I know it's going to sound cliche, but we're all artists just trying to tell a story. Whether it's on television or whether it's in a theater, you just hope that people are moved.Collection: Hope
I've joked for years I want to land a TV show so I can finance my theater habit.Collection: Finance
To me there's nothing more fascinating than a roomful of young people just trying to look at the world and seeing how they can affect it as they're being affected by it.
I consider it a great honor to be able to step on stage every night and do a show that people have paid money to see.
It instantly felt like, for me as an actor that I justified, I was able to draw a direct relation between Chris the actor and being George Washington.
That brick that you're standing on, that foundation that you're standing on, there's a brick in there that was placed by someone you never knew, sort of a faceless possibility, but you're there now. You have an opportunity to put your own brick in there. That's what it feels like we're doing with 'Hamilton'
I was going to play pro baseball. That was the dream. But in my sophomore year of high school a teacher who knew I performed, singing in church, she said, 'You know we have a speech team,' and she handed me a copy of 'The Crucible.'
I've had to make time to really explore all the amazing things that are out and try to understand the history of how fashion has moved through modern times and how it shaped everything, from overall aesthetic to design to how it's influenced the great artists of our time.
I pay attention when people get manicures and pedicures. I've always noticed it as a guy. When my wife goes to get her nails done, I'm always very aware of it.
Well, I went to the American Musical and Dramatic Academy - I went to the conservatory - for acting.
I came into the business where Will Smith was pretty much taking over the world - or defending it, if you will. He was showing success on so many different fronts - television, recording, movies. So that was really my prototype in terms of looking at the business and seeing where you fit in.
When I was doing 'In the Heights,' I was the co-music supervisor for 'The Electric Company' on PBS, so I was writing songs all day, doing the show, staying up until 3 A. M. Writing more songs, recording demos in the intermission in my dressing room.
You can make the most powerful movie ever made, and you hope that whatever resonates gets taken home and survives the night. You also hope that, the next morning, it gives someone pause before they would act on their more base instincts, or out of habit.
The idea that you can make one speech or one movie, or express a thought or show the injustice of a particular time, you hope that it resonates, and you hope that resonance will last. You hope that it would create change.
If you can save one body, and one heart and soul and mind, then it's a worthy cause and a worthy venture.
If an artist doesn't have anything to say, he'll be quiet. Or he'll yell into the darkness until he finds something and hears something back.
I've been playing team sports since I could walk... so anything sports-related story is always fun for me.
One of the beautiful parts about Hamilton is it takes these figures that we've always revered as figures of antiquity and there's real blood flowing through their veins. There's real conflict. There's real life.
Because for every Lin Miranda performance, there's some young person out there saying, 'Oh, I can write something like this.' Or, 'I didn't think that this was possible.' It opens a world of possibilities.
Hamilton' is as hard a job as anything I've ever done. It's equally rewarding, but it's very taxing. It's just so hard physically and emotionally to do it, and it just empties you out.
I took a trip to D.C. before the Off Broadway production started, and one of the things that was really telling is that Hamilton has probably the smallest statue in all of the Mall area, and yet he's got the greatest monument of any of them because we're all walking around with him in our pockets.
The fight for civil rights did not end when Donald Trump was elected president. We've got work to do.
I love television, and I get so spoiled because I'm coming from such an amazing ensemble in 'Hamilton' to such an amazing ensemble on 'Bull.'
I grew up singing in church. My family owned funeral homes so I would sing for the occasional funeral, as well.
The reach of 'Hamilton' never surprises me. It's always a delight to meet someone who's seen the show.
Being a part of the 'Hamilton' family has been the most thrilling and rewarding experience of my career.
Jazz is all about being in the moment. Whatever the music is making you feel, jazz gives you the freedom. That's the same genesis as hip-hop.
If you look back throughout the history of Broadway, there's always been periods where writers and producers have delivered the kind of things that people want to see, while at the same time pushing the form along.
I've been telling people that 'Hamilton' is very much a glimpse of what it's like to be inside Lin's brain.