Just a Bunch of Fun Facts About Lin-Manuel Miranda, So You Can Impress Your Friends

Miranda is best known for Hamilton, but it wasn't his first Broadway credit: he wrote and starred in 2008's In The Heights, about the Latino population in Washington Heights, New York.
He has a pair of lesser-known Broadway credits as well. He wrote the lyrics for 2011's Bring It On: The Musical and translated some lyrics into Spanish for the 2009 revival of West Side Story.
He's a published author as well! In October 2018, Random House released Gmorning, Gnight!: Little Pep Talks for Me & You, a collection of his viral daily inspirational tweets.
Miranda hasn't always been a professional writer; he spent some years as a substitute teacher!

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Miranda famously got the idea for Hamilton while reading Alexander Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton while on holiday.
He debuted the first song — "My Shot" — at the White House Poetry Jam in 2009, hosted by President Obama. Miranda introduced the song, to giggles from the audience, as being about "an embodiment of hip-hop culture: Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton."
In 2016, as the Obama administration came to a close, Miranda returned to the White House with the Broadway cast of Hamilton to perform again and bring the show full circle. President Obama also lent his voice to a 2018 remixed version of the musical's song "One Last Time."

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Miranda married his wife, Vanessa Nadal, in 2010; the couple first met in high school.
According to him, he had a crush on her for years but couldn't muster up the courage to talk to her: "She was gorgeous and I'm famously bad at talking to women I find attractive. I have a total lack of game."
The Mirandas have two sons: Sebastian (born in 2014) and Francisco (born 2018).

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Miranda started the #Ham4Ham "preshow" at Hamilton on Broadway: while fans waited outside for the daily ticket lottery, he and guests (show cast members, other Broadway stars, and more) would come outside and perform something fun, whether a Broadway show throwback or a role-reversed song from Hamilton or something else entirely.
Seeing Hamilton became something of a pastime for celebrities, meaning that Miranda got to meet a ton of Hollywood, music, and political figures. But he missed out on performing the night Beyoncé and Jay-Z attended the show — not for lack of trying! "I was pulling the I.V. out of my arm, I had a fever of 104, and my wife was like, 'Stay in bed.' I was like, 'I can do it, I can do it.' You just couldn't miss because it was like the internet came to the show every night."

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Both of Miranda's Broadway musicals have been the subject of PBS documentaries: In The Heights: Chasing Broadway Dreams in 2009 and Hamilton's America in 2016.
Miranda cites Jonathan Larson, creator of Rent, as a formative influence, after seeing the rock musical on his 17th birthday. "Jonathan Larson connected the dots in musicals — that this thing you love can reflect the world in which you live. I loved musicals. But they never reflected the world in which I lived. It was just a separate thing I liked. He connected those dots for me, and I think I really started writing and felt like I could write a musical because of Jonathan Larson."
Miranda will be working with one of Larson's musicals soon: he's signed on to direct a film version of tick, tick . . . boom!, Larson's earlier and lesser-known off-Broadway musical.

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Miranda has a group of collaborators he frequently works with, including director Tommy Kail, music director Alex Lacamoire, choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler. The quartet were honoured as a group at the 2018 Kennedy Centre Honours.
Several actors have appeared in multiple projects by Miranda: Christopher Jackson, Karen Olivo, Mandy Gonzalez, and Javier Muñoz are all among the names that tackled multiple roles.

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