salma - 18 - i like films and tea
Phillipa, you’re of Asian descent and playing a character that isn’t written as Asian, or any race at all.
SALONGA: But it’s awesome and with all of these colorful people!
SOO: Yeah! So I’m half-Chinese and half white, and it wasn’t until being part of this show — even though I’ve been in other mixed race casts — that I have been considered an actor of color. Up until now, I haven’t been talking about being an Asian-American woman! I don’t know why, but clearly it has something to do with the statement that we’re making in our show, and that you’re seeing so many different colors that you’re thinking, “Wait a minute, what is everybody?” I was in Natasha Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, a Russian story based on Tolstoy and with a mixed race cast. But it wasn’t a mixed race cast playing Russian people; it was just us telling the story. Because of who I was playing opposite, I think people assumed I was white. It depends on the frame that highlights different things.
Also, it hasn’t been until now that I received this beautiful letter from this young woman who thanked me for representing Chinese-American people in the theater. That’s never happened to me before! But it’s beautiful because I feel like as amazing as it is to acknowledge, it’s also amazing on the other side that people don’t even think twice about it [in Hamilton].
despite THR falling into the “colorblind casting” trap, an otherwise lovely interview with these two lovely ladies!
