Meet the leading ladies of Broadway sensation "Hamilton"

"Hamilton" actresses on how Broadway show empowers

Powerful women are making a name for themselves in "Hamilton," just like the women they play.

Renee Elise Goldsberry, Phillipa Soo and Jasmine Cephas Jones play the Schuyler sisters on the Broadway hit. None of them grew up with a sister of her own, but they say that helped deepen their bond playing this famous trio of sisters, reports CBS News contributor Jamie Wax.

"I feel like I've discovered a sisterhood being with these ladies," Soo said. "I think it's just amazing to be in a group of women, in a group of people that you can spend enough time with them to really get to know people and be inspired by them and learn something new about them every day."

Behind the revolution of Broadway hit "Hamilton"

"We will know each other for a lifetime," Goldsberry added.

"Hamilton" goes into Sunday's Tony Awards with a record 16 nominations. Goldsberry and Soo are among the nominees for their roles as Angelica and Eliza Schuyler, respectively.

"When it started, it was so exciting and seeing like these old people that would never listen to hip-hop ever in their life crying, bawling their eyes out and feeling so inspired... it's amazing what art can do," Jones said.

The actresses are soaking in the impact the musical has had.

"It's a little hard not to feel it. I think we try to stay a little oblivious, just because we have to show up and do it every day and not think the mountain is too high to climb, but it seeps in in a really beautiful way," Goldsberry said.

"All I wanted to do was create theater for us, for our generation, for the people of this planet. And it's so rare that the art that you are making is reaching a huge mass of people," Soo said.

But "Hamilton" has done that, even beating out mainstream hit songs to grab a spot in the iTunes Store's top 10 albums.

"I remember going on iTunes and 'Hamilton' was like the number one rap album, above like Fetty Wap, which is just impossible, like a Broadway cast album," Jones said.

The making of the "Hamilton" cast album

For Goldsberry, the song "Satisfied" was the very reason she joined the show.

"I just don't think that I've ever heard a character so succinctly describe who they are. I like to say that it's the moment in the show where a character takes the mask that you think you've been seeing and does this," Goldsberry said, pretending to remove a mask.

The actresses also commended the musical's creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda for telling the stories of empowering women.

"Well it's really well written, but what's beautiful is that... he doesn't pander. Lin doesn't think this is what women do or this is what an audience could handle," Goldsberry said. "He just wrote and thank God he did that because then our job as an artist is to live up to something."

"As much as we are trying to live up to it, that it lives up to us, like as living, breathing women of this century," Soo said. "What does that mean, what kind of material can we really sink our teeth into?"

"It's such a great diagram of the thought process of a brilliant woman," Goldsberry added. "And the cool thing about it is that's not a woman from 2016.... I don't know that we thought that these women that we're portraying thought in the way as revolutionary as we think we are and we know that they did now and... that's empowering to all women of all time, I think."

No matter how the Tonys go on Sunday, these women can rest assured that their legacies with the show are well secured.

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