With other celebrities, you may not believe there’d be a next time. But forty-three-year-old Chenoweth is so thoughtful, warm, and low-key, you feel like she really means it. When she talks, it’s obvious that despite her tremendous achievements on Broadway (You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown and Wicked) and TV (Glee and The West Wing), as well as in numerous film roles, family and faith really are what make her tick. So it’s especially ironic that she’s playing the resident queen bee on ABC’s dramedy GCB (based on the book Good Christian Bitches). The program centers on a former mean girl and recently widowed mother of two who returns home to Dallas and lands plop in the middle of a group of women whose daily routines involve gossip, plastic surgery, and chopped salads. Read on for highlights from Kristin Chenoweth’s interview with Prevention, and read the whole article in our January 2012 issue, on newsstands now! On whether her new show, which illustrates the hypocrisy of some self-titled “good Christians,” will offend the Christian community: “Some people will be offended by every single thing. But I think the average Christian person will laugh their butt off … What I love about the show is that these characters question their lives and turn to their faith. I know each of these women from afar, having grown up in this exact world, and I want to remain authentic to it.” Why she doesn’t say no to Botox: “I get Botox regularly, and I’m very happy to talk about why. When I was thirty-five, I was having debilitating migraines about once a week. I went to my doctor in New York, and she said she wanted to give me five shots of Botox across my eyebrows. And I said, ‘Oh, no. I make my living through my facial expressions.’ And she said, ‘You’re not going to have a living if you can’t work.’ So I let her do it, and I haven’t had a full-blown headache since. Every six months, five shots right here [motions across her eyebrows]. I’m thankful for it.” On how being adopted has affected her life: “I have a constant feeling of gratefulness—gratefulness to the family that adopted me and the upbringing I got. Sometimes I want to kill my parents, and I’m sure they want to kill me; we’re a family in every sense of the word. But if I were ever to meet anyone in my biological family, I would say, ‘Thank you, because you gave me the best possible life I could have had. And the best parents.’” On being approached by a woman who might actually have been her biological mother: “I was doing an event, and a woman came up to me. I did notice that she was my height and blonde, but I didn’t think much about it. She said, ‘I’ve been following your career, and I am so proud of you. I just want you to know that someone is always thinking of you.’ I thought she was just being sweet. She walked away, and I looked at Kathy, my pageant director, and she was ashen. She said, ‘That woman looked like you! You looked like… her.’ But by then the woman was gone.” How she copes with Meniere’s disease: “It’s a disorder that causes extra liquid or congestion that gravitates to the inner ear, and you wake up with vertigo. Anybody who has it knows that it’s life altering. [points to a sign] The H&M; on that building over there will move around, and I could just fall over. “Salt is a big trigger—I have to follow a low-sodium diet big-time. I also avoid caffeine, chocolate, alcohol. The hardest thing is sleeping on an incline. I can’t sleep flat, because the head position affects the inner ear. That’s been a bummer, because I had two slipped disks in my neck, and for that I need to sleep flat. So I’m battling two different things.” On staying optimistic about love: “I would still love to have that partner, that man—that right one who’s going to take care of me yet let me do my thing, yet has his own gig going on, yet isn’t intimidated! And there’ve been some breakups that have been hard, even if I was the one who initiated them. It’s like a death to me. I’m a serial monogamist.” On supporting gay marriage, which she calls “our biggest civil rights issue”: “I’ve talked about my thoughts on this, and they’re not always too popular. It’s made me realize that you really have to stand up for what you believe in as a Christian. And I do believe that people should be allowed to marry whom they fall in love with.” How she defines prevention: “Being aware of how I eat, how I sleep—literally, thinking ahead. And going to the doctor and getting checkups! I have a girlfriend whom I almost can hardly talk to because she’s thirty-eight and she’s never been to the gynecologist! People, go to the gynecologist! Even if you can’t stomach it, go once a year. Also, the breast self-exam? It’s five seconds of your week. Check it out. It’s your own body.” For the full interview, pick up the January 2012 issue of Prevention, on sale now! More from Prevention: 50 Ways to Lose 10 Pounds 12 Habits That Prevent Diabetes 9 Workout Mistakes to Avoid
