25 DAYS OF TONYS: Once on This Island’s Hailey Kilgore Shares Her No. 1 Priority | Playbill

Tony Awards 25 DAYS OF TONYS: Once on This Island’s Hailey Kilgore Shares Her No. 1 Priority The Tony nominee dishes about the root of her performance and the person she relies on most.

Hailey Kilgore earned a dream opportunity and her Broadway debut when—after an international casting search—the team behind the current revival of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty’s Once On This Island cast the 18-year-old actor as Ti Moune.

Commanding the stage with a maturity beyond her years, the powerful talent says there is one person behind the scenes without whom she couldn’t be successful onstage: None other than original company member of Broadway’s Come From Away and Rent Rodney Hicks. “He’s a family friend and mentor of mine,” says Kilgore in the video above. “He always keeps me going and keeps me grounded and centered. He always gets me to remember the joy.”

Read: ONCE ON THIS ISLAND SEATING GUIDE: WHERE TO SIT FOR THE IN-THE-ROUND EXPERIENCE

In addition to radiating that joy, Kilgore captured the eyes of the Tony nominating committee with one characteristic: “Honesty,” she says of the root of her performance. “When you’re doing a show and you're taking on a role, you have to take in the elements of the script. You take in the elements of the environment. For me I always wanted it to be rooted in a place of truth. The beautiful thing about Ti Moune is that she’s young and she will not be silenced and she’s so giving, and I hope that I carry all of those traits myself.”

Watch the full interview in the video above.

Inside the Cast Recording For Broadway's Once on This Island

 
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