Lin-Manuel Miranda Opens Up on Directing tick, tick…BOOM! with Filmmaker Rob Marshall
Director Rob Marshall joins Lin-Manuel Miranda for a special in-person conversation about tick…tick, BOOM!
Lin is known for his superhuman abilities in writing, music, and, acting in the theater world, but where did his love of film come from? As a pre-freshman at Wesleyan University hoping to double major in film and theater, he stumbled into a Hitchcock Class for a rare film and discussion and from there he knew that’s what he wanted to be. Ultimately majoring in theater because of the reality of the cost to make a senior film, Manuel always knew he wanted to come back to the medium.
For his directorial debut, the Hamilton creator tackled the life of Broadway icon and Rent creator, Jonathan Larsen. Since creating Hamilton, Miranda wanted to get closer to the movie musical side of the industry and got his first exposure through working with Marshall on Mary Poppins Returns. It was on set of Mary Poppins that Lin’s producer called him to let him know that they got the rights for tick..tick, BOOM!
To integrate the musician moments of the film, Manuel starts off on stage to prepare the audience for what is to come to create a seamless transition between song and speech. The decision to use VHS as the way in relates back to Manuel’s own experience of watching Larsen perform “Boho Days” on tape. In the edit, his team realized everyone needs to be on the same page of understanding Larsen is telling his own story so they allow him to burst into song.
Andrew Garfield, who has never sung before this film, plays Jonathan. The first time they read through the script, other actors sang the Johnathan Larsen parts while Andrew did the speaking parts. Lin could tell Andrew was dying to sing so he had him sing “Boho Days” because it's an off-key song and “Sunday” because everyone in the room was singing it at the same time. It was amazing for Lin to watch Andrew learn from scratch how to sing over the two years of making this film. Because of scheduling issues, Manuel wanted to do the “Why” sequence the first week of filming. It set a good honest relationship between Andrew and Lin for the rest of the shoot.
Q&A on the Netflix film tick, tick...BOOM! with director Lin-Manuel Miranda. Moderated by Filmmaker Rob Marshall.
Based on the autobiographical musical by playwright Jonathan Larson. It's the story of an aspiring composer in New York City who is worried he made the wrong career choice, whilst navigating the pressures of love and friendship.
