Courtesy/AOLBuild

Tony nominee and former One Life to Live star, Renee Elise Goldsberry (Ex-Evangeline Williamson) sat down for a very special half hour edition of the one-on-one AOL Build interview series.

Goldsberry, who is wowing audiences every night on Broadway as Angelica Schuyler in Hamilton, may just take home her first Tony when the awards are handed out next Sunday night,  June 12th on CBS.   Goldsberry is nominated in the Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical Category.

During her AOL Build interview, in which the host noted that the studio was packed for Renee, and one of the most highly-attended, Goldsberry discussed her time in Llanview and how important her daytime soap experience, and the fans, have been to her success.

Renee on what she learned from her time as One Life heroine Evangeline:  “I was on One Life to Live for four years and it was a beautiful experience, and another wonderful family of people  …  another dream come true .. and another really awesome opportunity to learn.  I learned so much about acting on a soap opera.  Fortunately, we get so much opportunity to fail – it’s trial and error.  When there are five hours of show a week, just the pace of that is fantastic and crazy.  So that was one of the great things about it, but one of the other great things about it was learning about ‘the rooting factor’.  Meaning, who is the audience rooting for?  It serves me in everything I do, whether i am Nettie in The Color Purple, or Geneva Pine in The Good Wife, or whether I’m Angelica Schuyler in Hamilton.   It’s always my job as an actor for you to understand what I am doing, because that is what ‘the rooting factor’ is, and I am always going to be trying to get that from the audience.  So that is another thing I learned from One Life to Live.  And then I have to say  … the fans.  I still have a lot of them and the medium of daytime knows that the currency is really the fans, and I am excited that we had Broadway-Con this year.  I’m excited that we are learning that the greatest resources we have in the theatre are the fans.”

When asked if the One Life to Live fans have been like, “Excuse me, Hamilton fans! We knew about her a long time ago!”, Goldsberry replied: “Back in the day, we had soap operas in New York City.  We don’t have that anymore and it makes me want to shed a tear.   So the actors were all theatre people.  It was not a stretch to go see your favorite actor on a soap opera at night in a Broadway show, or at an Off-Broadway show somewhere.  They have always been a very savvy audience the daytime people, and they will support you doing anything.  If you want to write a book … if you want to put a clothing line together … whatever you do they will support it, and that is what I feel about the theatre fans as well.”

Watch the complete AOL Build with Renee Elise Goldsberry after the jump! Then let us know what did you think of Renee’s comments about the soap opera fans?  Working on One Life?  Will you be watching the Tony’s with excitement to see if Renee takes home her much-deserved first Tony for Hamilton? Comment below!