Woman Crush Wednesday: Phillipa Soo Will Dazzle You in ‘Shining Girls’

Somehow here we are, already in the last week of April! But before we make way for the May flowers, let’s be sure to celebrate the flourishing of the amazing actresses who are making it rain in impeccable performances in the best new movies and TV shows coming out now. In today’s Woman Crush Wednesday, we’re paying homage to a wonderful woman who has blown us all away with her incredible voice, acting, and presence over the past decade of her professional performing career. She’s extremely talented and hardworking, as evidenced by the various impressive awards she has already won and been nominated for and the way her work lasts in the public consciousness, so without further ado, let’s give it up for this week’s WCW, the stupendous Phillipa Soo!

WHO’S THAT GAL: Phillipa Soo

WHY WE’RE CRUSHING: Soo plays Jin-Sook in upcoming Apple TV+ Original title Shining Girls, which premieres on the platform this Friday, on April 29. Based on Lauren Beukes’s 2013 novel The Shining Girls, this thriller series follows Kirby Mazrachi (Elisabeth Moss) as a Chicago newspaper archivist whose journalistic ambitions were put on hold after enduring a traumatic assault in 1989. Years after surviving the brutal attack, Kirby Mazrachi learns that a recent murder is linked to her assault. She teams with veteran reporter Dan Velazquez (Wagner Moura) to understand her ever-changing present, confront her past, and stop Harper Curtis (Jamie Bell), the man responsible for hunting Kirby and other “shining girls”.

Amy Brenneman also stars in the cast alongside Moss, Soo, Moura, and Bell. Be sure to check out all of their fantastic work by catching the premiere Shining Girls as soon as it drops this week, only on Apple TV+.

WHERE YOU’VE SEEN HER BEFORE: You may recognize Soo (or at the very least, her beautiful voice) from starring as Eliza Hamilton in the original cast of Broadway sensation Hamilton (perhaps you’ve heard of it), which won 11 Tony Awards, and earned Soo a Grammy Award, two Broadway.com Audience Awards, and a nomination for Best Actress in a Musical. She has also made a name for herself onstage for her work in the original off-Broadway cast of Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, as for starring as Amélie Poulain in Amélie and Rebecca in The Parisian Woman for both of their original Broadway productions.

Soo has also made a name for herself for her work onscreen beginning in 2013, when she played Karen in short comedy-drama film Keep the Change, and the role of Lexi over five episodes on NBC musical-drama series Smash. From there, she accumulated recurring roles in TV shows as Lieutenant Harper Li in The Code, Cydni Estereo in The Bite, and Amber Collins in Dopesick, in addition to lending her voice to animated roles in movies Moana, The One and Only Ivan, and Over the Moon. Soo has also appeared in 2018 romantic-drama Here and Now, 2020 romantic-comedy The Broken Hearts Gallery, and 2021 biographical musical-drama Tick, Tick… Boom!. Clearly, there isn’t much Soo can’t do, and we look forward to seeing all sorts of different performances and successes from the actress for many years to come!

WHERE YOU’LL SEE HER AGAIN: Luckily, you won’t have to wait too long to see more from Soo. The actress currently has a highly-anticipated romantic comedy-drama in the works, in which she will star as Emma Blair alongside Marvel star Simu Liu’s Sam. The film, entitled One True Loves, is an adaptation of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s 2016 novel of the same name, and tells the story of Emma (Soo), a woman who is unexpectedly forced to choose between the husband (Luke Bracey) she has long thought dead and the fiancé (Liu) who has finally brought her back to life. The film is expected to be released later this year.

For more from Soo in the meantime, be sure to follow her on Twitter, Instagram, and Spotify now so that you never miss a moment from your world-class WCW!