Katie Holmes Recalls Hilarious Line Forgetting Moment On Broadway
Katie Holmes knows that even on Broadway, mistakes happen — and the show must go on. The actress, 45, stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on November 27 to chat about her role as Mrs. Webb in the revival of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. Katie shared a hilarious story about forgetting a line during a performance and how she managed to recover with a mix of improv and speed.
Revealing that she reviews her lines multiple times before every show, Katie said, “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.”
Katie confessed that she improvised something on the spot, but it didn’t quite make sense. “…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.’”
Katie admitted she rushed through the rest of the scene, trying to salvage the moment. “[I] got off stage, and Jim gave me a hug after. He was like, ‘I’ve never seen anyone say their lines so fast and remove themselves,’” she recalled.
The Our Town revival, now at the Barrymore Theatre in New York City, features an all-star cast including Parsons, Thomas, Sykes, and Zoey Deutch. The Pulitzer Prize-winning play, first written in 1938, explores life in a small New Hampshire town in the early 1900s.
For Katie, playing Mrs. Webb isn’t just about mastering her lines — it’s also about miming. The actress explained that the script calls for her character to mime everyday chores. “Thornton Wilder wrote this in 1938, and it takes place in 1901, and so he’s written in that the mom’s, like, I’m making oatmeal. But then our director Kenny Leon was like, ‘You know, I really want everyone to bring themselves to the characters.’ So over time, I’m like, ‘I am getting so sick of miming oatmeal.’”
Katie turned the routine into a running joke and started pretending to make different dishes — quiche, pancakes, you name it. Richard Thomas loves it. According to the actress, one night he said, “Can you do a Dutch pancake? Do you know what that is?’”
And she replied, ‘Yes!’”
The Broadway stage is a familiar place for Katie, who made her debut in the 2008 revival of All My Sons and later starred in Dead Accounts in 2012. But she says Our Town holds a special place in her heart.
“It’s like a dream job. And I love this play. It’s been done so many times. … Our director said this is Our Town for our time. And so it’s a bit of a reimagining but the script is, obviously, still the same,” she said.
The close-knit cast makes the experience even more meaningful for Katie. “We have a great time. We all really love each other,” she shared.
