Mornings With Phillipa Soo - Watch the Interview
In the series ‘Mornings With’, we begin a new day with inspiring talent in film, television and media. ROSE & IVY founding editor, Alison Engstrom sits down and chats about morning routines, exciting projects and what inspires them and drives them to be their very best.
Phillipa Soo, the multi-talented singer and actress shares her morning routine—which includes spending time with her new puppy, mushroom coffee and Transcendental Meditation. Plus, she recounts the road to landing the role as Eliza, opposite Lin Manuel-Miranda in Hamilton the acclaimed Broadway show—which is now streaming on Disney+—the importance of diversity in storytelling and her hopes for the world going forward.
Portrait by Jordan Geiger
Interview by Alison Engstrom
Welcome to ROSE & IVY’s Mornings With, it’s great to meet you! Before we start, how are you doing during this time period?
I am doing okay, we are grateful. We feel healthy and we just adopted a puppy so our time has been consumed with rearing this little puppy. We adopted her from BARC in Brooklyn. My friend was fostering these puppies and I was like, let’s do it.
Since this series is called ‘Mornings With’, would you say you are a morning person?
I think, generally yes, I am a morning person. Certainly since adopting this puppy our mornings have gotten a little bit more early and more active. I love the mornings—they are so peaceful, especially in the summer in New York. It’s like before the heat of the day and before things get wild and crazy. At night, everyone seems to be out really late because it is cool enough to stay out.
What’s the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning?
First thing I typically do, well, wake up obviously (laughs). I like to make a conscious effort to not get on my phone first thing; that’s a pretty new thing. My husband and I started doing Transcendental Meditation, so we started doing that first thing in the morning and meditating for about 20 minutes. That doesn’t happen every day now, but ideally we would do some sort of meditation, then start our day.
Do you wake up with coffee or tea?
Definitely coffee; we are very health conscious these days and we have been doing this mushroom coffee. It’s a powder from a company that has medicinal mushroom coffee. We do collagen powder, butter and this coffee, we put it in the blender with some maple syrup, it’s actually delicious. We’ve make it frothy, but if we aren’t doing that, we love to grind locally roasted beans from Brooklyn and put it into a French press and make a fresh pot of coffee.
Do you have any positive morning rituals that help to frame your day?
I don’t necessarily have a mantra but I am constantly trying to remind myself to keep it simple and take it slow. I feel like especially living in New York, you have this sense of needing to be productive all of the time. I struggled with this a lot as a younger person but trying to remember that it is okay—you are doing a lot already so just give yourself a couple of moments to not be on your phone, don’t worry about that email you didn’t answer and just allow yourself to enjoy being a human in the world before you engage in all of that. You have got to have a home base so you can have the energy and stamina to not only absorb all of the information that is happening in the news and try to do your part but so you can actively participate and make the world a better place. If you have it in you, spread the love.
I’d love to take a step back to when you were little, what did you dream about becoming when you grew up?
I am living my dream, I just wanted to tell stories, I wanted to climb into the shoes of these people, these characters, and live in other people’s experiences. Selfishly as a kid, because that’s fun. I think a lot of kids do it and play pretend but as I got older it became a lot more about not only do I get to do that but I also have this amazing community and I get to connect with people and places that I wouldn’t have otherwise, but that’s where it all began.
Did you grow up in an artistic family?
Half and half; my family is very arts-minded and science minded, but no performers. My grandmother was a pianist and a painter and my mother was heavily involved in the theater in Chicago, which is where I got my exposure to theater. She was working in the administrative side of things and she was the reason why we saw so much theater growing up. My dad is a doctor and my brother is a scientist.
What were the key moments in your career that helped you land the role as Eliza in Hamilton?
It was crazy, I graduated from drama school and was auditioning that summer. I auditioned for a musical called Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812; I booked that job and I got to originate the role of Natasha at a theater called Ars Nova. It was my first professional job and my first musical that I got to be in outside of school. I met this incredible group of creators and actors—it was just the foundation of my experience in the theater community. It was well-received and a profoundly beautiful experience, story and a great character to play. Thomas Kail, the director of Hamilton and Lin Manuel-Miranda came to see it and saw my performance and they invited me to come and hang out with them and read Act II of Hamilton. It was the first time that I ever got exposed to that beautiful material.
That’s incredible! Were you always drawn to theater?
I knew that I loved storytelling and that I loved music; I went to school for acting with a more theater focus, so that was always in my awareness of something that I wanted to do and I wanted to work towards. At that time, you don’t really want to do anything except just work, so going to LA versus staying in New York is a conversation that a lot of young actors have. Generally, you just want to get your feet wet and get started and I was like whatever door opened first.
Did you have a hunch that ‘Hamilton’ on Broadway was going to be such an explosive success when you first began?
I had a feeling of the importance of it and how art like that can touch so many people, in so many different ways. I knew it would have this amazing reach and it would really influence people. I was most surprised by how young our fans were. I just met a four-year-old yesterday who was a fan because of the film. When I was in the show, I met a lot of young people who were in grade school or middle school and now they are all graduating college, it’s crazy and cool. It’s one of those beautiful pieces of art that I hope sticks through time; I cannot even imagine being a young person and having this beacon of art that you are exposed to as a young person to hark back on. I think it’s the coolest thing to think you grew up watching Hamilton.
I’ve had moments when dreams have come true you can put a lot of pressure on yourself to keep achieving on the same caliber. Did you ever feel that way or were you grateful for the experience and excited for what was next?
It was a long journey and by the end of one year, I was pretty tired. Eliza’s journey alone is hard, it’s long and very emotional. I was ready to see what was next. I think a lot of actors have that when you finish one thing and it was really successful and ask, what comes next; how do I live up to that and do I care? Do I have to take advantage of this moment or do I just follow my heart? It can go a thousand different ways. I think the most important thing to remember for me was that no matter where I landed next, the experience that I just had was going to inform me for my whole life. So yes, what comes next. But there is going to be something after that and something after that. It’s a long, long road. This is what actors do. you work on something for a couple of months, or a couple of years, and then it is onto the next. I was just excited to see what would happen next. I am so glad that I got ot work on a bunch of different projects, a lot are coming out this fall.
Have you had any mentors who have helped navigate your career as it changed and blossomed?
Oh yes, my husband. Not only is he an incredible person, but he is also an an actor and a successful actor. He has experience working in TV, film and theater. It was so nice to be able to share that experience with him. I met him when we were doing tech rehearsal downtown at The Public Theater before our Broadway run. So he was around through the entire process. It was so nice to have someone who loves you and to get you through this crazy experience for all the good, and confusing parts. He has a smart outlook on life and this business and he got it. He was perfect in those moments—he’d ask, do you want the actor, fellow artist version or do you want my, I’m in love with you, I am your partner response? I’d be like, both!
How was it like getting to revisit ‘Hamilton’ with the launch on Disney+?
I had a whole body experience because my breath was changing while watching it. I remembered that this was the part where I couldn’t breath; I am wearing this corset, and I was like, God just help me make it through! (laughs). And also those experiences where I would be watching Leslie (Odom Jr.) sing Wait For It and I am in the back there in a corner and just living through it like I was singing the song. I was feeling it so hard. Of course, all of the moments with my sisters and getting to experience that not only on stage but off stage was so special. I was reliving all of that.
Have there been any hurdles in your career that you have had to overcame?
Yes, lots of ups and downs. I think something that I once learned was often times when it feels like you've lost something, you also feel like you have learned something. In those moments when you are confused or when something is hard or maybe you are unemployed—that’s very common when you are an actor—you don’t know what is happening next, it’s hard to navigate through, but those are the moments where you learn the most sometimes. There is a shift and there is space to understand, what do you really want? You aren’t just riding a train, you have jurisdiction over what happens in your career and what stories you want to tell. There is also a moment too about creating things for yourself and not waiting for people to hand you a script or a job and say, I am going to make my own stuff. It’s not even about a job, it’s about having jurisdiction over who you are as a person and how you choose to handle things.
I love that! On Twitter you posted the most heart-warming video of a young girl watching ‘Hamilton’ on Disney+ and saying, ‘It’s me’. She saw herself in you.
I think sharing in Jenna’s joy made me so joyful. I am so grateful that all of the work that I have put into being an actor and trying to tell stories for a living. She doesn’t know this but she sees herself in me but I also see myself in her. I always have that conversation with myself, where it’s like, okay, if I were talking to my younger self what would I say? It’s incredible to me that I am at a point where I can find younger people who are literally versions of me that I see myself in—a younger version of myself. I can actually say something to them; I can validate them with my own presence and advocate to make the world a more diverse place. I just feel like, how lucky and grateful am I that there are people like Jenna? It doesn’t take a lot of effort to reach somebody—all it takes is for us to recognize that joy we see in Jenna and when she sees Hamilton and say to ourselves, let’s try our best to do this 1,000 times more in every aspect in every career. Let’s make it the most diverse world that we can possibly make it because we will all be the better for it, like Jenna.
That’s a profound way to put that. I think one of the lessons that I have personally learned from this pandemic is cutting back and doing more with less, especially when it comes to plastic and my footprint. I saw On your instagram, you voiced a similar feeling, why is it so important to use your platform to raise awareness about this issue?
Well, our planet is dying. It’s a very overwhelming world we are living in now. There is a lot of work to do to play our individual parts so we can survive; but knowing that it does start small and that if you are trying to go waste-free or plastic-free that it is expensive because you have to invest in things that are more long-lasting since you are replacing all of your single-use products. Doing one thing at a time, starting small, it’s not some hokey pokey saying. It can be a lot for your brain if you are trying to do it 100%; you might not succeed but then again it’s about the effort made and the journey getting there. It’s not about being perfect.
When we come out of this pandemic, what are some of your hopes for the future?
So many hopes. I think my one hope is that we haven’t lost sight of what's’ truly good about this world. Those things are worth fighting for. There is a lot of noise on social media—what’s unfortunate is that it’s given a lot of people a louder voice. It makes other people who have good intentions, but smaller voices, feel smaller and not in the right. I think it’s important that if you have some good in your heart, to make the effort to spread it around. We have to participate in our elections—you have got to register to vote and participate in November, our democracy depends on it. And really just spend time with your loved ones. I think we are finding that we can be resourceful from our homes but nothing beats human contact. We have all of the technolog in the world to connect with people from the comfort of our own home in front of a computer and yet it’s not enough. We can’t take it for granted. When I am getting coffee with a friend, maybe I should just put my phone away—now I am like when can I put my phone away, please dear God! (laughs)
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