about 6, my cousin was very active in a Filipino repertory company, doing musicals and plays. Her aunt was one of the founders of the company, and she told my mom that there were these auditions for 'The King and I,' and that they needed kids. I auditioned, got in and the love affair started from there and just kept going.

I don't think I would've been performing this long if I didn't love it sincerely to the degree that I do. It's not enough to like it. Dilettantes like things. Professionals love things and I consider myself a professional.

I just refuse to date actors. I've done that, and I don't want to do that anymore. It's just the stress of traveling and being away from each other so much.

I play video games a lot ... I love to read ... I enjoy spending time with my husband and daughter, who are my most favorite people in the world.

The thing about Sondheim is that it does get very cerebral. You do need a faculty with words and a love for the lyrics to not just pull it off, but to have an appreciation for it.

The nice thing about doing a pop opera - in the way that doing, say, 'Miss Saigon' or 'Les Miz' would be - is that, because the convention is set from the beginning that this is an opera and everything is sung, there is never that feeling of 'Why is this person bursting out into song?' because the whole thing is sung.

I'd love to do just straight theatre. I'd love to do film and television, too.

When I'm doing a one-on-one with somebody, I have to speak in a language that that person can understand, using a vocabulary that they instantly get, and I always have to feel my way around to figure that out. It's a lot of fun, and it's also really challenging - challenging in a different way from performing.

I feel like if I am physically and emotionally able to be at the theater, I will be there. I don't like not being there - I don't like playing hooky. I am just one of those people who feels really, really guilty if I am not there - maybe it's part of being Catholic.

I watch a lot of TV - 'Perfect Strangers,' 'Family Matters,' 'Who's the Boss?' - then I go over my notes in the script, lock it into my head and go to bed.

I can't be an ingenue forever, and I wouldn't want to be.

All the Disney Princess films are iconic and beautiful, so to have been a part of all that was really a wonderful part of my life. It's all fabulous, too, that I have a daughter that appreciates the whole Princess thing.

The thing about World War II is that everyone knows about the concentration camps in Europe - in Nazi Germany and Poland and Auschwitz and the other camps - but, no one really talks about the camps that were here in the United States.

There are a lot of actors who wish there was a next play, a next musical. As an actor, I guess that's all I can wish for - the next role, the next opportunity.