Moira Kelly as
Karen Roe Moira Kelly was born on March 6, 1968 in Queens, New York to Irish immigrants, father Peter, who was a trained concert violinist, and mother Anne, a nurse. She was raised in Ronkonkoma, New York and was educated at Connetquot Senior High School in Bohemia, Long Island, after which she moved on to Marymount Manhattan College.
Her early appearances were in The Boy Who Cried Bitch and Billy Bathgate in 1991, Chaplin, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, and The Cutting Edge in 1992 and Daybreak in 1993. A year later she worked on With Honors and lent her voice to Nala in The Lion King. 1995 brought her Little Odessa and The Tie That Binds, while in 1996, she worked on Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story, an independent film where she played the lead character. In 1998, she reprised her role as Nala in the animated series, The Lion King II: Simba's Pride, and a year later, landed the role of Mandy Hampton on
The West Wing . In 2003, Kelly landed the role of Karen Roe in One Tree Hill.
Ultimate Disney talked to Kelly about her work on The Lion King movies, and she said, "I was asked to go in and audition. They wanted to listen to different voices and I wasn't the first choice. I don't know who they had in mind but I was not their first choice. So a few months had passed and I got called back in again and I just had to read for them and they chose me to play the part of Nala, which I was very excited about because it was nice to be a part of, you know, a Disney treasure. There had not been all-animal animation in quite some time so it was a big deal for Disney and it was great just to be part of that process. Very different than anything else, as far as film and stage."
Moreover, she added, "I think that what I enjoyed about it was that it really was about the voice and how you were going to deliver your lines, so it's a real focus on understanding the lines and how to present them in a colorful way, like reading a story to a child -- it's kind of fun to play with different voices and try to color the lines for the child so they can imagine it more fully. As an actor, when you're just relying on your voice, it's just a nice dynamic to focus on. Rather than the full picture, it's just one unique element of performance. It's good for training too."