(upbeat music)
- Out this month on Netflix, it's tick, tick...BOOM!
- I have an original rock musical.
- Hey, boy genius.
- And I've spent the last eight years of my life writing it.
- He's getting out.
- You're gonna be rich and famous.
- And rewriting.
- Did you crack it yet?
- Oh, I'm getting so close.
- And rewriting.
- [Woman] Can I hear it?
- Any day now.
- Tony winner Andrew Garfield stars
as Jonathan Larson, the creator of Rent.
tick, tick...BOOM! Also marks Lin-Manuel Miranda's
directorial debut, and features a cast
of other amazing Broadway veterans.
- Paul Wontorek caught up with
another of the great stars at tick, tick...BOOM!
stage and screen veteran Robin De Jesùs
- In tick tick...BOOM!, Robin De Jesùs plays Michael,
best friend of Rent composer Jonathan Larson.
In real life, the three-time Tony nominee
has special connections to both
the rent and the film's director Lin-Manuel Miranda.
I met up with him at The Rum House to find out more.
- Are you letting yourself be led by fear,
or by love?
- Fear, a hundred percent, fear.
- How does it feel to be premiering this movie,
which is such a labor of love for so many people,
including you, including Lin and,
how's it feel to be able to tell this story to everybody?
- It feels really good, it feels like
here and here and here, it's really beautiful.
Like Lin and I are his family. You know what I mean?
It's like, it was like that other thing
that we have that connection, you know,
and I hadn't worked with him in a minute,
so coming back to this, it was just like,
it was very cooling, it was very like
familial and very healing, but then like the
piece itself is just so beautiful and
it's full circle through Lin,
it's full circle through Rent.
That's my Broadway debut.
- Right, I want to talk about that.
What did it mean for you to be in Rent and this
tick, tick...BOOM! is really telling the story of
Jonathan Larson before Rent,
it's his origin story, isn't it?
- Yeah, it's such a privilege to tell Jonathan's story.
He was so influential over so many of us like
Lin wouldn't have written In the Heights without Jonathan.
- Right.
- I wouldn't be in my Broadway debut without him.
I wouldn't have like focused on the lyrics of
there's only us, there's only this,
there's only now and like the importance of being present.
I'm really grateful that I get to like be a part of this and
like add my jazz and my flavor and my swag to it and,
and contribute, and I think it's going to be
really beautiful and very healing.
- You really came into your own and In the Heights,
which was obviously Miranda's first Broadway blockbuster.
Obviously you were working with him then as a co-star
and he wrote the show, but what is it like to now have him
be the director of the film, he's making his
directorial debut at the film.
- It was very organic, It was,
I will say there was a part of Robin,
cause this is my friend and a fellow creative
that I've worked with before,
but I've never seen him with this responsibility.
- Yeah.
- It was so beautiful to watch your friend be even more
brilliant than you ever imagined.
I remember there was a day where he came up with a shot on
the fly, that was so cool, And I watched everyone go like,
wait, what do you want? What do you want?
And then he used his words.
He said it, and they did it.
And everyone was like, whoa, that was so cool.
And like, to, just, for me as an onlooker,
observing everything, I just to watch him like handle that,
you know, it was like really, really cool.
And I was like, I'm trying to be that energy.
I'm trying to be a boss too. You know?
So it's, it's infectious.
- 🎶Yeah, This is the life, bo bo, bo bo bo
🎶Bohemia
- One more time.
- 🎶Bohemia
- 🎶Bo bo, bo bo, bo
- tick, tick...BOOM! is based on a solo show that
Jonathan Larson was performing.
That was very autobiographical, before Rent.
And you play Michael and I know Andrew Garfield plays
Jonathan Larson in the film, and it's really
turned more into, feels like it's turned more
into sort of like a biopic about him.
- I don't know if it's genuinely the-the new
screenplay or-or the going back to that original source.
But I now am so much more aware of like the centeredness of
my relationship with Jonathan in the sense that like, yeah,
there's the love story with Jonathan and Susan,
but there's also the love story with Michael.
There's like this other thing happening of like,
you get to see these two men
navigate their love for one another,
that is completely not romantic.
One of whom is completely straight and one of them is
totally gay and they just love,
they love hard and they love healthily.
And so it's like, it's really cool
to watch that and love story.
- What are people gonna get when they,
when they click on this movie?
- I think what they're going to get out of it is like,
especially after a year where we have just faced mortality
every single day and our movie takes place during the crack
and AIDS epidemic, it was the same thing.
It's like, you go outside and death is inescapable
and that's depressing, but like,
there's this one question that keeps coming up
throughout all of our actions and all of our intentions
"are my questions and my answers coming
from a place of fear or love?"
and like, keep going back to that.
And the time periods where things fall apart tend to be what
we lean into the fear more,
and the moments where we feel a little better and perhaps
less achy and sometimes quite joyous and amazing.
It's like when we choose love.
And so I'd like to think of that for the past year,
the movie is going to be reminders like, well,
what are you focusing on fear or love.
- Cages or wings, which do you prefer.
- Ask the birds, baby.