[Music]
so glad you could be here for this
totally jam-packed episode of the
broadway show i'm tamsen fidell
[Music]
out this month on netflix it's tick tick
boom directed by lin-manuel miranda and
starring andrew garfield it's the film
adaptation of jonathan larson's pre-rent
musical paul wontorek talked to andrew
garfield about what this role means to
him
hello hi welcome
i'm jonathan larson this is a beautiful
film and a beautiful performance
congratulations how does it feel to see
the the finished product to see what you
guys pulled off god it's really
overwhelming i'm not to lie this this
one is very very special to all of us
and i'm no exception i feel so connected
to this piece so connected to john and
to lynn into this whole company and i'm
so proud of lynn i'm so grateful to him
that he had the courage to take this on
and the the kind of insanity to to bring
us along for the ride like i feel
like jonathan is smiling i do feel that
he
you know he's he's happy with what we've
done he was always our north star and uh
you know our attitude for the whole
thing was to let him come through let
him lead us and guide us in a you know
kind of mystical spiritual way and we
felt him so i we i feel him right now as
we talk you know he
he was such a profound artist and he
changed musical theater forever and he's
created ripples in people either
there may not be a lin manuel miranda if
it wasn't for john larson what was the
most fascinating thing about his story
that you learned yeah well it was like
lynn was introducing me to a long lost
brother that i didn't know i i i i had
or existed so what one of the things i
love about john is that he made
everything an occasion you see in the
boho day sequence in the film it's like
you know he wants to keep the party
going and like everything's an event
like nothing is ordinary it's all
a celebration of this moment
and he he was someone that i think had
an acute awareness of the shortness of
life he was so sensitive he's so tender
his heart was always on his sleeve and
his skin was translucent and and so thin
he felt all of the wounds of the world
so personally and that was what enabled
him to be the artist that he was and to
write this kind of opus and this love
letter to his community you know there
were so many aspects that we needed to
honor and i i really we definitely
worked as hard as we could to do that i
work at the moon dance diner
okay one sec do we take reservations no
we do not take we're we're a diner there
are so many um beautiful memorable uh
moments and location shoes is there any
uh specific days on set
that really stand out for you oh yeah i
mean i
where i immediately go is the dela court
in central park and singing why the
piano solo
live you know it was really important
that i was live we were i wanted to get
at least a few takes that were clean and
live and raw and vulnerable because it
was a really important emotional um
crossroads for john where he where he's
trying to figure out how to move through
this terrible moment of loss
and devastation and grief and uh of
course he figures it out the piano he
figures it out with his with this with a
song
and a tender one at that so that one you
know the magic of that night and the
second take we got it what do you feel
when you see uh the actual footage of
jonathan there's some great video of him
actually performing tik tik boom and i
know you recreate some of those moments
but when you when you see the footage of
him
what are the emotions it's really moving
it's deeply overwhelming to to think
that i i get to have a spot in
in in in in the attempt to honor such a
an incredible artist someone who was so
profoundly
life-changing for musical theater and
for so many other musical theater
artists lynn included you know to to
feel like i
i have a chance to honor that person and
to
give him more life
yeah to quote tony kushner that is the
most profound gift that i get to be a
part of
and as we mentioned this is hamilton
creator lin miranda's directorial debut
paul also caught up with lynn
i love that you
chose tic tick boom for your first
feature film as a director obviously you
have a lot of opportunities coming your
way and it's really meaningful to know
that you chose
something uh that that is so special to
you
yeah well rosa stevens said to jonathan
write what you know um and if i know
anything it's that jonathan larson paved
the way for me to have a life in this
business
in the heights and hamilton don't exist
without
rent being the trailblazing force that
it is with
bringing contemporary music to the
broadway stage with bringing the most
diverse cast i'd ever seen to a broadway
stage all of the lessons from rent are
are things that i are theses that i
advanced in my work because that was the
show that made me feel like i could
write a musical one day
it's also a great opportunity to tell
the story tell more of the story of
jonathan because you know the original
show obviously was based on his his
performance um and now if we can sort of
just take it even farther towards sort
of biopic land a little bit right
yeah and and first of all
jonathan larson had the audacity to
write a bio musical when he was 29 years
old who does that um you know when you
you know but
you know the answer of course is that he
did hear a ticking clock he did spend
his 20s writing a musical no one wanted
to produce and i think that show really
came out of his frustration with where
he was in his life in his career it was
his way of processing why he was doing
what he was doing i think he needed to
write this show
to clear space
for rent um to let go of the bitterness
that came with no one making superbia
and as a result we have a snapshot of
this artist as a young man and it's a
self-portrait i moved to new york city
in 1990 so i really appreciated the
detail you captured there's a scene on
jonathan larson's rooftop and you see
the hudson river and i was like yes that
is the exact view of the hudson river
you would see from that street so i
really appreciated that detail yeah i we
had to see gi out a lot of buildings
that exist now that didn't exist then
particularly with that skyline the
jersey skyline has changed dramatically
i was sad to learn um and
um and that conti i mean there's so many
things you don't realize um because we
just live in the city and we don't see
how it's changed around us
but you know finding those streets that
look unchanged we were so lucky that the
pool that jonathan used to swim in has
been untouched by time and is still
there
and and he has lyrical references to
things that are still in that pool the
tiled red and green stripes uh at the
bottom that song only makes sense if you
film it on location um so there were so
many weird gifts from jonathan over the
course of making this film
there are so many broadway stars
broadway songwriters broadway producers
in this movie it was so exciting to
watch that how important was it to you
to sort of um bring the whole community
into this movie yeah a lot of the things
that people consider broadway cameos i
didn't consider cameos i just
i know how good theater actors are and i
want to work with them so of course i'm
going to hire laura benanti to be in a
focus group scene because she's gonna
make whatever we wrote 50 times funnier
um and think of 50 things we haven't
thought of um
but to this to the point of um
the the sunday sequence which you know i
will try to talk about without spoilers
that's jonathan's homage to sondheim
sunday in the park with george and john
only ever heard it
with himself singing alone maybe roger
bart singing back up behind him um but
that's it it's like a two-man band and i
have the opportunity as the filmmaker to
create a choir every bit as lush as
sondheim's sunday so who do i put there
except
jonathan larson's dream choir and i was
really inspired by like those cheesy
posters you see sometimes where it's
like amy winehouse sitting next to james
dean sitting next to marilyn monroe and
i wanted john to have this galaxy brain
moment where it's not just
the legends uh that he grew up loving
and
people from shows that he watched uh
growing up but also glimpses of future
shows that i know were influenced by
jonathan larson
one is mine uh one is uh uh janine
tosuri show um
and
um and even future collaborators of
jonathan that the 1990 john hasn't met
yet um but they get to be in the sunday
sequence uh and so that was so it was so
exciting to basically build a choir so
loud that jonathan can hear it wherever
he is right now