Beyond The Gates' Ambyr Michelle Is Helping Viewers Heal From Trauma Through The Power Of Storytelling — TVLine's Women To Watch
Beyond the Gates' Eva Thomas isn't one to back down from a challenge, whether she's fighting to be loved, to be trusted, or just to be valued as a human being. Despite being the secret love child of a doctor whose wealthy family refuses to accept her, Eva doesn't allow her past to define her, and she believes the future is hers to shape.
"She's so complex and layered," actress Ambyr Michelle tells TVLine of her fan-favorite character. "A lot of the fans are relating to her with the trauma they've been through, the healing process they're going through. I'm just a grateful little butterfly, to be honest, for everyone to be supporting us like this."
Michelle brings the character of Eva to life with honesty, tenacity and heart, making her the obvious choice for TVLine to name as our Daytime Star to Watch, part of our inaugural Women to Watch awards series, recognizing women doing exciting, inspiring and industry-shaping work in television.
"When you do a new soap opera, which hasn't been done in [25 years], you don't know how people are going to receive it, especially being African-American predominately," Michelle says. But Beyond the Gates' universal themes of family and belonging have also enabled it to cultivate "a diverse audience that's coming together and talking about the show, which is what we all wanted. No matter Black, white, Asian, Indian — it doesn't matter. Everyone is talking about the show and relating to the characters, bypassing race."
Whether Eva is sparring with her half-sister, scheming with her mother, or building bridges with her biological father, Michelle embraces every color of her character's rainbow, consistently igniting the screen with her fiery, undeniable presence. Rather than portraying Eva as a victim, Michelle is cultivating something special — an aspirational, unstoppable force of nature we plan to watch for years to come.
New episodes of Beyond the Gates air weekdays at 2/1c on CBS. Hit PLAY on the video above to watch Michelle's full interview with TVLine Executive Editor Andy Swift, then drop a comment with your thoughts below.