Meet Krysta Rodriguez, aka Halston's Liza Minnelli

1 Her Breakout Broadway Role Was as a Pop Culture Icon

Rodriguez is playing one icon onscreen as she steps into Minnelli's (very stylish) shoes, but she's no stranger to playing cultural icons. Her first leading role on Broadway came in 2010, when she originated the role of Wednesday Addams in the musical adaptation of The Addams Family (opposite future Smash costar Wesley Taylor as Wednesday's love interest Lucas).

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2 She's a Cancer Survivor

Image Source: Getty / Walter McBride

In 2014, Rodriguez was diagnosed with breast cancer just after her 30th birthday. She chronicled her journey on her website, ChemoCouture, where she shared tips for living well while battling the disease. Since then, she's been an advocate for related causes, such as cancer screenings and awareness of risk factors in younger women.

"The reason no one noticed it was because they just weren't looking for it," she told Playbill in 2015. "No one really looks that hard when you're my age. That's sort of why I wanted to come out publically — to raise awareness for early detection at younger ages because it's very difficult."

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3 You've Probably Seen Her on TV Before

Image Source: Everett Collection

Rodriguez's breakout screen role came in 2013, when she joined the cast of NBC's musical drama Smash as would-be Broadway star Ana Vargas. She later appeared on several other major TV shows, including Chasing Life, Quantico, and Daybreak.

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4 She's Played a Disney Heroine

Image Source: Getty / Noam Galai

In 2019, New York City's famed Public Theatre put on an adaptation of Disney's Hercules. Rodriguez was cast as fast-talking heroine Megara, putting her own spin on the '90s favourite "I Won't Say I'm In Love." She even performed a duet version of the iconic song with the OG voice of Meg, Susan Egan, at a concert the same year!

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5 She Was Supposed to Star In a Famous Failed Pilot

Image Source: Getty / Roy Rochlin

In 2014, one of the buzziest planned pilots was How I Met Your Dad, a reported spinoff of the soon-ending How I Met Your Mother. According to Deadline, Rodriguez was cast to play Juliet, the BFF to Greta Gerwig's protagonist and "a sexy, flamboyant force of nature who runs the most successful fashion blog in the country."

Only three weeks after news of her casting broke in early March, however, Rodriguez left the pilot for undisclosed reasons. CBS wound up passing on the pilot, and attempts to shop it to other networks failed.

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6 She Learned ASL For a Role

Image Source: Getty / Arturo Holmes

In 2015, Rodriguez co-starred as Ilse in a unique production of the musical Spring Awakening. Produced by Los Angeles's Deaf West Theatre (then transferring to Broadway), the production was bilingual in American Sign Language and English, with several deaf and hard-of-hearing performers alongside hearing cast members. To perform, all the cast members not familiar with ASL had to learn, including Rodriguez.

"I did not know a stitch of sign language so at first it was I had to put the signs to the words and learn them as choreography," she told The Sign Language Company. "But then I started to learn what the words were."

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