Phillipa Soo is an American actress and singer. Soo is best known for originating the role of Eliza Hamilton in the Broadway musical Hamilton, a performance for which she was nominated for the 2016 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. She also originated the role of Natasha Rostova in the off-Broadway production of Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 in 2012 and the title role in the Broadway production of Amélie in 2017. Most recently, Soo appeared on Broadway in The Parisian Woman, which ran from November 2017 to March 2018.
Early life and education
Soo was born to a Chinese-American father and a European-American mother. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Soo spoke about her upbringing: "In terms of my own experience, my dad is first-generation, so his parents were from China, and my mom was born and raised in southern Illinois, and she was involved in the arts. My dad's a doctor. I was very much always encouraged , but the mentality of 'get your education' was still there." Soo attended Libertyville High School in suburban Chicago from 2004 to 2008. Soo graduated from The Juilliard School's acting program in 2012.
Career
Theatre
After graduating from Juilliard in 2012, Soo was cast as Natasha Rostova in the Ars Nova production of Dave Malloy's Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, based on Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. The show went on to transfer from Ars Nova to another Off-Broadway space, Kazino, a tent custom-built for the show. After seeing her performance in Great Comet, director Thomas Kail and composer Lin-Manuel Miranda asked her to take part in an early 2014 reading of the musical Hamilton, where she read as the leading female role, "Eliza". Soo remained with the show through its Off-Broadway and Broadway debuts. She received a 2016 Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical, along with Laura Benanti, Carmen Cusack, Jessie Mueller, and winner Cynthia Erivo. Soo played her final performance in Hamilton on July 9, 2016, and the role of Eliza was taken over by Lexi Lawson. Soo appeared in the title role in the pre-Broadway engagement of Amélie at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles from December 2016 to January 2017. Amélie then began preview performances on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre on March 9, 2017, opening officially on April 3. The show closed on May 21, 2017. Soo also appeared on Broadway as Rebecca in The Parisian Woman, an original play by Beau Willimon. The production began preview performances at the Hudson Theatre on November 7, 2017, and opened on November 30 for a limited run through March 11, 2018.
Film and television
In 2013 she was cast in a small recurring role in the NBC television series Smash as the character Lexi. She appeared in five episodes in the second season before the show's cancellation. She had a small supporting role as Nia in the 2014 television pilot Dangerous Liaisons, but it did not get picked up to series. In 2018 it was announced that Soo had been cast in the CBS series The Code. The Code aired for one season before its cancellation in July 2019.
Philanthropy
Inspired by Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, the character she played in Hamilton, Soo started the Eliza Project initiative in partnership with Graham Windham, the first private orphanage in New York City that is mentioned at the end of the show. Through the program, Soo plans to provide students at the Graham School with acting, dancing, and rap workshops. According to Soo, the core mission of "The Eliza Project" is "to use the arts as a means of expression, as an outlet for personal experience, and to uplift the creative spirit."
