Ten Years of Hamilton: Renée Elise Goldsberry on Family, Fame, and 'Satisfied'

On Saturday, Tony Award-winner Renée Elise Goldsberry, best known for her role as “Angelica” in Hamilton, brings her solo show to The Ford in Los Angeles—just as her deeply personal documentary, Satisfied, arrives in theaters and Hamilton marks its 10-year anniversary. 

The moment follows a whirlwind season of reunions, including the Hamilton cast’s high-profile Tony Awards performance and celebration events that reminded fans why the show became a phenomenon. 

BroadwayWorld spoke with Renée about timing, family, and the joy of returning to a story that she says belongs to everyone.

First off—it’s so surreal to be talking to you. Your voice has basically been in my kitchen for the past ten years. In fact, when my daughter was 2 or 3, the first command she ever tried to give our Alexa was “Play ‘Alexander Hamilton!’” But it was funny because she could never say the words clearly enough, so Alexa could never oblige, and we'd have to help her. Anyway—we love you. You’re amazing. And I’m super excited to be talking with you.

Well, thank you. What a wonderful gift to give at the beginning of a call. What is your daughter’s name? 

Her name is Hannah.

Wonderful. 

You’ve got a lot going on right now! With your solo show, the Satisfied documentary, and Hamilton’s 10th anniversary, what are you most excited about?

I'm excited about all of it! And fortunately, it's in an order, so I can kind of do one thing at a time, promoting a lot of it at the same time. But it's all really wonderfully interconnected, so it works. 

It does feel like it’s a full-circle moment, right? 

The Hamilton anniversary has been amazing. We started promoting it in March of this year at the United Palace with the screening of my documentary. So it actually is all kind of full circle… The synergy is perfect. We spent this entire spring and summer supporting the Hamilton 10-year anniversary. And actually, in the middle of all that, right before the Tonys, my album came out. 

Exciting! 

That's been really exciting. And that was a wonderful thing to dual-promote. And now, here we are starting off the fall with the release of the documentary that celebrates the creation of Hamilton and the joy it was to do that with that wonderful family. The documentary also features a lot of my original music that's on the album. And the documentary beautifully celebrates my own personal family and the juggle of raising both of those things at the same time.

Was the timing of the album and the documentary intentional? Did you plan for both to be released around the 10-year mark, or was it a happy coincidence?

There are no coincidences. But it's also a surprise. The album is something I have been working on since 2020—I didn't imagine that it wouldn't be out until the ten-year anniversary of the show. Perhaps I thought it was going to be closer to the five-year anniversary. [laughs] But it couldn't have been a better time. And it wouldn't be what it is if I had released it a moment earlier.

I think we were at the rehearsal for the Tonys the day my album dropped. I was with this company—we were reunited together, rehearsing our Tony performance. I didn't see that coming, but it was divine timing. 

As for the documentary, on some level, we were always aware of the Hamilton Ten and wanting to combine it, but we didn't necessarily see it coming that we would have the opportunity to have a trailer for the documentary in the movie theater before the showing of Hamilton on the big screen. We didn't see either one of those things coming. We weren't aware when we started filming this documentary that Hamilton would be released on the big screen. 

The Hamilton cast seems unusually close—even 10 years on. Is it really that tight-knit?

We are. That is one of the reasons, if not the main reason, why we all become theater people, right? It's the family. There is nothing more special than making something with a group of people. That's what we do in summer camps and high schools, community theater and regional theater, on tours all over the world, and, obviously, in every Broadway show. We come together and we take very seriously the work of making a show. It's an incredible honor. And when we get to do that with a group of people, it's the joy of it that unites us forever. 

When I'm with any family that I got to make something with— my personal family, obviously, which we celebrate in the ‘Satisfied’ documentary—when I'm with my Girls5eva family, when I'm with my RENT family, if I see the people from The Good Wife, The Color Purple, The Lion King. I mean, I could go on and on. 

Is it different with Hamilton? 

I'll say that the beauty of the Hamilton family that has been so signature and so surprising is that our joy in reuniting was bigger than just that family. It was a celebration that included your daughter, Hannah, you know? There was a time when it was just us doing this, and now it's so much bigger than us. 

And everybody who has gotten to make the show, everyone who has performed it somewhere in a talent show, everyone who's been singing it in their kitchen, has some stake in it and deserves to cheer every time it crosses another milestone.

Where can people see your documentary, and when?

Movie theaters. It will be shown on the big screen nationwide from September 30 to October 2.  (Tickets available here!)

The film follows your journey balancing new motherhood with the mega-success of Hamilton. How did you find that balance?
I don't know that we ever find balance. Because I think balance is a little bit of a misnomer in that there's an idea that it’s a state of being that can be achieved. I think what we do is ‘balance,’ the verb: We're constantly trying to figure out why we're falling too far over on one side, and as soon as we become aware of that, we recalibrate. 

So it's this constant act of realizing, ‘Oh, I need to go home,’ or ‘I need to leave home and go do that job that I was gifted with.’ It's such a universal story because it's a universal struggle. This is my story of when I was in Hamilton, but that story happens with parents in every single show, and parents in every profession, and parents, period.

If you could go back and talk to your 2015 self—stressed and in the thick of it—what would you say?

Every risk was worth it.

What inspired you to release a solo album?

I've been writing music since I first started my career. And the inspiration to put this album out is really the audience—it's the fact that I feel so much love coming from so many people who have seen me or showed up for something or loved something that I got to be a part of over these past few decades. 

This is just another way for me to share my testimony. I get to do it when I play a character, I get to do it when I show up for an interview, I get to do it in my concerts… The gift to me is that people are showing up for it.

How does it feel to step onstage as you—not a character, not part of Hamilton—just you?
It's definitely the most frightening of all of the ways I can show up. Two reasons: One is that they come, and the other is that when they get here, it’s, ‘How do I make it as special as possible?’ 

I do feel like I've had a blessed love affair with the people that have been supporting me for such a long time—and even the new people that are supporting me. It really does feel like a blessed love affair.

So Leslie Odom Jr. is all over my social media feed with his much-anticipated return to Hamilton—have you considered going back, too? 

I was just in his dressing room last night! And it was a Monday night, so he wasn't there. I was part of a reunion for the Dawson's Creek family. 

Oh, that looked amazing!

It was absolutely amazing to get to be a part of them receiving their flowers and reuniting that whole community. That was just tremendous. Yeah, so I got to be in [Leslie Odom’s] space for a moment, and I will absolutely come back and see him play that part. The only thing that can be better than Leslie Odom Jr. in his creation of Aaron Burr 10 years ago is what he's doing now: I hear he's done the impossible, that there are things in his performance that weren't there before. And I just didn't know there could be anything that he wasn't already doing. It was so brilliant. Also, I hear the entire company—all of them—are spectacular.

It doesn't make you want to go back to Hamilton?

Oh, I don't know. Never say never. But I feel like, at the moment, what this creative team has given us is absolutely perfect. 

Anything else you’d like us to pass along to fans?

You tell Hannah I said hello!

Renée Elise Goldsberry will perform her solo show at The Ford Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets are available at theford.com. Her documentary, Satisfied, will be released in theaters September 30 through October 2. Tickets can be reserved at Fathomentertainment.com.