Lin-Manuel Miranda & Ariana DeBose Reunite 7 Years After Hamilton

Hi. [Ariana giggling]

Hi, stunner.

Hi.

Good to see you. How are you, handsome?

Very happy to see you.

I'm happy to see you.

This is wild.

It's all happening.

♪ It's all happening ♪

[Lin-Manuel laughing]

[cheerful music]

The very first time we met,

I remember auditioning for Bring It On.

Yeah.

You were not in the room.

I was attempting to rap.

[Lin-Manuel laughing]

You came in like midstream.

You were like, You sound great

you're doing great.

I'm just gonna...

And I was like- Oh, was I late?

You were, you were late. [laughs].

So it wasn't like an official meeting,

but I remember being like, That's Lin-Manuel Miranda

and he looked me in the face.

Oh, good gracious. It's great.

I, more than anything, remember your first time

on stage in front of an audience.

And it was like, the energy was like, shoot,

you were like [pants heavily].

I don't know what to do.

I'm everywhere.

Yeah.

I couldn't stand still.

It was so bad.

♪ You think I'm frightened of you man ♪

♪ We almost died in the trench ♪

♪ While you were off getting high with the French ♪

I remember when you and Lac, Alex Lacamoire,

were putting together the first readings of Hamilton

or what I knew to be the first readings of Hamilton.

Yeah, yeah.

And I remember looking at you

and being like, I'm not ready for this part,

but I'd like to be in the show.

[Lin-Manuel laughing]

I knew it from then

and I was like, No but I really would like to be

in the show.

And I'm just really glad the whole thing lives

on Disney Plus forever and ever.

So we can all go back and re-watch and think.

Yeah. Because very much

like West Side Story and Encanto,

there were these themes that we also have to...

And Tick, Tick... Boom! for that matter.

We all have to keep revisiting

these very valuable lessons right now.

There's a lot going on in the world.

This is that moment.

It's the first time people are gonna see the show

that aren't just us.

The best thing having done the show with Leslie and Karen

in 2014 was that I knew there was a community

of people who just loved Jonathan Larson,

his friends and his family

and that was gonna be like our greatest resource.

That we were gonna go have dinner with his girlfriend

and be like, All right, what was really fucking annoying

about him?

Figuring all that stuff out was so much fun

and then Andrew was like our human Ouija board for it,

'cause- That's amazing.

If something felt weird in his gut,

we were like, All right.

You follow the gut.

Gut.

That's important.

Let me know. [laughs]

I love that you are an actor, you're a creator,

but now you are a full fledged director, my friend.

What I felt I could bring to it,

'cause a lot of people could make a great movie,

Tick, Tick... Boom!

But I have been a struggling songwriter on a deadline,

you have seen me. [laughs]

Yes.

That was where I felt I could be useful to Andrew.

As like, this is what it's like.

There's there's one moment where he straight up steals

a move of mine. [laughs]

If he gives me a note like this lyric isn't quite working

I always try to fix it right then

so I don't have to think about it later.

Like I look up into my brain and I try to...

And he does- Mm-hmm, he does it

in the movie.

And he jacks it for the movie

and it's just like, No, no I'm gonna fix it.

I'm gonna fix it.

Hold on a second, rhyme, flimes, lime, frimes.

And I'm just like-

That's so real though.

Yeah.

[keyboard clacking]

You have been now up close on three shows in process.

Not just Bring It On and Hamilton,

but Donna, where you're literally seeing us

like Well let's try

this ending. We do.

Yeah.

And trying stuff out,

anything from just your workshop experiences

and literally working on shows

and process that came in handy.

That was already in your tool belt

when you're in rehearsal for West Side?

You guys, Andy Blankenbuehler, and you and Amanda Green,

you were always like, If you feel something,

say something.

Yeah.

And that honestly has been...

It's simple advice, but it's been the greatest advice.

So I did, if I felt something while I was in the room

for West Side, I said something.

Or I just kept going with it.

Steven had a short hand with me

where he was like, She's feeling something,

don't do anything.

[Lin-Manuel laughing]

Or I would just put my hand up

and then I'd keep going with the moment.

And that's how I've learned to work.

And it serves the characters really well

but it's not just about the characters,

it's about the story.

Yeah.

[speaking Spanish]

You met me when I first got to New York

and I was just trying to be an actor, right?

And I remember I was like, I'm Puerto Rican.

And you were like, [speaking Spanish].

And I was like, Hmm.

Because I do not speak Spanish, I'm not fluent.

And I thought for the longest time

that that made me less of what I was.

And maybe I shouldn't talk about my background

because perhaps I didn't represent

the community well enough.

And so when the movie came around,

and even just deciding to walk in the room.

I was like, I don't know if I'm really

what you're looking for.

I have the skillset,

but maybe my background isn't good enough.

I was pleasantly surprised

that this this was a group of people that was like,

No you are very much enough.

And we love you, we will hold your hand.

You are our Anita.

[singing in Spanish]

My relationship to Spanish

is exactly my relationship to music.

I can speak it.

I can talk to anybody in the world in Spanish,

but if you ask me to write it

or if you ask me to read it, I'm slower. [laughs]

I would spend my summers in Puerto Rico

and I would just get sent to my grandparents

and that was my total immersion time.

My grandparents didn't speak English.

My aunt and uncle didn't speak English,

and I would dream in Spanish

'cause I was kind of surrounded in it.

[singing in Spanish]

It was very clear, very early

like this song's gotta be in Spanish.

It's like the foundational story of the movie.

It required more than my conversational Spanish.

It required more than what I used to get through

the day in Washington Heights.

And so I met the source,

and I had my beautiful metaphor

and then I started dreaming in Spanish again.

Did you?

Which I had not done since I was like 15 years old.

Ooh, that's special.

That's full circle.

Yeah, and it was like kind of all hands on deck

like my brain being like, Let's go.

We gotta do this.

We're doing this. We gotta go.

This is important.

I saw someone Tweet like, Who knew we would get

an animated an about generational trauma,

but talk about it in a way

that is tangible for young people.

It still comes back to love

and how we support each other. A hundred percent,

yeah, there's no bad guy in the movie

except how tight we hold onto each other.

And our fixed ideas sometimes of each other,

inside a family.

The lesson of the movie is then seeing all of each other

as opposed to- Oh, so beautiful.

The part that they value.

Right, by the way, I never told you this,

you were great in Mary Poppins.

Ah, you're so nice.

♪ Tomorrow's here ♪

♪ It's cold today ♪

♪ So count your blessings ♪

♪ You're a lucky guy ♪

That offer came along

and here were the reasons I said yes.

Rob Marshall made the best modern musical

with Chicago. Yes he did.

I want to watch him direct.

I will learn things watching him direct.

My wife wants to live everywhere in the world.

And I wrote a whole show about how I never

wanna leave Washington Heights.

So this is a great way for us both to be happy

'cause I'll be working and learning

and she will get to live in London.

And so that was the decision making.

It was sort of like what's best for my family and my space

but also watching Rob Marshall

is gonna make me a better director

if they ever let me direct a film.

And then guess what?

They did. And they did let me.

[both laughing]

God bless that Julio.

Yeah but it was really what do I wanna learn next?

Yeah.

And I find that more than anything-

That's good. That's what guides

my decisions.

I'm gonna learn so- What do I wanna learn.

Bring it on.

I wanted to write in a room with Tom Kitt and Amanda Green.

I was like, We never get to write with other composers.

Get to see how someone else does it.

Mary Poppins.

[audience cheering]

Ari?

Mm-hmm?

You can act and you can sing

and make us feel a lot of things.

So I imagine the offers coming your way are pretty infinite

and crazy.

What's the compass you're finding in terms of it?

'Cause a lot of it is saying no to the good,

so you can say yes to the best.

Right, but it's also like the best for you.

Right.

Every offer I get, I read.

Yeah.

Full stop.

I read every single thing.

I felt like I had to make a lane for myself.

And so now that I have opportunity,

I actually do give due diligence

to every offer that comes because I'm grateful.

There's the stories inside you.

Yeah.

That you want to tell.

And so-

And that's half and half of who-

Which you carry around luggage, right?

Like Here's the things I feel like I have to offer.

Yeah.

And then there are the things that come

along where you go-

I gotta do that.

I'll kick myself forever.

Yup, if I don't do it. If I'm not part of that.

I love you.

I love you.

I'm really glad we did this.

Me too.

And got to check in even if it was in front of cameras.

Yeah, you're so busy, I appreciate you.

Yeah.

Making the time.

Yeah, absolutely.

This is the coolest.

Yep.

Crazy party. All right.

Let's go.

We'll see ya Sunday.

Oh.

[gentle piano music]