When director Michael Bay gets handed $150 million from Netflix to make a movie you can be guaranteed that he’s going to make something pretty insane. Where in the past he has felt a little hamstrung by studio expectations or interference, his latest effort feels like a return to form. For Netflix, 6 Underground is an expensive gamble, being their second most costly original production, however…
When In the Heights premiered on Broadway in 2008, it became a guiding light for a generation of performers trying to find their way. “I must have watched it at least 15 times,” says Melissa Barrera of the four-time Tony-winning musical. “When I saw that show, I was like, ‘This is where I fit in on Broadway. These are people who look like me, who sound like me, who have names that sound like mine.’ ” The Mexican actress now costars in the show’s long-awaited feature film adaptation (in theaters and streaming on HBO Max on June 11) as Vanessa, an aspiring fashion designer yearning for a life outside of Washington Heights, the upper Manhattan neighborhood at the film’s center. Anthony Ramos, who stars as Usnavi, a bodega owner and neighborhood griot who, in between attempts to woo Vanessa, dreams of returning to the Dominican Republic, echoes the sentiment. “I didn’t know where I fit in on Broadway. I’m Latino, I’m from the hood in Brooklyn; people don’t even speak like me on Broadway. I ain’t gonna fit in on South Pacific. Who’s giving me a lead role on Broadway? [In the Heights] was like a beacon of hope for me.”
…
Long before the sensation of Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda created In the Heights (and originated the role of Usnavi) out of necessity. “I started writing [the] show because I desperately wanted a life in musical theater, and I didn’t see that many opportunities for me or for Latinx performers,” says Miranda, who is now a producer on the film. “We had West Side Story, which was back in the ’50s, and not that much new since then on the stage. The show came out of an impulse to create more opportunities for Latinx performers.” Crucially important in bringing the show to the screen was representing the breadth of the Latinx population. “The thing we tried really hard to do was cast with the understanding that the Latinx community is not a monolith. We come in all shades,” Miranda says. “We are Afro-Latinos, and lighter-skinned Latinos, and Latin Americans, and Central Americans. So the diversity within the film company really represents the many flavors that our community comes in. We’re very proud of that.”
…
For those involved in the production, the film’s decade-long delays to bring those conversations to the screen have ultimately been for the better. “I think in a year where we’ve all been locked down and reminded about what is important, to put out a film where we are able to celebrate community and togetherness is something that feels really relevant,” Miranda says. “Sometimes I shiver when I think about previous versions of this film that were possible, because I feel like every detour, every setback, and every challenge this film has faced over the 10-plus years it’s taken to make it to the screen—it’s only made the movie better. It clarified for us what we wanted out of a big-screen adaptation of In the Heights.” For Ramos, the time for In the Heights to keep shining its light is just right. “I hope kids around the world, in Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, Paraguay, all these places where they’ve never seen this before, can watch this movie and be like, ‘Damn, hold up. Maybe I can do that.’ Because I know that’s what [it] did for me.”
