“I’ve prioritized taking care of my mind, having fun, and doing things that make me laugh. And eating well – as in, really good food, like steak or pasta or fresh vegetables or an amazing dessert. You know, ‘treat yo’self.’”
― Phillipa Soo
“There’s no map for you to follow and take your journey. You are Lewis and Clark. You are the mapmaker.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I eat a light but sustaining dinner before the show: a bunch of greens and some non-gluten quinoa or rice. I’ll have a snack at intermission. I’m trying so hard not to have meals after the show because it’s so late, but sometimes I just want a big bowl of pasta.”
― Phillipa Soo
“It doesn’t matter where you are: theater brings people together.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I learn something new about love every day. For example, loving yourself is just as important as loving other people.”
― Phillipa Soo
“There was a saying going around the theatre: It’s a train, and you can jump on at any point whether you’re a lover of musical theatre or a lover of theatre or a lover of hip-hop or a lover of history – there was a way to jump on the train.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I think I’ve learned, really, just how to let go – if an idea doesn’t work, or it’s not perfect, that’s O.K.”
― Phillipa Soo
“Exposing yourself to many kinds of art can only lead to amazing things. It helps you learn about your own art, your own taste, what kind of art you want to create for yourself.”
― Phillipa Soo
“It wasn’t until ‘Hamilton’ that I began to be considered an actor of color, and I really don’t know what to make of it.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I find it’s nice when I can be a listener and absorb things coming at me. It’s important, especially for me, when so much of my job is about putting things out into the world. So those quiet moments are rejuvenating.”
― Phillipa Soo
“Right out of school, I did this show called ‘Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812.’ It is based on a classical text with new music – not necessarily confined by a certain genre. It was a diverse, interesting group of musicians, actors, nonactors, and singers all creating this thing that is bigger than all of us.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I took dance from a very early age, although my first recital, I remember refusing to go onstage. I think I was three. It’s funny because that stage was also my high school theater stage.”
― Phillipa Soo
“There’s a huge shift in the way we connect with people as humans in the technology age versus right before that, when we still had a little bit of mystery.”
― Phillipa Soo
“My mom always told me to follow my bliss. And I remember specifically with my father, when I was out of school and not knowing how I’d get a job or make money – should I take some classes? What do I do? He said as long as I was working – to enrich myself in some way – that I was on the right path.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I think I’m obsessed with food. Maybe that’s why I’m making the transition to organic products – they just feel yummy. I like vanilla scents. I like mint. I like sage. I like the idea of smelling blackberries every time I blink. It’s so good.”
― Phillipa Soo
“We did a student-initiated project of ‘A Little Night Music’, which was the first time that all of the divisions – music, dance, drama, opera – came together and put on a piece. It was a black box kind of feel. We had to get costumes that were pieced together. We had our own lighting that we finagled.”
― Phillipa Soo
“During the winter of 2013, we were running ‘Comet’ up in midtown – as opposed to downtown – and across the street in the Standard, and that was, like, our third time going at it, from Ars Nova to downtown to near Broadway. We weren’t on Broadway. We were near Broadway, as we said.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I’m half-Chinese and half-Caucasian. My grandparents came here from China. My father was born in New Jersey.”
― Phillipa Soo
“Beyond just the respect that you want to have, people just miss out on being in the moment when they have a screen in front of their face. I just don’t know to tell people. I feel it’s like, you know, ‘Turn off your phone and go to the theater.’”
― Phillipa Soo
“I feel more like an American citizen now than I ever had, and it’s artistically fulfilling.”
― Phillipa Soo
“My mother took my brother and I to a production of ‘The Tempest’, and it was in this very small – it could have been the basement of a church or a black box. The space was vast, but there were maybe 15 seats in the middle. Ariel came out wearing a nude sparkly thong and spike heels, and the muses had these gossamer see-through gowns on.”
― Phillipa Soo
“There’s the cool factor, right? You see your face on a sign or your name on something, like, ‘Ahh! Here I am!’ And then there’s a huge responsibility and the scary part of it, which is like, ‘Now what happens?’ And then you realize, ‘Oh, yeah, this is my job.’”
― Phillipa Soo
“On long car rides, we would always listen to the ‘Blues Brothers’ soundtrack and try to emulate everything that Aretha Franklin was doing. There was soul and grit in it that I think a kid from the suburbs really needed.”
― Phillipa Soo
“Doing a show eight times a week is kind of like doing yoga or tai chi. A vinyasa is the same every single time you do it, but depending on how you’re feeling, it tells you a lot about what’s happening in your life.”
― Phillipa Soo
“When I go into a theater, I’m very excited to turn off my phone. But then, of course, I get anxiety.”
― Phillipa Soo
“Everyone has a different interpretation of characters we know and love from Shakespeare, from ‘Miller’. There’s specific things about them that are written that are kind of the fingerprints of the first person who played that role, and so I like to think of it as a road map.”
― Phillipa Soo
“Doing something out of town is so beautiful because it really becomes about the process, and the product will be a result of it, but process is what is the goal – to really see what works and create the best story possible.”
― Phillipa Soo
“’Hamilton’ is, of course, closely tied to the Obamas because Lin first performed the opening number at a White House poetry jam.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I didn’t know anything about Eliza when I first got the call about ‘Hamilton.’ Tommy Kail, the director, asked me if I wanted to be a part of it. I knew what he was talking about because I’d seen the video of Lin performing it at the White House for Barack and Michelle Obama.”
― Phillipa Soo
“My grandmother was a classical pianist, so I grew up with Schubert, Mozart, Beethoven. I studied piano as a kid. My musical background and upbringing was very much a mix.”
― Phillipa Soo
“Now, when building a show, I ask myself the question – like, ‘Jumping off this table will be really cool, but can I do that eight times a week?’.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I’m definitely not as good as people who consider themselves beatboxers.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I will say, I can definitely throw down a sick beat once in a while and provide an amazing backup track for somebody who can really, actually freestyle.”
― Phillipa Soo
“That’s kind of just the nature of our business, is that you’re really putting a lot of energy and time and care into something that isn’t necessarily going to last forever.”
― Phillipa Soo
“It’s the coolest job to be on Broadway.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I read ‘Backstage’ a lot when I first was unleashed into the world from drama school. And what was great about it was that if I was using it or not, it was just nice to know what was happening in my community.”
― Phillipa Soo
“You can’t avoid the conversation of diversity and remembering that diversity goes beyond race and culture. It goes into gender and sexual orientation and all sorts of things.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I really love being in a room and developing work.: being at the table, looking at the script for the first time, and putting a story on its feet.”
― Phillipa Soo
“We try to find the information, the clues, to unlock the play or the story or our characters, especially when they’re based on real people that live and breathe.”
― Phillipa Soo
“The way theater can bring people together is so powerful.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I’ve been very lucky. I made a choice, getting out of school, to follow the work and the people that really struck my heartstrings; ‘Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812’ was one of those – maybe it was an accident.”
― Phillipa Soo
“The only musicals I’ve really worked on in New York are new musicals, and I like the idea that my job as an actor is also that of a detective, archaeologist, and mystery solver.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I’m trying to look into each character and try to realize her as someone who is also me.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I definitely have been approached and reached out to by a lot of young Asian American and Asian women, which has been really cool for me.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I actually grew up seeing a lot of classical theater – a lot of Shakespeare – but I have such a passion for music and find that way of telling a story to be really compelling as well.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I love the collaborative process. Getting to meet new people and really building something with them is such a wonderful way to get to know someone.”
― Phillipa Soo
“You get to crack the code of the play. You get to really pick at it and see, ‘What is the story that we’re telling?’ ‘What are the clues in the text that I can find that will help inform what story we’re telling?’ It’s almost like a detective mystery.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I think in general, people are baffled by love and what it does to them and how far they’ll go to have love and be loved.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I think it’s just amazing to be in a group of women, in a group of people that you can spend enough time with them to really get to know people and be inspired by them and learn something new about them every day.”
― Phillipa Soo
“All I wanted to do was create theater for us, for our generation, for the people of this planet. And it’s so rare that the art that you are making is reaching a huge mass of people.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I wake up around nine, drink a cup of coffee, answer some emails, and ease myself into the day.”
― Phillipa Soo
“When you’re on a show schedule, everything is heightened. You’re always aware of what works and what doesn’t so you can be at your best.”
― Phillipa Soo
“There’s a very old tradition of theater actors doing their own makeup. It’s like putting on your mask. There’s an element of storytelling involved in it – you put on your character when you put on your makeup. At least, that’s how I like to look at it.”
― Phillipa Soo
“At night, I’ll do coconut oil or almond oil on my face as a mask to replenish my skin. I’ve found those are so simple but work better than any other product. Coconut oil is so good, but if you don’t want to smell like a cookie, sweet almond oil isn’t as pungent.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I think as a young person, leaving high school or college, you’re like, ‘All right, all right, enough already.’ But now there’s a part of me that would like to go back and relish those moments when you could sit down and just… read a book.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I went through a phase when I was watching a lot of foreign films, just itching to get out of the suburbs and explore.”
― Phillipa Soo
“As a woman, it’s nice to hear people at the stage door say, ‘I didn’t even know! She’s a woman, and that’s the most amazing thing’.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I relate to that idea of not necessarily seeking out ‘interesting female roles,’ but ‘this character, this role, who happens to be a woman, is interesting to me, and I relate to it in some way, so I’m just gonna go with my gut and see where it leads me.’”
― Phillipa Soo
“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.”
― Phillipa Soo
“’Hamilton’ just asks us all to go a little bit deeper: whether you’re a hip-hop fan seeing musical theater for the first time, or if you were thinking you were gonna see some reprise of 1776, and now it’s this? And you’re thinking, ‘Wait a minute, these people aren’t white!’ It asks you just take a step and go a little deeper.”
― Phillipa Soo
“There is a certain vulnerability to creating art and putting it out in the world for the first time, but again, there’s a kind of thrill to that as well.”
― Phillipa Soo
“You are carving out a story. You and your colleagues are trying to make something that is bigger than yourself. Although it can be a scary experience because you’re putting your work out on the line, it’s also incredibly rewarding because a lot of it comes from you.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I came to New York for school, and then I did this amazing show that was received very well, with a great group of people, and I felt like I was creating something that I was really proud of, and then ‘Hamilton’ was my next big thing in New York.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I would put on shows for my family.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I decided one day to put on my tutu and jump on the coffee table and sing Aretha Franklin songs for the painters that were painting the house.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I feel like ‘Amelie’ is very much an extension of me. She’s a contemporary woman who sees the world through her imagination.”
― Phillipa Soo
“You’re able to get into somebody’s brain through song.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I like that Amelie is strange, just like me. I’m happy I’ve gotten to be on this journey following my ‘Hamilton’ journey because they’re so different.”
― Phillipa Soo
“I hope they’re reminded that joy is very easy to access if you just put down your phone, look at another person, and make a human connection. You’ll find a new experience that you wouldn’t have had otherwise.”
― Phillipa Soo
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