“I almost did not audition for Hamilton,” Renée Elise Goldsberry recently confessed, on Live with Kelly, of the show that would go on to make Broadway history, and a role that won her a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.
“I’d just had my daughter, and I had told myself that it was time for maternity leave,” she continued. “This was my dream come true—to have these two children. When somebody says, ‘I’m done and I’m taking a break from the business,’ I always say, ‘You’re going to be huge.’ That’s how it happens.”
“When you turn your attention to something else, the mother of all shows comes into your life. And, [Hamilton] was the mother and the father!”
At last year’s BroadwayCon, Goldsberry told the crowd at the Hamilton panel that she was booked to audition for an early workshop of the hit show, but had decided to skip it because of some “personal life stuff.” After hearing a demo recording of Lin-Manuel Miranda singing “Satisfied,” she was “done,” she confessed, and “ran to the audition.” “They gave me the job and my life,” she told Live with Kelly host Kelly Ripa.
Goldsberry, who departed Hamilton last fall, will be seen in the title role of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which will debut on HBO April 22 at 8 PM.
