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\n Photo-Illustration: Joe McKendry; Photo: Kristina Bumphrey\/Variety via Getty Images\n <\/p>\n
The Maria Bamford Questionnaire is a series of 25 questions designed by the beloved comedian<\/a> to unearth surprising truths about its respondents. In this edition, you\u2019ll learn about Audra McDonald, the Tony-, Emmy-, and Grammy-winning actor and singer best known for her work in Broadway productions like 1998\u2019s Ragtime, 2004\u2019s A Raisin in the Sun, and 2014\u2019s Lady Day at Emerson\u2019s Bar and Grill. She earned a Tony nomination for Gypsy<\/a> in 2025. Since 2022, she\u2019s played Dorothy Scott on HBO\u2019s The Gilded Age, which returns for its fourth season on November 1.<\/p>\n You\u2019re not really supposed to do anything other than water right before bed, but the thing is, when I get into bed I get the munchies. So what I like to eat before bed is some peanut M&Ms. It becomes a vicious cycle. You get in bed, you\u2019re not ready to go to sleep, and you want some peanut M&Ms, but then you do that, and you have to get up and brush your teeth again.<\/p>\n It would be a religion in which the people who believed would have to commune with the dirt and the earth and animals \u2014 other living beings that aren\u2019t necessarily humans \u2014 and through that find the divine. Some of the things you\u2019d have to do would be sit with elephants or gorillas for a minute, plant something, weed something, touch a tree, put your feet in the dirt, or put your feet in the water.<\/p>\n I believe we are all energy, and you can call that the divine. And I think a lot of times, religion gets in the way of your own access to the divine. It puts a middleman in there \u2014 this dude, or these people at this church over here \u2014 instead of realizing that you can commune with that on your own. When you do, it makes you more open to the divine that is all around you, and I think that brings you closer to your humanity. You see it in other people, and in plants, and in trees, and in the the eyes of an elephant. I\u2019m obsessed with elephants. So for me, it means easier and more authentic, organic, and truer contact with energy, which is the divine.<\/p>\n Probably a line of garden implements for gardening for dummies like me. I love gardening, and I\u2019m terrible at it, and I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m doing. \u201cFollow me off a cliff into gardening!\u201d<\/p>\n I used to try and grow more food stuff. Herbs I can do okay, but we live in the woods and we get all kinds of thieves. Not \u201cthieves\u201d \u2014 I\u2019ve just spoken about communing with nature and whatnot \u2014 but deer and groundhogs and foxes, and things that very much love to eat what I\u2019m planting. So it\u2019s better for me just to do flowers and stuff to help the bees. I\u2019ve got lots of hydrangeas. That was my main thing this past season.<\/p>\n From the time I was about 6 until I was about 25 or 26, I would have a dream at least once a month that I was watching a plane take off, and I knew that it was going to crash, and I couldn\u2019t get anybody to believe me. I had that dream over and over again until I just happened to mention it to my dad one day when I was in my 20s, and he told me, \u201cWell, you saw a plane almost crash.\u201d He used to take us to air shows, and apparently there was a plane that didn\u2019t come out of a maneuver in time, and my dad could tell it was going to crash, so he took my face and my sibling\u2019s face and pulled us into his body so we wouldn\u2019t see it. After he told me that, I never had that dream again. But it\u2019s kind of sad because, years later, my dad would end up dying in a plane crash.<\/p>\n I travel so much for work, and it\u2019s a constant exercise of trust and understanding the mechanism of the plane and and how safe they actually are. I\u2019m constantly reading up on that and following Instagram accounts of pilots who talk about safety and all that stuff.<\/p>\n I got my teeth cleaned. I have the coolest dentists who, among the usual things that a dentist will offer to keep you calm, also have a dog. So if you want it, the dog can come in and sit with you while you get your procedure done. As a result, I\u2019m very happy with them, and I\u2019m fine at the dentist.<\/p>\n I have some wire Container Store closet systems that I installed in our apartment a million years ago, and I don\u2019t feel like spending the money to upgrade them too much, but I\u2019m tired of the wire, so I just got a bunch of those faux shelves that you can put on top of them. I had to read the instructions on how to convert the faux shelves, and I put them on, and it looks a lot better now. I\u2019m not handy, but I\u2019m obsessed with renovating and all that stuff. It\u2019s not good. I\u2019ll have to ask my therapist what that\u2019s about.<\/p>\n We took it a queen-size headboard off a friend\u2019s hands. She was getting rid of it, and we said, \u201cYeah, we\u2019ll take that!\u201d<\/p>\n Well, there\u2019s an easy answer to that: 47. Knowing what this person thinks or feels, or how he\u2019s treated people of my gender and my race, he\u2019s a nonstarter with me, because he\u2019s already starting from a place of absolute hostility. And that\u2019s putting it mildly.<\/p>\n My fourth-grade classroom. It wasn\u2019t a good year for me. I had a teacher who really didn\u2019t like me and was borderline abusive. There\u2019s part of me that\u2019s still so traumatized by it. She has since passed away, but I saw her in a grocery store in my hometown when I was about 25 or 26, and I started trembling. I was a grown woman! By that point, I\u2019d won a Tony Award, and the sight of this woman just sent me into complete fear, so I don\u2019t want to go back there.<\/p>\n I have someone that I could turn to for shelter, and that\u2019s probably not the same person I would turn to for financial help. Sometimes those are different things, you know? But I know that I have a home I could go to if I needed to indefinitely.<\/p>\n I love Shrinking. I\u2019d want to be someone in Jessica Williams\u2019s character Gaby\u2019s orbit. I don\u2019t know who that would be \u2014 a fellow therapist, or I don\u2019t know if I\u2019d want to be an adversary. But I just love the show, and I think they\u2019re all wonderful, and I especially think Jessica Williams\u2019s work in that is spectacular.<\/p>\n My deeply intense, toxic relationship with anxiety. There is nothing that I don\u2019t get anxious about, and I\u2019ve been that way my entire life. I have ADHD, and I was diagnosed very early, so anxiety follows, and it\u2019s something that\u2019s always been a part of my every waking moment. I think age helps with some of it because you just get exhausted, but I\u2019m constantly on guard and worrying about what\u2019s coming next instead of being in the moment.<\/p>\n How would I go about it? One of the ways I\u2019m doing that right now is I garden. I try to slow my thoughts down, slow my brain down, and settle myself.<\/p>\n We did Shuffle Along, the reunion concert last night, so that was an opportunity for me to be in a room with George C. Wolfe again, who is one of the most brilliant directors of people and minds. I was just talking to a fellow cast member one day as George was giving us notes and spouting wisdom like he does, and I just turned to him and I said, \u201cWhat must it be like to be inside his brain.\u201d One of the things we joke about is that George already knows what happens tomorrow because he\u2019s already experienced it. His brain is so brilliant, fast, and operating on such a high level that the rest of us are always scrambling to catch up.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t mean to make this entire conversation about George Wolfe, but it was his birthday this past week, and I wanted to get him a blueberry muffin before rehearsal. So I went to get him one right across the street from the rehearsal space, and being a New Yorker of 38 years, I decided to jaywalk. I had my bags, my dance bag, my script, my chai tea, and his muffin in a bag. I started jaywalking, and I tripped and fell in the middle of the street. Everything went flying between cars on Eighth Avenue, so all I could do was grab everything and get up and run to the rehearsal space.<\/p>\n When I got there, I was shaking and I thought, Oh God, I\u2019m all right. I\u2019m all right. And then I realized, No, I\u2019m not, because my knee swelled up. And this is a show where I was getting ready to tap five days later, so I blamed George: \u201cIt\u2019s your fault because I got you a damned muffin for your birthday.\u201d When I know, in fact, it\u2019s my fault because I decided to jaywalk with too many things, and I wasn\u2019t watching where I was going. Anyway, I\u2019m trying to decide if I regret jaywalking or I regret going to buy the muffin.<\/p>\n My aunt Susan\u2019s incredible optimism. She always finds the positive in everything, and you can see it in who she is. She\u2019s in her 70s, and she looks younger than I do, and it\u2019s because of her outlook on life. Is \u201cjealous\u201d the right word? No. But I wish I had that, and I try to learn that from her.<\/p>\n One, and now two because the grays are starting to come in. My mom and my aunt Susan live right next door, and my mom came over the other day, and as we were sitting at the table and talking, she came over to me and was like, \u201cYou\u2019ve got a string in your hair\u201d and started pulling. I was like, \u201cOw!\u201d It was a gray hair that she just yanked out of my head.<\/p>\n Oh, wait! I\u2019m remembering I dyed my hair black my sophomore year of college! I got a box of dye from Love\u2019s drugstore \u2014 which you wouldn\u2019t know about because it used to be the thing in New York City before Duane Reade took over \u2014 but I didn\u2019t know what I was doing and I put it in one night with one of my roommates, and then it all fell out over the next couple of weeks. So brown, black, and gray.<\/p>\n Portugal. I have a farm there, and I love it! We have cows, sheep, goats, and olives. We have incredible olive oil too.<\/p>\n Who not to be. That person lets me know exactly what I don\u2019t want to do and who I don\u2019t want to be. Specifically when it comes to bitterness \u2014 bitterness that rules your life so much that you can\u2019t move on.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t have breakfast this morning because I had to go to the dentist. I\u2019m always afraid to eat before I go to the dentist, so I didn\u2019t eat anything for breakfast today. That\u2019s not my usual. Usually, it\u2019s Greek yogurt with berries and walnuts.<\/p>\n Recently, RuPaul just posted some video<\/a> where he said \u2014 I\u2019m gonna get the quote wrong \u2014 \u201cTo really make sure that you have financial health, you need a side ponytail.\u201d It just wasn\u2019t what you were expecting, and it made me laugh so hard that I watched it about seven times in a row. So that\u2019s the last thing that made me laugh my ass off.<\/p>\n