‘That is so great’: The rude saying that made Lin-Manuel Miranda laugh on Brissie trip
There was one cheeky saying that made Lin-Manuel Miranda laugh out loud when he heard it for the first time in Brisbane - this is what it was.
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I ’m waiting to speak to Lin-Manuel Miranda so why am I thinking about Julius Caesar? It seems appropriate however because Miranda, the creator and original star of the hit musical Hamilton, is into history, albeit not necessarily ancient history.
Now what was it they said about Julius Caesar? Veni vidi vici, which is Latin for I came, I saw, I conquered.
That’s the analogy I’m thinking I might use about Lin-Manuel Miranda. Because he came – to Brisbane of all places, the only stop on his whirlwind visit to Australia. He saw – the city where Miranda’s family hero, Bluey the animated dog lives (“I see the trees from Bluey everywhere,” Miranda observed while here) and he conquered – the hearts and minds of fans and the audiences on an intense weekend recently during which we saw a lot of him. A lot but never enough.
Hamilton the musical played Sydney and Melbourne for lengthy seasons (Covid-interrupted at times) before it was finally announced for Brisbane. And it was well into the Brisbane season before we heard that Lin-Manuel Miranda was coming. Here.
It had seemed like a pipe dream at first. I mean he would have come to Sydney or Melbourne as a priority, right? They’re important. Brisbane was just the finale, wasn’t it? Before the show folded its tents and moved across the ditch to New Zealand.
But when I was interviewing the American producer of Hamilton, Jeffrey Seller, by phone from his home in the US, I asked whether we might expect Miranda. Would a mysterious figure just turn up with a baseball cap pulled down to disguise himself?
“Is it even possible that Lin will come?” I ask.
“I know he’s looking at his diary,” Seller offered.
After that I wrote in my arts column that we were on “Lin-Manuel Miranda watch”, predicting his possible attendance of the show in Brisbane but not really believing it would happen. And then, it was announced and, as they say, the crowd went wild.
Mass hysteria? Well it was a bit. I hadn’t realised how much of a superstar he was.
A question was framed at the press conference at Rydges South Bank Brisbane around the timing of his attendance. I can’t remember the exact words but this was the gist of it. “What took you?”
“I came as soon as I could,” Miranda said from a podium, behind a bank of microphones looking down on us all. If he wasn’t so relaxed and casual in his attire you’d say the event was almost presidential. And most people would probably prefer him to either Trump or Biden.
It was suggested that he had saved the best til last, arriving just weeks before the show leaves for New Zealand, because of the Bluey connection. Miranda actually had a cameo in Bluey, the animated ABC TV series that has gone around the world. He had a couple of lines as a Horse called Major Tom, which may, he says, be one of his most significant roles.
His kids (the 43 year old and his wife Vanessa have two boys, Sebastian, 9, and Francisco, 5) love Bluey and Bluey helped the Mirandas get through the pandemic in the same way that Hamilton did for others.
“The way a lot of people felt about Hamilton is the way we felt about Bluey,” Miranda says. “But was my visit to Brisbane just a cover to meet Bluey and the cast? No, that was just kismet. I wanted to come here because I made a promise to see the Australian company perform while they were still in Australia and they’re leaving soon.”
As for the “conspiracy” theory that it was all about Bluey, Miranda says … “I wouldn’t read too much into that.”
But he did meet the creators of Bluey while he was here and that was one of the first things he did after checking into the Emporium Hotel South Bank on Saturday, March 4.
There was excitement about his arrival but it was also shrouded in secrecy as his Australian producer, Michael Cassel Group, sought to contain the enthusiasm and control the star’s visit. Miranda eschewed a security detail so his producer’s staff filled in.
But Miranda himself let the cat out of the bag that he had arrived by posting on Instagram saying “G’Day Brisbane” with an image of a jar of Vegemite and then a shot of a sign from the Inner City Bypass. The eagle had obviously landed.
His visit to Bluey’s studios was followed by a Saturday evening at QPAC where Lin-Manuel Miranda fever was rippling through the foyer before the show.
People massed near the Stage Door hoping to catch a glimpse and there was minor uproar when he entered the Lyric Theatre to watch the Australian cast do their thing for the first time live.
At the end of the show Miranda got up on stage and paid tribute to the cast, thanked the fans and later hobnobbed with the good and the great at an exclusive after-party at Rydges.
The festival of Lin-Manuel Miranda continued the following day when he agreed to be interviewed on stage, on the set of Hamilton (the room where it happened), by ABC TV’s Leigh Sales who is either a Hamilton tragic or a research maven considering the fact that she sounded almost like she knew more about Hamilton than Lin-Manuel Miranda himself.
They were joined on stage at one point by Jason Arrow who is playing Alexander Hamilton here and Miranda paid tribute to Arrow declaring … “You’re just so good!”
The audience was challenged to sing one of Miranda’s rap songs from Hamilton at one stage and they were word perfect en masse.
This was an event for fans who had entered a lottery to win one of about 2000 tickets on offer, for free. About 30,000 entries were received.
The chosen ones, some of who had jetted in from interstate, including from Western Australia, were ecstatic to have an hour of Miranda. He was generous with his time and relaxed … so relaxed he let off a few f-bombs in his banter which didn’t seem at all out of place.
Later he fronted his press conference and after that I waited for my one-on-one.
And I did feel like I was waiting to see the US president.
I loitered in the foyer and was told someone from the Michael Cassel Group would identify me and give me the nod when the time came. After that I was sent to the 11th floor in the lift and told someone would meet me. I couldn’t find anyone at first but then was waved down a hall to what was described as “a holding room”.
“Not a holding pen?” I quipped feeling like a sheep waiting to be shorn.
I confess I was nervous. It dawned on me, finally, that I was in a position that millions of others would love to be in. The last time I felt like this was when I had a one-on-one with Hugh Jackman in a hotel room.
With sweaty palms I browsed over the questions I had written on my notepad. Then I was ushered into the presence of the great man. The great man didn’t act like a great man of course.
So what comes first? Small talk?
“Is this your first time in Australia?” I ask. I should know this.
“Second time in Australia but first time in Brisbane,” Miranda says. “It’s gorgeous. To be in this beautiful warm climate and to lurch into summer for a weekend is a joy. I was just sledding with my kids the other day.”
I mention the fact that, being a good boy, he brought his mum (clinical psychologist Luz Towns-Miranda) with him and I asked if they might enjoy some recreation while here.
Not for him apparently.
“You don’t even get to cuddle a koala?”
“Actually my mother is currently cuddling a koala while I am talking to you,” Miranda says. We settle in to chatting about the show and the Australian cast which he describes as “wonderful stewards of the show” and he remarks that during the pandemic Australia was the only place that Hamilton was on stage.
“We had to cast the show here via Zoom with the help of Michael Cassel,” Miranda says. “We watched their auditions from the other side of the world at a time when we were also in the midst of editing the Disney+ version. We were watching that and getting it ready for release as we’re watching the Australians so they had a really high bar.”
Meeting the cast in Brisbane, including Brisbane rapper Sami Afuni in his first theatrical show (he plays two characters – Hercules Mulligan and James Madison), he was impressed.
And of course the cast themselves are still on a high, one that will probably stay with them through their New Zealand tour.
We talk about the genesis of Hamilton, which is the story of one of America’s founding fathers and George Washington’s right-hand man and the first US federal treasurer, Alexander Hamilton, who is introduced to us by his nemesis, Aaron Burr, in those exciting first few moments of the production.
“How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence, impoverished, in squalor grow up to be a hero and a scholar?”
How indeed.
Well if you want to know how, it’s all in Ron Chernow’s 800-page book about Hamilton, a book Miranda read while on holiday in Mexico, a book he decided to turn into the most unlikely musical in history, a hip-hop creation telling a story about America’s history and its war of independence from Britain.
“Thank you for giving us an executive summary so that we don’t have to read the book,” I joke and Miranda laughs.
He became friends with Chernow, who has praised Miranda’s ability to keep the historical veracity while using poetic licence in an appropriate way.
“And I was able to call on Ron when I was writing the show,” Miranda says. “I was always going to take liberties but always in the spirit of the book. Ron was great to check in with where we were taking those liberties, to see how far we could stretch it.”
Once the musical hit the stage, starting as off-Broadway then transferring to Broadway itself in July 2015, Miranda became a target for people who wanted their books to get similar treatment.
“There was a solid year where books were getting handed to me in the street,” Miranda recalls. “I had to say … listen guys, I’m not doing another historical one. That was it.”
“Well you know what Alan Bennett says about history,” I offer and Miranda raises an eyebrow.
“No, tell me,” he says.
“History is just one f--king thing after another.” Miranda laughs and seems genuinely delighted by that. “That is so great,” he says.
“It’s from his play The History Boys,” I add and Miranda seems to make a mental note, while I feel chuffed to have given him some new material.
He’s a charming, engaging bloke and my short experience of being close up and personal with him feels longer than it was.
He’s no overnight success. Decades of hard work has gone before that success. Miranda, who was born in New York to Puerto Rican parents, (possibly why he has insisted on diverse casting) was an English teacher at Hunter College High School in Manhattan before making it big on Broadway, an influential stage of his life and he has described that as “one of the most rewarding jobs I’ve ever had”.
He made his Broadway debut in 2008 in the musical In The Heights, in which he starred and wrote the music and the lyrics. That stage musical was adapted into a film in 2021.
He was also the creator of Hamilton which won him Tony and Olivier Awards and even the Pulitzer Prize. The Hamilton cast recording was also a huge hit.
He’s a frequent collaborator for the Walt Disney Company and wrote for the soundtracks of the 2016 film Moana and the recent Encanto and throughout his career he has also been a jobbing actor. In fact it was his guest role in two episodes of Larry David’s series Curb Your Enthusiasm which first switched me on to Lin- Manuel Miranda, rather than Hamilton.
He was nominated for an Emmy for that performance which featured him fighting on an office floor with Larry David at one stage. David famously falls asleep in Hamilton, twice, and in a nice twist (spoiler alert) Miranda’s appearance ends in a duel, a la Hamilton. Miranda plays it straight alongside Larry David and is utterly brilliant.
When I finally saw Hamilton it clicked and like everyone else I got swept up in Hamilton mania, not to the extent of the real “Hamilfans” but I was impressed. I am impressed.
And Miranda himself is impressive, entirely natural, warm and engaging.
But I’m not done with him yet. “You posted an image of Vegemite,” I say. “Do you even like Vegemite?”
“Well, it’s your sort of national dare to foreigners, right?” he says. “I have spoken to the cast members here about it and they tell me … oh you have to eat it with lots of butter or you have to eat it with cheese, all of which boils down to the fact that you have to hide the taste of it.”
We’re winding up when I remind him of something he said at the Q & A with Leigh Sales, something about the sense of responsibility in presenting Hamilton.
“When people come to the show it might be their first time … or their last time.”
“What exactly did you mean by that,” I ask. “It was quite poignant.”
“Well, when I say the last time I mean it because it happened to us,” Miranda says. “I remember when the British actor Alan Rickman came to the see the show and that was just a month before he passed.”
We pause for a moment. It’s sad but it’s also a beautiful sentiment and Miranda seems genuinely moved recalling that Hamilton may have been the last show the Harry Potter star went to.
Then my time is up. Suddenly. As I stand to leave though Lin-Manuel Miranda wants to check something.
“What was that quote about history again?” he asks.
“History is just one f--king thing after another,” I say. “It is by Alan Bennett.”
“That’s great,” he says chuckling as we shake hands. And I’m out.
But if you hear Lin-Manuel Miranda quoting Alan Bennett anytime, you’ll know where he got it.
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