Get the latest gossip
In ‘The Hills of California’ Laura Donnelly Plays a Mother Whose Tragic Decision Destroys Her Family — Just Don’t Call Her a Monster
Laura Donnelly, the star of Broadway's 'The Hills of California,' on playing a mother and daughter whose dreams of stardom end in tragedy.
“I’m smaller in real life,” Laura Donnelly tells me after I admit that I didn’t recognize her, standing pensively by the entrance to the midtown bar where we’re meeting, scanning the room. Indeed, the Donnelly who sits before me — diminutive, retiring, her dark hair cut short and in curls — seems far removed from the steely women she has portrayed to towering effect on Broadway. She went fly-fishing with Hugh Jackman, entering the stage while brandishing a freshly caught trout in 2014’s “The River.” She held a sprawling Irish family together while nursing a forbidden attraction to her brother-in-law in 2019’s “The Ferryman.” And she’s currently delivering two commanding performances in “ The Hills of California,” playing Veronica, an iron-willed single mother dreaming of fame for her four children, and Joan, the adult daughter who fled for America and took shelter in a rock ’n’ roll lifestyle.
Or read this on Variety
