From New York’s Broadway stage, to your television screens, to the music on your radios: Laura Bell Bundy has done it all.
Quite the complete package, she has gotten her hands in every aspect of the entertainment industry. It was not long after she started writing country music in her bedroom when Laura was cast in her first off-Broadway play, Ruthless! The Musical. Two years later the ball continued rolling and she was cast as young Sarah in the hit movie Jumanji.
With many roles in between, landing the role of Elle Woods as a part of the original Broadway cast in the show Legally Blonde was definitely the character she most connected to.
“I think that role for me was a lot of who I was at 24-25. There was definitely a lot of me in that role and there was definitely a huge part of my heart that was in Elle Woods,” Bundy says.
Though she had more than earned her stripes as a performer, Bundy faced challenges in the country music sphere.
“It has been frustrating because there has been some stigma with ‘the Broadway girl who went to country,’ but really, it’s the country girl that went to Broadway and then went back again,” she says.
But the slight criticism hasn’t stopped her success. After singing with Mercury Records in 2010, her first single “Giddy On Up” was released and peaked at number 31 on the Billboard charts. Laura Bell performed this single at the American Country Music Awards where the experience was slightly different than her Broadway past.
“At the time, that was my big gig in front of everybody. I was looking out into a crowd of all these famous country artists that I was huge fans off while I’m coming down in a horseshoe and I literally thought I was going to poop my pants.”
Now signed with Big Machine Records, Laura Bell admits that performing the music she writes from herself is much more vulnerable than performing music in one of the characters she is portraying in a film, or a theater production.
“It’s almost like this great jacket you get to put on when you’re playing these characters. You get to use all your emotions, and express all your feelings, but no one is going to blame you for them.”
Recently, Laura Bell has linked with American Heart Association and their Go Red for Women campaign, supporting women’s heart disease. At 18, Laura was diagnosed with coeliac disease, which is a serious heart condition. Ever since, Laura has had to be conscious of her heart’s health and has used her platform to get attention for the cause as well as donate.
There is no uncertainty that her heart is full and pure. Laura Bell Bundy is just as beautiful within as she is on the outside, and we wish her only success in her future projects to come.
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