Interview with Laura Osnes
Thursday / October 1, 2026
About Laura Osnes
Minnesota-born actress and singer who won the TV competition for Sandy in Broadway's Grease, then starred in South Pacific, Bonnie and Clyde and Cinderella.
Source: Broadwaycom on YouTube
These answers are taken from Show People with Paul Wontorek Interview: Laura Osnes of Grease & Bonnie & Clyde on Broadwaycom's YouTube channel. You! Backstage did not conduct this interview.
What drew you to a career as a singer?
I was never into movie magazines, but I more had my eye on the Broadway scene, actually. I had every soundtrack and looked at every picture, and I started collecting Playbills when I was young. I have a five-book collection now.
I went into that reality show with a hope and a dream. Broadway has always been my dream, and I don't think I would have done it if the prize wasn't a lead in a Broadway show. I've never really wanted to do American Idol or that sort of thing. I think I did it because the prize was a Broadway show.
What was a great moment for you as a singer?
Every actress's dream is to get to originate a role, and being a part of Bonnie and Clyde for the last three years and seeing it come to fruition, that doesn't happen to people. It's been absolutely incredible. I'm so thankful and so grateful, and it still seems unreal.
We've gone out of town twice, and I've left the city for it, and I've turned down other jobs for it, because I loved the show and I believed in it and I loved the role. And now it's happening, so it's really fulfilling and just so amazing. I'm pinching myself every day. I can't believe that it's actually happening.
How did your career as a singer unfold?
When I won, I did take it very seriously. I tried to establish a good reputation. I never called out sick. I got an agent midway through and started auditioning for the next thing, and fortunately have been able to have pretty steady work from there on out.
When I booked South Pacific I was just floored. That kind of was the point where I was like, okay, thank you for taking me seriously and giving me a chance at this well-respected show, amazing role, filling the shoes of Kelli O'Hara, who I saw in The Light in the Piazza five years before when I was nobody, a little girl looking up to a Broadway star. And I can't believe that I got to replace her in a show at Lincoln Center. I just feel so blessed and so fortunate that it's laid out the way that it has.
Think about a demanding director, producer or music director. What made them difficult, and how did you work with them successfully?
There was a point in La Jolla where it seemed that Jeff was talking about doing a scene a certain way. They wanted a bedroom scene. And I wrote him an email, and I was just honest, and I said, just so you know, these are things that I wouldn't be comfortable with, and I don't think it's necessary. I kind of said, if my family came to see it, I know they would be offended. And he wrote back and was so sweet and understanding, and he said, "Laura, I would never ask you to do anything that you would feel uncomfortable with. I want to make sure you feel completely comfortable and safe up there." So that totally gained my respect and trust of Jeff. There are things I don't think I could do, and everything in Bonnie and Clyde rides the line that I feel just comfortable enough with.
Has your career as a singer progressed the way you expected?
Yeah, it has. And in a way, I think I've grown up with it. It's become a job. There are things about it that become very much a job, and my lifestyle kind of revolves around that. I have to take good care of myself and all that stuff. But it's what I've always wanted to do and where I've always wanted to be.
When I walk through Times Square, I'm trying to get to work and I'm like, get out of my way. But then there are also days where I look up and I go, this is Times Square. I live here. I'm on Broadway. There's my billboard in Times Square. It doesn't seem real. But it has definitely lived up to everything. There is something kind of magical about Broadway.
Of all the roles, songs and shows you have done, which is your favorite?
I think it kind of changes, but I love How About a Dance. That's kind of become my theme song over the last three or four years. I had a friend that was at Telsey a few weeks ago, and they were like, "Laura, I'm at an audition and some girl's singing How About a Dance," and I suddenly got possessive and I was like, wait, that's my song. And then I'm like, well, I've got to get used to it. If the album's going to come out and this is going to be a successful show, then obviously the songs are going to become well known. I love that moment. I think that's the moment where Clyde and Bonnie really click and fall in love.
Who is your favorite singer, and why?
Sutton Foster. She's amazing, and I still look up to her and I'm still in awe of her. And Susan Egan, I listened to Beauty and the Beast a lot, and Linda Eder. I was that girl.
It was actually amazing when I first met Frank [Wildhorn]. I went in to audition for Wonderland, of all things, three years ago, and he said, I think you're a little too young for Alice at this point, but I have this other musical that you might be really right for. And that's kind of how I transitioned into doing the readings of Bonnie and Clyde.
Describe your style.
I've kind of become known on Broadway as the sweet, innocent ingenue, because obviously Sandy, Nellie and Hope are all naive and young and innocent for the most part. With Bonnie it's just a completely different color that I get to play and I get to show. Even the voice that I'm using, my big belt voice, which I haven't really gotten to use that much, because all the musicals I've done have been revivals and they're more classically sung. Sandy, I got to have a little bit of flair in that final scene, but this is sexy Sandy the whole way through as Bonnie. And it's great to get to play something deeper too: people getting shot and being hungry and having no money. It's grown-up problems of the Depression, not high school problems.
Tell me something I may not know from reading your credits.
He and I actually met doing a show together. We understudied the leads, and we went on together, and our first kiss was on stage. I remember everyone asking me afterward, because everyone could see that we totally had a thing for each other, "Oh my gosh, how was the kiss? Was it amazing?" And I said, "It was business." So he knows that even with him, my future husband, this guy I really had a thing for, it was business on stage.
He's become a really good photographer, and he shot the pictures for the ad campaign. The first thing he said that day, he came up to Jeremy and was like, you need to do your thing today, don't be uncomfortable. It was really fun to have my husband involved in the show in that way. Whenever people rave about the pictures, I always turn it to him and I go, my husband took it.
Laura Osnes's Full Biography
Laura Osnes was born on 19 November 1985 in Burnsville, Minnesota, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for One Royal Holiday (2020), Raise a Glass to Love (2021) and BANDSTAND: The Broadway Musical on Screen (2018). She has been married to Nathan Johnson since 11 May 2007.