Mandy Gonzalez Sang 'Breathe' from IN THE HEIGHTS on STARS IN THE HOUSE

Stars in The House, benefiting The Actors Fund, continued this afternoon (2pm) with guest Host Andréa Burns and Mandy Gonzalez.

Andréa and Mandy took a walk down memory lane remembering their first reading of IN THE HEIGHTS. Mandy shared, "I remember that first reading, sitting around the table and Lin starts up and is like 'I know you don't know the music yet, so I'm just going to sing through the whole thing.' and Alex [Lacamoire] started the music...and I don't know about you but we all just felt like electricity...you and I were actually sitting next to each other and we started getting into the material...and then you had the beginning of a scene and you came out with this character Daniela...and I felt like 'oh she just connected' and that part just grew and grew because you were so fabulous."

Mandy shared why she started #FearlessSquad. "I started Fearless Squad, we just celebrated our three year anniversary yesterday. it's #FearlessSquad, anyone can be a part of it. When I first started in theatre, people would write letters...it wasn't so easy to connect with people right away and now with social media, you connect with people right away. So when I started with HAMILTON, young people would write to me all the time and there's a sense of loneliness sometimes online. There's a sense of wanting to belong...I thought if people didn't have somewhere to go or have a squad, they could always be a part of mine...It's not about living without fear, it's about facing our fears together and we keep going."

Later, Mandy talked about her Breast Cancer treatment. "I just finished my chemotherapy two weeks ago. I have a few steps to go still to be recovered...I'm so lucky that it was found and that I was able to have the chance to fight...[I was] at HAMILTON with my family and I have a stage manager, Amber White...who just has your back and Tommy, Alex, and Lin it was like 'ok what do you need? What can we do?' and there were days that were hard and I just couldn't do it and that was a hard thing to admit to myself but once I did it was like 'ok these things I can do, this I can't do and that's ok.'"

Mandy closed out the show with a performance of "Breathe" from IN THE HEIGHTS.

Click HERE to watch the full episode

The next show will air tonight (8pm) featuring Dear Evan Hansen's Golden Globe, Oscar and Tony Award-winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. Joined by special guests Rachel Bay Jones, Jeremy Jordan, Lindsay Mendez, Ben Levi Ross and Keala Settle.

Current and past episodes can be found on the website starsinthehouse.com, as well as a donate button linking viewers to The Actors Fund.