Did you cry when Alisan Porter started singing on The Voice? Because the actress-turned-singer, whose powerful rendition of "Blue Bayou" on the show's tenth season premiere made all four coaches turn around, probably would have if she were watching.
Porter sat down with E! News' Will Marfuggi following her debut on the NBC reality competition, and she spilled details about her outstanding audition and filled him in on what she's been doing since her breakout acting role as the titular character in Curly Sue.
"I have cried at every single blind audition I have ever watched from my couch at home," she confesses. But she worried about breaking into tears during her own audition. "You cannot sing and cry. It's one thing you can't do, like if you sneeze you have to close your eyes."
But when the moment came, "it was like a dream," she says, and she went into performance mode.
Porter told The Voice coach Carson Daly during her audition package that she considers herself a singer rather than an actress, and she tells Will that she's pursued music for many years following Curly Sue.
"I was on Broadway twice. I did Footloose and A Chorus Line. And I had bands and I put out solo records, and I was kind of just scrambling to find out where I wanted to fit in the business," she says. After getting sober and starting a family, she decided to try out for The Voice. "It all led up to that moment right there. It was full circle."
The proud member of Team Christina Aguilera confesses that although her husband was pulling for her to pick Adam Levine or Blake Shelton as her coach, she knew it was Xtina from the way they connected. "I was Pharrell [Williams] or Christina. The second I saw Christina turn and the second we connected, I just knew right away that I had to choose her."
The Voice airs Monday and Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. on NBC.
(E! and NBC are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)