-We're back with Lin-Manuel Miranda.
And congratulations on "Tick, Tick...Boom!"
It's receiving fantastic reviews.
-Thank you. -So this is based on
the writer of "Rent,"
but this is not about this part of his career.
Or that part of his career, I should say.
This was about something earlier.
This was about a failure. -Yeah, he --
Jonathan Larson was -- was an aspiring composer.
I can't relate at all. [ Laughter ]
And he spent his 20s trying to --
First of all, he tried to do an adaptation of "1984."
Couldn't get the rights.
He said, "I'll write my own dystopia."
He spent his 20s writing this musical called "Superbia,"
and everyone basically said, "It's really interesting.
You're very talented. What else do you have?"
And he said, "I spent my 20s writing this."
And I think he processed that loss
and the fact that no one wanted to produce it
by writing this one-man show, called "Tick, Tick...Boom!"
And he performed it as a rock monologue
with a band all over the Village and all over New York.
And he, basically, was like -- it was him processing
spending his 20s on something nobody wanted to see.
And, as a result, it's a brilliant
sort of portrait of this great artist
as a young man and figuring out
whether he wants to proceed in this line of work or not.
And "Rent" is still way down on the horizon.
-And you were how old when you first see this?
-So, I was 17 when I saw "Rent."
I saw the original cast for my 17th birthday
from the back row of the Nederlander Theatre.
And that was the show that made me want to write musicals.
It was the first, really, contemporary musical I ever saw.
And then, after Larson's passing,
it was commissioned to --
to be turned into an off-Broadway show.
They basically turned it into a three-person off Broadway show,
and I saw that. Now I'm a senior theater major.
I'm like, "I'm a theater major. It's just after September 11th."
Like, "What do I have to offer the world?"
And I went and saw this brilliant musical,
directed by Scott Schwartz, starring Raul Esparza,
and it was basically this sneak preview of my 20s.
It was this brilliant kind of wrestling with,
"What are we meant to be doing with our time?"
And it was even more specific and brilliant to me
than my experiencing "Rent" at 17.
And so, it's been sitting in me, like, ever since.
And I was thrilled to get to direct the film adaptation.
-You get it to direct it, and you get to take this core story,
but, obviously, because it's film, in some degrees,
you get to make it bigger, and one way that you seem
to make it grander and sort of a tribute to Jonathan
is all these Broadway cameos. -Yeah.
-And -- And it sort of goes back to what you were saying
about the speed of thought. Right?
Like, you get to do -- you get to internalize this person,
and it must have been so cool
to reach out to the Broadway community and explain
why it's important to do a cameo in this film.
-Sure. And half of the folks
that people are considering cameos,
they're not cameos to me. They're just, like,
great New York actors that I want to be --
You know, you know this from this.
You've got Richard Kind in every third thing.
-Absolutely.
-Richard Kind is in our movie, too.
-You can't say no to Richard Kind.
-And he will call you. -Yes.
[ Laughter ]
But, you know, it's -- it's --
I just wanted great New York actors
to be in this great New York story.
But there are elements to it that, you know, Jonathan was --
never got to see his success.
You know, he passed away the night before
"Rent's" first public performance.
And the goal at every stage was, "What would Jonathan Larson do?"
and "What would Jonathan Larson want to see?"
And the film is an opportunity to go to New York in 1990,
that sort of post-Koch, pre-Giuliani weirdo time
in New York that I remember as a child
and populated with Jonathan's heroes.
I mean, that was sort of the goal at every step of the way.
-One cameo that I think people
were very excited to see is your father.
-Oh, sure. -Yeah.
-When you talk about New York royalty...
-Yeah. -...Luis Miranda Jr...
-When you get Luis, I'm like, "Is that the Luis?"
-"They -- They booked Luis?" [ Laughter ]
-No, but how is your dad to work with as --
when you're the director? -Ha!
[ Laughter ] -He's -- It -- Well...
I could've made it easier on myself,
because the scene he's in is this uninterrupted --
It's, like, my only Scorsese take.
It's this, like, long dance sequence in a New York lobby,
and I also wanted it to play like
they're moving in slow motion.
So all the dancers are dancing at 1.75 speed.
So my dad has a really specific cue, and it goes by really fast.
It's like, ♪ Hello to dear Mr. Doorman ♪
♪ Who looks like Captain Kangaroo ♪
"And then wave! And, Daddy, wave!"
[ Laughter ] And he's got, like,
this really tough kind of musical --
And he'd be like, "I got it! I got it. Leave me alone."
You can't direct your parents. -No, no, no.
-You know, I know Martin Scorsese put his mom in,
like, a lot of his movies. -Yeah.
-And I don't know how he did it, because I was just hearing --
Like, around -- after take five, my dad was like,
"How many more?" [ Laughter ]
"'Cause I have a real job." [ Laughter ]
-Also, Stephen Sondheim was a very important person
in Jonathan's life. -Yes.
-And Bradley Whitford plays him. I imagine that's something
you don't take on lightly, to play Stephen Sondheim.
-No. You -- You made it very difficult for me,
because in the great "Co-Op: The Musical" --
I don't know if you've seen "Co-Op: The Musical."
"Documentary Now" -- it's a popular show.
Dozens of fans in the audience! -Dozens of fans.
-John Mulaney plays Sondheim.
-Yeah, Mulaney did a very good Sondheim.
-He did a brilliant Sondheim. -Yeah.
-So, you know, we -- Luckily, we were in a different
age bracket of Sondheim, so we cast Bradley as Sondheim.
-And Sondheim liked it, right? He liked the performance?
-Yes, he -- he wrote me, "You treated me gently
and royally, for which I am grateful."
But he had a note, which is there's --
there's a moment in which the character of Sondheim
leaves a message for -- for Jonathan Larson,
and I forget what the sentence was,
but he was like, "I would never say that."
[ Laughter ]
"Can I rewrite my voicemail message?"
-So he thought the way you presented him in the film,
even though it was him being kind,
was maybe a little cliché?
-Yeah, this one moment, this one sentence.
-Yeah. -He was like, "I think you have
a bright future in this business."
And he was like, "I would never say
'bright future in this business.'"
And so he said, "Can you rewrite it?
And if you can't get the actor back to record the voicemail,
I'll -- I'll -- I'll record myself."
And I was like, "I can't get him."
[ Laughter ]
"I'm sorry. Would you please?"
And so, he -- so we have, like, a rewrite from Sondheim
in our movie, and it's his voice
on the voicemail to Jonathan Larson.
-Just this cosmic reaching across the years.
-Now that's a pretty good cameo.
You know, with all respect to Luis.
[ Applause ] -Yeah, it's --
that's how you do allegro. -That's how you do it.
Hey, thank you so much for being here.
-Thank you for having me back. -Congrats on both films.
You guys, that's Lin-Manuel Miranda.
"Tick, Tick...Boom!" available on Netflix.
"Encanto" in theaters everywhere tomorrow.