Michelle Williams finds singing and dancing "like meditation".
The 33-year-old actress found filming a musical number for ‘My Week with Marilyn’ stopped her worrying about her performance and she was delighted to be asked to play Sally Bowles in a Broadway revival of ‘Cabaret’ as she knew she’d be able to experience the same freedom again.
She said: "Singing and dancing take you out of your head–you’re too busy doing too many other things to be thinking, How am I doing? You’re just doing. It’s like meditation.
"When ‘Cabaret’ came along, with these gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous songs — they’re so simple, but they tap into something deep and emotional — I knew that I wanted to follow that thing I tasted a few years ago."
Michelle – who has eight-year-old daughter Matilda with her late former partner Heath Ledger – is enjoying every second of rehearsals for the production – but doesn’t know if she’ll feel the same once her nerves kick in.
Speaking to America’s Vogue magazine, she said: "I haven’t been confronted with the nerves yet, so now the singing is just pure joy.
"Honestly, it feels like being a kid. Now let’s see if I can be a kid onstage eight times a week."
Michelle said: "A friend told me that when Natasha was debating whether or not to do this role, her mother said, ‘Darling, when they ask you to play Sally Bowles, you play Sally Bowles’.
"So I pretended that Vanessa Redgrave was my mother and followed her advice — who knows when the chance will come around again?"
Michelle Williams relaxes with musicals
