Renée Elise Goldsberry, who shot to fame as the original Angelica Schuyler in Broadway’s Hamilton, winning a Tony Award in the process, visited The Late Show with Stephen Colbert April 21 to talk about life after Hamilton and the premiere of her HBO movie The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
Fans regularly approach Goldsberry, but her favorites are the kids. “The best part about [meeting fans] is that so many children know every single word,” said Goldsberry. “It’s always show and tell when you meet different kids, and I actually put them on my Instagram when I can.
“How often do you memorize something that actually is relevant and is something that you want your children to have memorized? That doesn’t happen very often,” the actor said of the score to Broadway’s juggernaut hit.
Since leaving the show in September 2016, Goldsberry has taken on the title role in HBO’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, directed by Tony winner George C. Wolfe and starring Oprah Winfrey. The movie tells the untold story of Lacks, who unknowingly became the pioneer for medical research when her cells (harvested because of her diagnosis of cervical cancer) were used to create the first immortal human cell line.
“It’s like Hamilton,” said Goldsberry. “It’s another story that no one knows, and it impacts us all.
“It was the first cell that was able to live outside the body,” she continued, who went on to say that breakthroughs like the polio vaccine, HIV cocktail, and more resulted from Lacks’ cell line.
Prior to her Tony-winning turn in Hamilton, Goldsberry appeared on Broadway as Mimi in Rent, Nala in The Lion King, Nettie in the original production of The Color Purple, and Kate in Good People.