Lin-Manuel Miranda [1] has had a very good 2018. Not only does he co-star in one of the year's biggest movies [2], Mary Poppins Returns [3], but the Hamilton mastermind also was honoured at the Kennedy Centre Honours and welcomed his second son this year! The multi-hyphenate has been a pop-culture staple [4] for some time now, between his work on Hamilton, his music for Moana, and now Mary Poppins Returns. Even though you've almost definitely heard a few key facts about him [5], there's plenty more trivia that you probably don't know yet! From his musical inspirations to how he met his wife, here are some of our favourite facts about Miranda!
- 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 [6]: 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 [7], a collection of his viral daily inspirational tweets [8].
- Miranda hasn't always been a professional writer; he spent some years as a substitute teacher [9]!
- Miranda famously got the idea for Hamilton while reading Alexander Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton while on holiday.
- He debuted the first song [10] — "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 [11] 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 [12] of the musical's song "One Last Time."
- Miranda married his wife, Vanessa Nadal, in 2010; the couple first met in high school [13].
- 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 [14] (born in 2014) and Francisco (born 2018).
- 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 [15] the night Beyoncé [16] 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."
- 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 [17], creator of Rent, as a formative influence, after seeing the rock musical [18] 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.
- 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 [19].
- 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.