Phillipa Soo

Phillipa Anne Soo (born May 31, 1990) is an American actress. Soo is best known for originating the role of Eliza Hamilton in the Broadway musical Hamilton, a performance which earned her a nomination for a 2016 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical and a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album in the same year. 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.

Soo appeared on Broadway in The Parisian Woman, which ran from November 2017 to March 2018. She has also appeared in the films Over the Moon, The Broken Hearts Gallery (both 2020), and Tick, Tick...Boom! (2021). In 2021, she received a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Actress in a Supporting Role in a Limited Series or Movie for her performance in the Disney+ live stage recording of Hamilton which was released in 2020. She recently appeared in the Hulu limited series Dopesick (2021) and the Apple TV+ series Shining Girls (2022).

In 2022 Soo portrayed suffragist Inez Milholland in Shaina Taub's Off-Broadway musical Suffs. Soo is set to perform the role of Cinderella in a Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical Into the Woods, beginning performances on June 28, 2022.

Early life and education
Soo was born in Libertyville, Illinois. She is of half-Chinese descent; her paternal grandparents emigrated from China to the United States. Her father is a doctor and her mother, who is from Southern Illinois, is involved in the arts.

Phillipa attended Libertyville High School in suburban Chicago from 2004 to 2008. Soo graduated from The Juilliard School's acting program in 2012.

Theater
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 and writer 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" (Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton). 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.

In 2022 Soo portrayed suffragist Inez Milholland in Shaina Taub's musical Suffs. The production premiered Off-Broadway at The Public Theatre to positive reviews. Entertainment Weekly declared, "Soo, best known for originating the role of Eliza Schuyler in Hamilton, grounds the story with her poignant voice, infusing Inez Milholland with emotion and vulnerability so striking, you're reminded of why she's so closely associated with another woman who wrote herself into the narrative." The production opened on April 6 and ran a limited run through May 29, 2022.

On May 26th it was announced Soo would play Cinderella in the Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods at the St. James Theatre.

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 show aired for one season before its cancellation in July 2019. In 2021, she received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie nomination for her performance in the Disney+ live stage recording of Hamilton which was released in 2020.

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 in the last song 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."

Personal life
Soo became engaged to actor Steven Pasquale in February 2016. They married on September 24, 2017. In 2019, the two starred opposite each other in an episode of The Code. She has a dog named Billie, which she adopted for her 30th birthday in 2020.