They Fought to Make ‘In the Heights’ Both Dreamlike and Authentic

An important change is the decision to make the character of Nina, the elite student played by Leslie Grace, an Afro-Latina woman. She even refers to herself as a trigueña, which implies this was more than just a random casting choice.

HUDES One thing I’ve learned is if you want to make a nontraditional or strong casting choice, you actually have to write it into the dialogue or else it’s so easy for the production to get away from that. So a word like trigueña gets put in there for that reason. I wanted to consciously make Nina Afro-Latina in this version of “In the Heights.” Since we opened the show on Broadway, this national conversation has happened around microaggressions and really interesting stuff that I feel like would be applicable to Nina’s situation.

Was there a number that any of you felt was a deal-breaker and needed to stay?

HUDES At some point, for various artistic or budget reasons, many of the numbers were up for being potentially cut. You really had to make a strong argument for why the film needed them. Because the piragüero [who sells the Puerto Rican-style shaved-ice dessert] is a peripheral character, at one point the “Piragua” song was up for cutting. I tried to talk to Lin gently about this. He was really heartbroken and I was like, “I have one idea for how the studio would let us keep that song.” So I pitched him on playing [him]. That’s how that one stayed.

Lin, why did you feel that the piragüero was so significant to the story?

MIRANDAThat song is maybe the fastest song I ever wrote. Although, I don’t know that I wrote it. I think I just caught it. The metaphor of the entire musical is inside that song. Piragüero is every character in this movie. They’re doing their best against impossible odds. They take a breath, then they keep scraping by. It’s a minute-and-45-second song, but somehow the DNA of the entire show is in that minute and 45 seconds. I was very proud that that kernel got to stay. My performance was a testament to my grandfather. He passed away the week after “In the Heights” opened on Broadway. He’s the one member of my family who did not get to see everything that came after that opening night. So I have his espejuelos [reading glasses] around my neck. I have his [Marcial Lafuente] Estefanía cowboy novels in my pocket. I’m wearing my socks up to my tabs and the same kind of shirt he had to wear. I’m really cosplaying as my abuelo.

Quiara, how did you come into the role of producer and why did you decide to take on that responsibility?

HUDESIt was a lot of little things that happened organically. When we went to Warner Bros. and Jon came on board, they weren’t saying, “Where are the pages?” They were saying, “What do the pages mean?” I loved having those conversations and saying, “I don’t want to see stiletto heels on any of the salon workers. They’re women on their feet for eight or nine hours a day. Put them in tennis shoes.” Then Jon started asking me, “What would the food look like?” And I was like, “Can we also talk about the pots?” Then I started talking to the choreographer Chris Scott about the dance casting call. I don’t know much about dance, but I did know that at Abuela’s house and out on the street, you’re going to see elderly people dancing and they are going to be schooling the young’uns. At some point I said, “I want to be a producer on this. I’m not just writing words on a page.”

The choice of shooting on location is really compelling, especially when some locations would have been much easier to conceive on a soundstage. Tell me about shooting in Washington Heights and what that adds to the experience.

MIRANDAOn paper it’s risky, right? It’s expensive to shoot in New York. It’s hard to shoot on location. It’s harder to shoot in Washington Heights in the summer when we all live outside for a few months a year. But the advantage is you get a million authenticity checks every day because your neighborhood is rolling up with folding chairs to watch this movie you’re going to make about them. Your characters better be dressed like the folks who are on the side, your food better be right. Everything you’re putting in the frame should be an honest reflection of the surrounding everything that’s outside of the frame. I give Jon so much credit for leaning in and listening and finding these corners of the neighborhood that have additional layers of meaning for those of us like Quiara and myself, who still live in the neighborhood.

The concept of the dream, or sueñito, is different for each character. The musical seems to say that you can attain your aspirations without losing who you are to assimilation. That’s a profound notion for immigrants and their children.

MIRANDAIt’s that simple and it’s that complicated. You’re talking to first-generation writers whose parents were born on the island of Puerto Rico. You grow up with the “Sliding Doors” thinking: “What if they’d stayed? Who would I be if I grew up in Vega Alta, Puerto Rico?” The nuance that we always fought for is to say, “I can accept the sacrifice of my ancestors. I can accept the responsibility that bestows upon me and still find my own way in the world.” It’s not an either-or, it’s not about, “Forget your dreams. It’s my dreams.” It’s thinking, “I accept the incredible journey you had to take for me to even be standing here and still my job is to make my own way in the world and define home for what it is for me.”

Some photos from the world premiere of In the Heights

Lin and Quiara talking Heights on the Tamron Hall show

Lin talks about the OBC screening of Heights and the impact of the Broadway show as reflected in the stories told to him.

Interview: Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes on How Time Has Deepened In the Heights

[This interview contains spoilers for cut songs!]

How did looking at this material through the eyes of the older and wiser versions of yourselves impact the changes that you made in the process?
Lin: I just think that Quiara and I are better at this than we were when we were in our 20s. Quiara’s screenplay is so smart. It updates the script without losing the essence of the 2008 version and it brings other issues to the floor that are really on the front pages of the Latinx community in the United States right now.

Quiara: I wanted to go even deeper into the character of Nina, for instance, and prop her up more. In the time since the stage play, the way financial aid works at colleges has changed. There’s less of an emphasis on student loans and more emphasis on scholarships. That said, students still struggle financially, and there is still student-loss because of financial hardship. But that shift gave me an opportunity to look a little more closely at the cultural frictions that she experiences when she gets to Stanford. In some ways, she was raised very sheltered. She was raised around her community and people who understand the songs she sings, and she gets to Stanford and is sitting in that room and she’s like, “Is this space made for me?” She is put into a position where she can build a new Stanford, as many first generations do. The opportunity to dig deeper into that cultural story was very exciting.

Lin: To revisit these characters again was really, really fun, and it’s still from this perspective of joy. We wanted to write about our own community with a sense of joy, and that shines through. I’m really proud of these 20s us-es, but also really proud that we had another crack at it.

Broadway.com feature on In the Heights

- Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek chats with IN THE HEIGHTS film star Anthony Ramos about playing Usnavi in the movie musical.

- IN THE HEIGHTS creator Lin-Manuel Miranda discusses the show’s journey from the stage to screen and his decision to make an appearance in the film.

- BROADWAY PROFILES goes back to 2010 to share some behind-the-scenes footage of the Broadway company of IN THE HEIGHTS recording the original cast album.

- Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek speaks with IN THE HEIGHTS film stars Jimmy Smits and Olga Merediz on the magical feeling the movie gave them.

- BROADWAY PROFILES heads to Washington Heights for a tour of the real-life locations where the movie was filmed.

- Daphne Rubin-Vega talks about the excitement of filming in the neighborhood that inspired the movie’s story.

- IN THE HEIGHTS writer Quiara Alegría Hudes on what it feels like to share the story with scores of people.

In the Heights Is the Movie We All Need Right Now

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.”

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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.”

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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.”

Netflix releases teaser trailer for Vivo starring and with music by Lin

Sony Animation’s Lin-Manuel Miranda Musical Pic ‘Vivo’ Headed To Netflix

Netflix has licensed all global rights, sans China, to Sony Pictures Animation’s Vivo.The movie, directed by Oscar nominee Kirk DeMicco (TheCroods) and co-directed by Brandon Jeffords (Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2) with new songs written and performed by Tony-winning HamiltoncreatorLin-Manuel Miranda, was recently scheduled for a theatrical release on June 4. The new drop date on Netflix is still to be determined.

Vivo follows a one-of-kind kinkajou (aka a rainforest “honey bear”), voiced by Miranda, who spends his days playing music to the crowds in a lively Havana square with his beloved owner Andrés (Buena Vista Social Club’s Juan de Marcos González). Though they may not speak the same language, Vivo and Andrés are the perfect duo through their common love of music. But when tragedy strikes shortly after Andrés receives a letter from the famous Marta Sandoval (Grammy-winner Gloria Estefan), inviting her old partner to her farewell concert in Miami with the hope of reconnecting, it’s up to Vivo to deliver a message that Andrés never could: A love letter to Marta, written long ago, in the form of a song. Yet in order to get to the distant shores of Miami, Vivo will need to accept the help of Gabi (newcomer Ynairaly Simo) – an energetic tween who bounces to the beat of her own offbeat drum.

Vivo is written by DeMicco and Pulitzer Prize winner Quiara Alegría Hudes, who wrote the book for Miranda’s Tony-winning Broadway musical In the Heights.

Heightstome!!!

Lin_Manuel: Atención, atención…

In The Heights: Finding Home.

Jeremy McCarter chronicles the twenty (!) years of In The Heights, from my first doodles at 19 through #InTheHeightsMovie this summer. Essays by Quiara throughout. Lyric annotations by me.

June 22!

http://smarturl.it/intheheightsglobal

-LMM

Read more about the book here!

In The Heights’ Lin-Manuel Miranda and cast break down new trailers and movie’s long journey to screens

It’s been three years since the In The Heights cast spent a summer in Washington Heights filming the big screen adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway hit. In all it’s been almost 20 years since Miranda first envisioned a musical that represented the world he grew up in. “No one was was writing parts for people like him, so he wrote them,” In The Heights’ film director Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians) told reporters this weekend ahead of the release of two new trailers. “No one was writing parts for his community, so he wrote them.”

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On adaption the beloved stage musical for the screen

Quiara Alegría Hudes: I want to take it as an opportunity for people who already know and love musical to discover even new things in it, as opposed to try to make the same experience. Keep the heart and soul and add to it, and go new and surprising places too, so that you can have an even deeper experience if you already know it.

Lin-Manuel Miranda: I have to say, Jon, I think, dreamed bigger than any of us in terms of the size and scope of this. We spent our summer [of 2018] on 175th St. and Autobahn. You know, he was committed to the authenticity of being in that neighborhood…. And then also, when it comes to the production numbers, dreaming so big, I mean this is a big movie musical. I think we’re so used to asking for less—just to ask to oscupy space, as Latinos. Like, let us make our little movie. And Jon, every step of the way, was like, ‘No. This is a big movie. These guys have big dreams. We’re allowed to go that big. And I’m just so thrilled with what he did because I think it’s bigger than any of us ever dreamed.

On the universality of the story

Lin-Manuel Miranda: When we’re first generation kids and we come from somewhere else, we always wonder what it would be like if our parents had stayed. You know, those questions of home being real personal. Like, what does home meant to me? And every character is sort of answering it in a different way. For some people, home is somewhere else. For some people, home is the block there. And so, you know, that’s that’s worth singing about. That’s worth celebrating in a movie this size.

Jon M Chu: I was so lucky to be invited into [Lin’s and Quiara’s] homes, literally—they’re all in Washington Heights. To meet the block, meet the people who they get their café con leche from, their piragua guy. All those things, I got to witness. And it reminded me, [as it did] when I saw the show on Broadway years and years ago, of my own upbringing—even though I was not from Washington Heights. I’m from the completely other side of the country, a Chinese family and a Chinese restaurant. I recognize all the love. I recognize the characters. I recognize the aunties and uncles who raise you and say, “I love you” by their food. And you have to decode everything that they’re putting on you from their own baggage, but then you have to pick up your own and make your own path. And I love that this story that they’ve created has no villain. It’s everyone’s internal struggle on the path they want to make to their future. And to me, that’s really what home is. This is not a destination. It’s the people around you on your journey, and everyone finds their own way and finds what home means to them in their own way. And all of that is okay.

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On writing the female characters in the film

Quiara Alegría Hudes: It’s so fun and so thrilling. You know, growing up, the beauty standard I saw in magazines did not reflect the beauty standards I saw in abuela’s living room on the block, which had all different body types, all different hair textures, all different skin tones. And we would just celebrate it. And you would own it, who you were. I was it was the plucking, and the spraying, and everything. And it was also about just the spirit of celebration as you were getting ready or getting dressed, and the fun of that. And so, the opportunity to really say, “Well, here’s another notion of beauty that’s more expansive, and here’s how we take up space as we’re getting ready for the day.”It was so fun.

On making Carla and Daniela’s relationship a romantic one for the film

Stephanie Beatriz: Quiara and Jon really expanded on what Lin and Quiara originally created, and now they’re partners–and not just work partners but they’re life partners. And what was so gratifying to me, as a person who is queer, is to see this relationship in the film be sort of just part of the fabric of their community, and be normal, and be happy and functioning, and just part of the quilt that they’ve all created.