He was in college when he wrote the first draft of “In the Heights,” a love letter to the Latino community he grew up in.
Now, over 20 years later, Lin-Manuel Miranda's hip-hop musical opened the Tribeca Film Festival. This is his story.
Now, over 20 years later, Lin-Manuel Miranda's hip-hop musical opened the Tribeca Film Festival. This is his story.
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CreativityTranscript
00:00You realize, you know, tomorrow is not promised and yet you endeavor to write things that you know are going to take years.
00:06There's something magical about that connection to the audience and, you know, I did a show the other day and my shoe flew off in the middle of a number
00:35of people and I grabbed it and kept going and that's the magic of live theater.
00:51My parents worked a lot. I've never known them to ever have one job each. They always had multiple jobs, but they never missed a play and I think that's important.
01:35Lee Manuel was a musical kid all of his life. My wife Luz and I had no doubt that this is what he was going to do with his life.
02:05For me, writing and performing are two sides of the same coin. When I'm writing a character or I'm writing a song for a character, all I'm doing is acting and putting myself in the shoes of that character.
02:35I'm not a good actor. I'm not a good singer. I'm not a good dancer. I'm not a good dancer. I'm not a good singer
02:51I feel just so blessed and happy to be here with this show that's been a real labor of love for eight years.
03:21I expected it because you've got to dream big if you're going to get there.
03:45To our health and happiness. And most importantly, to life, to life, to life, to life, to life, to life.
04:03I'm actually working on a hip-hop album. It's a concept album about the life of someone I think embodies hip-hop, Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton.
04:28Hamilton's life is a life you have to work very hard to make boring. It's got everything. It's got sex. It's got politics. It's got genius. And so I'm just thrilled that I finished the thing.
04:58I think the arts play a pretty big role in our civic duty. I grew up with a dad in politics and I didn't care much about politics growing up.
05:21So to see the origin story of our country in musical theater form inspires people to think about what our country should be. And so we're just kind of playing that out in 2016.
05:51We're here.
06:20Because there's parents right now who can't sing lullabies to their kids. This is for those parents. And we're not going to stop until they can sing them to their kids again.
06:50I feel like seeing Lynn sing that song was so powerful. Like I get emotional just thinking about it.
07:20For me the fun is the live experience. I don't know how that works when it's taped. I mean maybe one day there will be a movie of In the Heights but it would need to be really reimagined.
07:50He means so much to me and he does so much for our Latino community.
08:08It's wonderful for people now to become more aware. And Lynn Manuel Miranda is the person to do it.
08:15All you can really control in life is what you make and what you do and how you treat other people. That's a thing that people talk about enough but is really important.
08:26Being nice. Being talented does not give you a free pass to not be nice.