Katie Holmes’ Terrifying Onstage Moment on Broadway Could’ve Derailed the Entire ‘Our Town’ Play
- Katie Holmes has returned to the Broadway after over a decade.
- She forgot the last word of one of her lines and nervously rushed over the rest.
- She revealed her pre-show ritual and admitted that she runs over all her lines several times.
Katie Holmes has returned to Broadway over a decade later and is a part of the 28-member ensemble cast of the latest production of the play Our Town. This is the first time in over a decade that the show has been brought back to the boards and stars some of the best actors in Hollywood, namely, Jim Parsons, Zoey Deutch, Ephraim Sykes, and Richard Thomas.
Broadway and theatre plays, in general, are unlike movies and TV shows where if an actor makes a mistake or forgets a line, they get a second take to do it correctly. This makes the plays and Broadway shows a very high-pressure environment where the audience is right there and fumbling a line can the whole thing off the track. Recently, Holmes opened up about one such terrifying moment during one of her shows.
Katie Holmes on How She Almost Ruined One of Her Our Town Shows
Katie Holmes made her big screen debut in 1997 in the Ang Lee-directed film The Ice Storm. Her first lead role in a movie came the next year when she starred in Disturbing Behavior which was not a huge commercial success and had received mixed reviews. Despite this, she won an MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Performance and even earned a Saturn nomination.
Holmes made her Broadway debut in 2008 in the revival of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons. Her performance received mixed reviews. Four years later, she appeared in the Broadway show, Dead Accounts. She made her return to plays last year when she starred in the Off-Broadway show, The Wanderers, and this year, she is a part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Our Town.
In a recent interview on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, she revealed that she goes over her lines several times before the show. The one time she did not do it, she forgot a word from one of her lines while doing a scene.
One time I didn’t do it, and I was in the middle of a scene and I just said the whole line except the last word, and I couldn’t remember it. I made something up but it didn’t make sense. And then I got so red because Jim Parsons, who’s delightful, he’s onstage most of the time because he’s the stage manager. And so I’m like, ‘Oh my God. Jim knows. He’s watching. And Ephraim [Sykes] knows because I was saying it to him, and then Richard Thomas. Oh God.’
The Batman Begins actress recalled that she got very flustered and rushed through all of her lines to get off the stage. Later, Parsons hugged her and told her that he had never seen anyone say their lines so fast so that they could get off the stage. Holmes said that no one seemed to care, but she did. Luckily, the rest of the show went on smoothly.
Katie Holmes Revealed Her Pre-show Rituals
Elsewhere in the interview, Holmes was asked if she had any pre-show rituals. She revealed that she did and it included a visit to a particular Starbucks shop at Eighth Avenue in New York City. She praised the staff of the shop, saying:
They’re so lovely, Every time I go in, they know me and I know them, and they wish me a great show.
She said that she heads straight for the stage where runs through all of her lines twice although she has already run through it twice at her home. She plays Mrs. Webb in the play and does eight shows a week.
