You are in Lin-Manuel Miranda enblood? If not, you should. The Pulitzer Prize-winning creator ofHamiltonhe tweets profusely – and delightfully – about his life and work, leaving inspirational messages in his wake.
Twitter isn't the only place you can get a Miranda fix these days: in addition to her doing the rounds at awards shows for her work as an executive producerFoss/Verdon(where he also had a memorable performance as Roy Scheider), Miranda co-starred as Lee Scoresby in the HBO adaptation ofyour dark materialsand had fun playing a soldierStar Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
This summer, Miranda will produce and star in the film adaptation of her work.on the heightsand is gearing up for his directorial debut with an adaptation of Jonathan Larson's musicaltick, tick... BOOM. In celebration of Miranda's 40th birthday (Miranda was born January 16, 1980 in New York), here are some fun facts and figures about the Renaissance creative man.
In 2018, Lin-Manuel Miranda co-starred as Emily BluntThe Return of Mary Poppins- but he didn't see the original movie until he was an adult. mirandaI rememberedAvanity fairhow certain songs made him "burst into tears" as a child. These songs included "I Just Called to Say I Love You" by Stevie Wonder, "Bridge Over Troubled Water" by Simon & Garfunkel and a song byMary Poppins.
"I couldn't finish Feed the Birds," he said.vanity fair. "I was very sensitive to minor key music and this song was so sad I don't think I saw the end of it.Mary PoppinsUntil I grew up just for crying. I loved "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious". I lovedpau von pau. I loved the whole movie but this song was so sad I never survived."
2. Lin-Manuel Miranda's dramatic talent was evident from an early age.
Miranda's father Luis wanted his son to be a lawyer, butaccordinglyAprogram, it became clear after a young Lin-Manuel filmed an "infamous" video book report on Jean MerrillThe Wheelbarrow WarIn third grade, he was destined for the stage, not the courtroom. Miranda posted the video to YouTube, noting, "I got an A." (You can enjoy it for yourself above.)
Miranda, who was born and raised in New York City, didn't enjoy her trips to summer camp. "Sending me somewhere without electricity was a bad idea," he said.thisJimmy Kimmel.
Miranda wrote letters to her parents from camp describing her unease, and her talent for drama was fully on display: "Dear Mom and Dad, please come and take me back to New York, away from this hell," she wrote in a letter. .Letter. In another, calling himself "the boy you left in the woods for a month," he drew "a picture to remind you of me": a picture of himself jumping off a building. Miranda told Kimmel that she eventually escaped summer camp by faking a spinal cord injury and had to continue acting throughout the summer.
4. Lin-Manuel Miranda was heavily influenced byTo rentthe work of creator Jonathan Larson.
In a 2004 written request for the Jonathan Larson Fellowship, Mirandahe wroteWhat to see Larson's Rock MusicalTo renton his 16th birthday “it just changed everything… i've never seen a show that spoke to me so directly, with fresh, new music that honestly addressed contemporary concerns. By writing about his friends and their problems and fears, Jonathan Larson gave me permission to write about my life, my hopes, and my fears. The show inspired Miranda to write her first musical (more on that in a moment), which was later staged at her school. After that he never stopped writing.
It wasn't the last time Larson's work would inspire Miranda. After graduating from Connecticut Wesleyan University, Miranda Larson sawtick, tick... ¡BOOM!— the story of an aspiring musical theater composer struggling to make it — which, Miranda wrote, "spoke to me and bolstered my resolve."
He was preparing his first Broadway show,on the heights, when he wrote this essay; Even though she didn't get the scholarship, Mirandatweetedthat "it still worked out well. don't give up, don't dare.
Miranda is currently in pre-production on a film adaptation oftick, tick... ¡BOOM!The film marks his feature film directorial debut.
AccordinglyFor Miranda, the show was "about a dissected fetal pig rising up for exact revenge". It was directed by Chris Hayes, yes, MSNBC host Chris Hayes, who was a senior at the time, and lasted about 20 minutes. "I can still hum the songs from that show," Hayes.sayingim 2017.
6. Before becoming a Broadway star, Lin-Manuel Miranda was a substitute teacher.
After college, Miranda "teached seventh grade English for a year," he says.tweetedin 2016. “The time I was a professional substitute teacher UNTIL I gotheightson Broadway." He was a substitute at his old school, Hunter College High School, for a time, hethis program, when asked to "stay to continue teaching part-time". At that time one of the future producers ofon the heightsHe also approached Miranda because he was interested in her writing.
Not knowing what to do, Miranda asked her father, "Should I keep teaching or just take part-time jobs and gigs to pay the rent and really keep writing full-time?"
Luis wrote his son "a very thoughtful letter in which [he] said, 'I really want to tell you to keep your job, that's the smartest thing to do as a parent, but when I was 17, it was he was a manager at Sears Puerto Rico, and basically threw everything away to go to New York [and] didn't speak much English. It didn't make sense, but it was what I had to do... There's no point in quitting your job as a writer, but I have to tell you to do it. You have to follow that if you want. That was very opposite advice to 'become a lawyer' and I'm glad I took it."
Luis is a political consultant and at the same time works for his sonon the heightsfor Broadway, he used his connections to get Lin Manuel jobs and wrote commercial music for many of New York's leaders, including former governor Eliot Spitzer. "It would say, 'I have a radio commercial for Sharpton, I need 60 seconds of smooth jazz,'" Miranda said.this Los New York Timesim 2012.
According to Miranda, the music he composed was "generally accompanied by images of the contestants shaking hands and doing very task-oriented things" so the music should be "generally hopeful". Music accompanying an attack announcement, on the other hand, would have "sad strings" before transitioning into something more upbeat. "It's a bit like music from a movie," Miranda saidtime plans. "If you have a scary scene, you have to write a song for the scary scene."
8. The version ofon the heightsWhat Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote in college is drastically different from what ended up on Broadway.
Miranda started writingon the heightsAs astudent in the second yearin Wesleyan. The university version, hethis The guard, "was really a love story set in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York". But when he came back from college and saw the changes in the neighborhood, that began to change, and the show became, "In a sense ... a time capsule of Washington Heights that won't exist in 10, 15 years," he said . he. "All I know is that I wanted to write a little show that captures what it was like, how I remember it. And then it will exist. My little neighborhood memory, through the show.”
on the heights– which Miranda also starred in for a time – ran on Broadway from 2008 to 2011; While Miranda was on vacation between the show's Off-Broadway and Broadway performances, he read the Ron Chernow biography to which it was to leadHamilton.
Christopher Jackson who played Bennyon the heightsand George Washington emHamilton,I rememberedARolling Stoneas Miranda pitched her idea for her next musical just days after returning from vacation: "When Ron Chernow came to seeheights, I've never seen Lin so nervous," Jackson said.Rolling Stone. "He said, 'Ron Chernow is here!' I said, 'What does that mean?' And he said, 'The show has to go on.gebHey.'"
10. Or Darling by Lin-Manuel MirandaHamiltonThe verse is in "WE know".
The moment comes when Hamilton is accused of embezzlement. "I've decided that when Hamilton is cornered, he has a super internal rhyme," Miranda saidthisKatie Couric. While telling Jefferson, Madison and Burr about the Reynolds case, Hamiltonrapped:
She courted me, walked me to bed, and when she cornered me, Reynolds extorted a meager fee from me. I paid him quarterly. I may have fatally injured my prospects, but my papers are in order. against your consistency list. I never spent a dime that wasn't mine. You sent the dogs to track me, that's good.
"It's really fun to put them together," Miranda said. "When Hamilton is angry, he's like Super Eminem, I'll destroy you with my mind."
“As a child, the [character inThe little mermaid] The one I identified with the most was the crab Sebastián, and I think that even after growing up, he's the one I identify with the most," Miranda said inMY CHAPAuto complete interview. "He just wanted someone to sing on his show, poor guy. He's a frustrated musician! I identify."
12. Lin-Manuel Miranda compares himself to other people, just like the rest of us.
Miranda packed a lot of luggage at the age of 40. To name just a few of his achievements: he createdHamiltonjon the heights, co-wrote the music and lyrics forAhead: o musicalShe wrote a mini musical calledCalle Chump 21forthis American life, and translated the texts ofHistory of the West Sidein Spanish for a 2009 Broadway revival. She also appeared inThe Sopranos,Modern Family, the revival ofThe Electric Company, OfSesamquadrat, among other shows.
while staringHamilton, Miranda wrote songs for DisneyVaiana(with Obadiah David Fo'ai and Mark Mancina) ecomposedMusic to a scene by J.J. abramsStar Wars The Force Awakens. he took notesHamilton: Die Revolution, wrote inBuchwith illustrator Jonny Sun and somehow finds time to make monthly "Hamildrops" of remixes and new songs inspired by the show.
But despite everything Miranda has done, that doesn't stop her from comparing herself to other people, just like the rest of us.
"I've seen people my age and younger achieve success, and I compare myself to people by age," Miranda said.Rolling Stonein 2016. "Paul McCartney was done with The Beatles and halfway through Wings by the time he was my age! Like all the Beatles, and I wasn't even 30. There's always someone to compare yourself to when you're like, 'F***, what am I doing with my life?'"
During his career, Miranda has been nominated for an Academy Award, won a Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur Genius Fellowship, and has taken home three Tony Awards, two Laurence Olivier Awards, four Drama Desk Awards, three Grammy Awards and an Emmy (among others). Other). . Prices). . But like himthis diversityAs of 2016, he is "so proud" of a trophy he won in 11th grade in math "because I got a C in math all through high school." The award, he said, "is on my shelf next to my Grammy."
14. Lin-Manuel Miranda works hard to stay grounded.
Despite all that she has achieved, Miranda has no intention of being opinionated. "I think the trap is getting caught up in the meaning of those titles and letting that make you think you're important. I'm really trying to fight that," he said.this diversity. "I have friends who are very fond of reminding me that I'm myself," adding that most of his friends "roast" him every time they see him: "That's why they're my friends."