Interview with Renee Elise Goldsberry
Thursday / October 1, 2026
About Renee Elise Goldsberry
American actress and singer who won a Tony Award as Angelica Schuyler in Hamilton. Her other Broadway shows include The Lion King, Rent and The Color Purple.
Source: BUILD Series on YouTube
These answers are taken from Renee Elise Goldsberry on "Hamilton" | BUILD Series on BUILD Series's YouTube channel. You! Backstage did not conduct this interview.
What was a great moment for you as a singer?
One of the most pivotal moments in my career happened in the park, at the Delacorte Theater. I owe a huge debt to Oskar Eustis and the Public Theater and Kathleen Marshall for casting me to play Silvia in Two Gents, John Guare and Galt MacDermot's show, Two Gentlemen of Verona. It's the rock version of Two Gentlemen of Verona, and playing that role really put me on the map.
I was really fortunate to get some really wonderful reviews and get the attention of the theater community in the way that allows me to be in the room where it happens, forgive me for that. It allowed me to move from being somebody that could be in a Broadway show to someone that could actually originate a role in a Broadway show, which is such a dream.
How did your career as a singer unfold?
Lion King, Rent, Good People, The Color Purple. We talk a lot about Hamilton, but every one of those shows was a dream come true for me.
I was on One Life to Live for four years, and it was a beautiful experience. Another wonderful family of people, another dream come true, and another really awesome opportunity to learn. I learned so much about acting on a soap opera, because we get so much opportunity. That's the thing about running a show a long time: it's opportunity to fail. It's trial and error. When there's five hours of show being filmed a week, the pace of that is fantastic and crazy. There's going to be some scenes that aren't that great, but you get really fast and really good. The learning curve can be really, really great.
What advice do you have for new singers?
We spend a lot of time talking about people's successes, but we don't talk about all the shows that I've auditioned for that I did not get. Jobs that I've lost to other really wonderful actors, and that happens all the time. And then every once in a while your job is there. It's not like I was so brilliant in this audition and I wasn't brilliant in that audition. Sometimes something's just your job, and sometimes it's not, and you just never know what that's going to be. So you just show up afraid. That's the deal.
I encourage people to not think, because they're afraid or because they're stressed out or because they have anxiety, that something is wrong with them. That's something that we all have. The people that are the most successful are the people that keep walking out there and find ways to focus through the heart beating fast and the mouth getting dry. You just keep trying to get better at focusing through that sensation.
How do you keep communication clear with directors, music directors and the people you perform with?
We have this moment where Eliza and Hamilton and Angelica all meet, and we see it twice: from Eliza's perspective the first time, in the song Helpless, and then from Angelica's perspective, in Satisfied. As an actor, with our Tommy Kail, our director, we had the choice of playing the scene so that I'm always playing it from my perspective, even when it's her song, or just playing it from her perspective when it's her turn.
One thing we do, though, and Lin is involved in this as well: if a line comes out a certain way, like 'I'm about to change your life,' which I say to Alexander Hamilton, if I say it a certain way in Helpless, I'm going to try to say it the same way in Satisfied. But my intention will be purely from Eliza's perspective in Helpless, and from my perspective in Satisfied.
Of all the roles, songs and shows you have done, which is your favorite?
I'm a super fan of Hamilton. I'm just in it. What is this world? I'm in it, so I get all these backstage moments and I get to be friends with all these people. It's crazy.
[Angelica is] probably smarter than me, stronger than me, and definitely more sacrificially loving than I am. I have a lot of examples of really strong, beautiful women, and I feel that I'm a strong, beautiful woman. And the beauty of playing Angelica is that you realize, oh, I'm not there yet. There's room to grow. That's what I love about playing her: the opportunity to be up against that all the time, and be looking in myself for those things to bring out in some kind of new way every night.
Who is your favorite singer, and why?
So many, but the first person that comes to mind is Phylicia Rashad, and that was even before the theater. I grew up watching her on The Cosby Show, and I used to dream that one day I could do that. You'd think I would have been looking at the other little girls, but I was really looking at her. She was just the example of a beautiful woman. She's an Angelica Schuyler. And she's a brilliant actress in the theater. You can't see her in the theater and not be changed.
And you know who else always does? Audra McDonald. I just was at Shuffle Along. Her voice is crazy, but just her acting, her presence, her spirit, the tap dancing. It's just life-changing.
Describe your style.
The other really great thing about [the soap] is that you learn a lot about rooting factor as an actor. Who is the audience rooting for? Which serves me in everything I do. Leslie Odom Jr. is a great example of this. He plays Aaron Burr. You find out in the first minute that he's going to kill the hero. But a little girl was sitting next to a friend of mine at the show and she says, 'I totally feel so sorry for Aaron Burr. He really tried.' That's your job as an actor. It's always my job for you to understand at least what I'm doing.
I can't help but think that there are things that are just Renee in this show, because I'm Renee. The way I respond to the stimulus I'm given by watching the other actors is very much how they make me feel. That's something that's very signature to who I am.
Tell me about a song or a role that was hard to get right. What was it and why was it challenging?
Getting My Act Together and Taking It on the Road felt like the closest I've done to having a one-woman show, which has always been a bit of a fear. It was another really scary experience, because you have a week to put up a show. It's supposed to be a staged reading, but we didn't hold scripts. People assume that they're going to see a Broadway show, but really you're dealing with people that have been putting a show together for one week. It felt like being shot out of a cannon. It was really scary, but it was really fun to do.
With Hamilton, it's not a piece of art on the wall. In a couple of hours I have to pull it off again for a bunch of people who are expecting even more than the first audiences were expecting, and that's stressful. I'm not 100% sure that I'm going to pull it off. I only have really great memories of it working, but it still scares me. To quote Lin, we have to bake it every night.
Renee Elise Goldsberry's Full Biography
Renee Goldsberry was born in San Jose, California, and raised in both Houston, Texas, and Detroit, Michigan. She graduated from Carnegie-Mellon University with a bachelors degree in acting, and went on to attend graduate school at the University of Southern California, where she received her masters in vocal jazz performance.
She has worked in numerous Broadway plays, including a production of Disney's "The Lion King" in 2003 (as "Nala"). She also appears in the daytime drama One Life to Live (1968) as the determined lawyer Evangeline Williamson.