Co-Executive Producer
Since making her Broadway debut at age 9, Hally's proudest
accomplishments include graduating from Columbia
University with a BA in philosophy and being called a "totally
non-neurotic actress in the 99th percentile of her field" when
she attended the British American Drama Academy at
Oxford.
Hally Gets Sent Home From the Neighbors
Hally was an exhibitionist. As a kid she was regularly sent home from the neighbors' and asked not to return until she put on some clothes. In her defense, she wasn't completely naked that often. She may have abandoned her dress or overalls but she always adopted accessories in their stead: pearls, sunglasses, a shower cap...
As Hally was the first born, Mom felt she had a mandate to raise a well-rounded child. She sat by Hally's bedside every night reciting Shakespeare. As a result, Hally was not only wildly theatrical, she was precociously verbal. She could recite Hamlet's "To be, or not to be..." soliloquy when she was eighteen months old. She never shut up.
Her very first audition was covered on the national news. She was one of five hundred little girls who turned up at an early morning open call for the title role in a Broadway musical. She was seven years old.
When the director asked some of the girls to perform a dramatic monologue in which the character cries, he prepared them with some basic method, evoking dead pets and lost grandparents. After succeeding in making a few of the munchkins hysterical, it was Hally's turn. She didn't understand; she had never lost anything but her clothing.
"What if your cat died?" Provoked the director.
"I don't have a cat."
"How about your dog?"
"I don't have a dog."
"Fish?"
"Sir, do you want me to act sad?"
"Yes," he said.
And so she read the script and cried as the little girl in the play would have cried. Hally was never of the American school. She was raised on Shakespeare. She relied on the text.