The Emmy-nominated star of Hamilton opens up about her role as Avery Morgan, the stakes of shipboard medicine, and navigating complex relationships in Ryan Murphy’s latest series.
From the shimmering lights cascading down upon New York’s biggest stage all the way to the effervescent glow of a twinkling map pinpointing an ocean liner’s way home, supreme talent Phillipa Soo is making a name for herself that can be heard around the globe. The two-time Grammy Award winner and Primetime Emmy contender earned her acting chops in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s massively well-received Broadway production Hamilton, in which she originated the fictionalized musical version of Eliza Hamilton, wife and steady rock to the titular character of historical figure Alexander Hamilton. Beautifully moving and wonderfully gratifying, her powerful performance and euphonious singsong gained her the honor of worldwide recognition, a hefty handful of awards, a large devoted following and, as it turns out, she even managed to catch the eye of mad genius and mega show creator extraordinaire Ryan Murphy.
Soo’s latest endeavor sees her setting sail upon the high seas as Avery Morgan in showrunner and producer Murphy’s new melodrama Doctor Odyssey. In the show, Soo’s Avery is one of the key nurse practitioners on a very elite cruise ship called The Odyssey, a much-sought-after source of entertainment and travel, one in which high-end clients pay top dollar for a constructed paradise wherein all of their worries float away with the salty breeze. Avery has been aboard the vessel for many moons, but apparently not long enough for Captain Robert Massey (Don Johnson) to grant her the newly vacant position of head doctor on the ship. Claiming that spot is newcomer Dr. Max Bankman, played by Joshua Jackson, whose list of accolades is as long as the journey ahead, but whose reputation is batted down by the skeptical eyes of Odyssey veterans Avery and her longtime colleague Tristan Silva (Sean Teale). Together, the trio embark on unpredictable tides, solving medical mysteries and sorting out more intimate matters of the heart, all while factoring in the added pressures of Mother Nature’s gorgeously scenic and sporadically unforgiving waters.
“We’re kind of doing something that nobody’s ever done before,” Soo tells me about working on Doctor Odyssey. “In terms of making a procedural drama, it felt very fresh and very lifted to me.” With titles like Grotesquerie, American Sports Story, American Horror Story, 9-1-1, and Monsters all airing at the same time, Soo jokes that producer Murphy relies on a secret time machine to complete all of his projects at once. Still, the light and airy yet often surprisingly insightful Doctor Odyssey stands out in the lineup. “There’s something about the mixture of the medical drama and this ultra-luxury, almost hotel-like cruise liner setting that felt really exciting to him,” reflects Soo on her early talks with the showrunner. “We’re still figuring out what this show is, and I think only Ryan Murphy knows exactly what it is, but we’re continuing to piece together this journey that all of our characters are going on, and it’s quite fun.”
By staging his procedural drama at sea, Murphy creates a pressure cooker environment where his characters must accept the constraint of their tight quarters while simultaneously feeling the heat of being the only medical staff around for miles. The combination of complex personal relationships and fraught medical emergencies boils over in unique and playful ways. For Avery, Max, and Tristan, it means saving lives, stirring up a love triangle, and searching for purpose with the fiery pursuit of a sailor seeking the North Star.
“From those initial scenes that I had read, I learned a couple of things right off the bat,” recalls Soo about her character Avery. “She took this job because she wanted to change up her life. She wanted to revitalize something within herself that she had been searching for and lost along the way, and now this is her chance to have a sense of adventure, to have a sense of freedom. So we really find her in a place where she’s been on this cruise for a while. She’s got a real sense of independence and adventure, but I think the flip side of that independence is that there can be a level of solitude that she might be experiencing as well.”
Continues Soo, “Everybody on this ship is kind of running from something in their lives. The deeper question is, what are you running from? And when is that sense of adventure just going to run its course?”
Although blindsided by her competitive nature at first, Avery finds not only a friend in her new boss Max but possibly a romantic interest as well. “Avery’s story is that she was very much on a course, had a plan, had a way of doing things that really worked for her, had a sense of control in this world,” says Soo. “Then Max comes into the picture and everything goes a little crazy and wild for her—with good reason. I think she met her match in somebody in a really good way, where they deeply respect each other in their profession. And of course there are some wonderful sparks happening between them too.”
Given the characters’ close proximity and dreamlike distance from dry land, it’s no surprise that these two beautifully brilliant characters would find companionship in each other.
“They’re on this ship, and they’re in the middle of the ocean, very far away from all the medical tools and things that they would potentially need on shore,” Soo explains. “So the stakes are definitely higher.” The heightened sensation of dramatic events daily unfolding adds spice to any otherwise routine relationship, but when it comes time to clock in, Avery and Max make sure to keep it professional. “I think that in an environment where you’re working under pressure, you have to think quickly and you have to be on your toes,” says Soo. “And I think there is a mutual respect there between the two of them, and certainly between the three of them, being able to really work as a team and to put any personal stuff aside so that they can best serve the patient. I think that their mutual respect is really rooted in that.”
In many ways Max holds up a mirror to Avery, asking her important, soul-searching questions, like why she’s spent so many seasons aboard the Odyssey, or why she hasn’t used her years of training and research to finally, officially become a doctor. Max triggers Avery, causing the occasional rift between them, but by pushing her out of her comfort zone, he forces her to grow, and Avery casts back her own illuminating images in return. Yet they’re not the only souls on deck that act as sounding boards for their peers.
“We have these incredible guest stars coming in every episode, because every episode is a different cruise,” smiles Soo. “It’s fun to bring in that new energy into what I think is a very insular community.” Rachel Dratch already made an appearance in the pilot episode. Renowned country music icon Shania Twain quickly followed suit. “Just to see how their relationship is reflected by the people that are coming on, I think for Avery, definitely, and for everyone, there’s something for everyone to learn about themselves as characters based on the people that they’re encountering on this ship. We learn a lot about them that way.”
To prepare for the role of Avery, Soo turned to an old kinship for a new source of inspiration: she called her father. “My father is a doctor,” Soo reveals, “so growing up, I remember going with him to the hospital or to his practice and just being really immersed in that world, to a point where I have such nostalgia and a fondness for this space in a weird way.” Adds Soo, “I really admire him, and also infused him a little bit into the character of Avery, a person who really thrives in a space where they’re helping people. I think that’s so selfless and beautiful, and I think, at least for Avery, it made me feel like the space where she feels the most confident is in her work and what she’s doing, and a large part of that is just that innate desire to want to help people and have that be enough for her.”
Being a woman in any field, but especially the largely male-dominated medical practice, is a tough tightrope to walk, a fact that Avery is very much aware of as she is the sole female aboard her small isolated unit out at sea. Not only is she passed over for promotion by her male superior in the very first episode, but it’s not long before Max tries to put her in her place as well—an attempt that quickly proves futile, as her experience trumps his studies.
“I think that the show is wonderfully aware of itself in that way,” says Soo. “That first episode, Avery’s experiencing what a lot of women do, like workplace mansplaining and being underestimated, but what I really like about the show is how we see the characters carry out a very typical interaction, and then we call them out when we need to. The show is lifted tonally, but these characters are very deep and multifaceted.”
The concept of subtle misogyny in the workplace is not foreign to Soo. Although the actress doesn’t feel that her talents must exceed those of the men in her profession, she does embrace her feminism by actively going against her tendency to prioritize others before herself.
“I think the phraseology is not necessarily do I have to be twice as good,” comments Soo, “but I think it means that you have to be twice as sure about what you’re doing. For me, personally, as a woman in a very male-dominated industry, you have to practice at making space, and in my situation, I think that’s a skill that I have.”
The term “manspreading” has been around since 2014 to describe the exhausting way in which men often take up more space than women, but the idea has existed ever since the days when Raewyn Connell referred to it as the “patriarchal dividend,” meaning the advantages men receive in patriarchal societies. When there’s an embedded hierarchy at work, the systems of inequality are highlighted by women, who are on a lower rung, finding their bodies naturally disciplined to literally take up less physical space than the men in their lives. Unlearning this behavior has been a lifelong process for Soo, but through determination, she’s found her path.
“I get a little lost in trying to be a people pleaser, and I think that I can get in the way of actually doing some great work or making a good choice,” says Soo. “It’s definitely something that doesn’t come naturally to me, but I’ve made it a practice in my life now. So I do walk into a space and know that I can be a great listener and be a great people pleaser, but that might not actually be the most helpful thing for the moment that I’m in. And I think that confidence comes from just years of putting that into practice, and fighting against that. It was a natural urge to make myself smaller, make myself the easy person to be around, and maybe having to have some confrontation, and say things that might not necessarily be received with ease, but are important to put into a room—hat’s my journey in adulting.”
Doctor Odyssey Photos: Disney/Pari-Dukovic
