If you don’t know Brittany O’gradythe name, you will very soon. The 24-year-old actress stars in the Apple TV+’s new series Little Voiceand if she does not steal your heart with her acting chops, her beautiful voice will. The show, which was executive producer of Sara Bareilles, Jessie Nelson, and J. J. Abrams, follows a young composer named Bess (O’grady) as it travels, the love, the family and friends in the city of new york and tries to find his voice in the process.
Like his character, the music has been a big part of O’grady’s life. In addition to starring in the musical series of Fox Starshe has been playing music and singing since I was young. “My dad was playing instruments and playing in bands all his life, so music was always something that was in my life,” said the native of Virginia told POPSUGAR. “We are accustomed to seeing musicals together as a family and go to see a musical at the Kennedy Center. I grew up playing the piano and the saxophone, and I did musicals growing up in the DC area. It wasn’t until I got older, I realized that I really wanted to pursue acting professionally, and I knew that the song would be a tool to help me get there. I never expected the functions I’d like to play involve music so much, but I am very, very grateful for that, because I think it’s opened so many doors and I love music and love to sing.”
Aside from the singing aspect, O’grady said that she resonated with Bess on a personal level. “I fell in love with the character because she was so relatable,” she said. “I felt like I could connect to it in many ways. She is a person who wears his heart on his sleeve and she is very authentic to who she is. When you wear your heart on your sleeve, rejection and all these different experiences that you have expressed can be very painful. I think I feel very similar in the ways where I wear my heart on my sleeve and love to do what I do and I try to do it as honest as I can.”
As she tried to form Bess character of O’grady really leaned on Nelson and Bareilles. “We were connected quickly and I think that we are really understood and that has worked very well in creating this character,” he said. “And the writing is not so good. I just wanted to know more about her. She was so much fun to play.” He added that Bareilles was especially useful with the musical scenes, having written the songs for the show. “She was very kind to me,” he said. “I’ve had experiences of recording of the music and the people are not patient or do not validate me as a singer and that was very hard to go through. Sara was super, super friendly and gave lots of encouragement and direction and the fact that it is much more simple. She is like, ‘Just come from an honest place when you sing, and connect to the lyrics and don’t worry about how the sound.’ He came from a very soulful place and she allowed me to take advantage of that.”
In fact, some of Bess’s story was inspired by Bareilles is. Not only is the title of the series named after the lead singer of breaking 2007 album Little Voicebut his personal struggles as an increase of the artist is also highlighted on the show as Bess tries to get a record deal. “When she was auditioning for the labels, I think that she has rejected by almost all of them, and they said to him, ‘you have a beautiful voice, you’re a great writer, but we don’t know what to do, how to promote,'” O’grady explained. “Many of the comments on the seventh episode, where Bess is auditioning for all of these labels, it is [the commentary that] Sara Bareilles has since the beginning of his career.”
“I hope that people feel validated or to find that is not straight the pathway to find his voice.
As Bareilles did with her own career, Bess finally finds her inner confidence and is able to navigate who she is as an artist in the first season. As the story progresses, O’grady hopes that his character is going to inspire fans to use their own voice in their daily lives. “I hope that people feel validated or to find that is not straight the pathway to find your voice,” he said. “People go through a lot of rejection, go through a lot of self doubt, that will give a kick to the bathroom door and get hit in the face and embarrass themselves. That is normal. It is normal to have these embarrassing moments and feel so low and it doesn’t have to define. I hope that this is something that people can identify with and feel good with the way of finding your true self, whether in your family life, the arts, [or] in the corporate America.”
