Lin-Mauel Miranda is an incredible talent, that much goes without saying. Following his success on Broadway with Hamilton, he has become one of the most in-demand composers in Hollywood, but according to actor Andrew Rannells, Miranda’s greatest talents may be in things we never hear on screen.
Rannells is best known for co-starring with Josh Gad in the original Broadway run of The Book of Mormon. However, he also briefly took on the role of King George from Jonathan Groff back in 2015 when Groff had other commitments. Ranells shared his dressing room with Miranda at the time, and he revealed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon that while playing the lead in one musical Miranda was writing another while listening to a third. He explained…
Hamilton was obviously the show we were doing, but next door was Les Miserables, and [Miranda] loves Les Miserables. And he asked those crew guys if they would pump the sound from that theater into our dressing room. So the live feed of Les Mis was playing while Hamilton was also happening. And then he was also writing Moana. And I was trying to, like, read.
Speaking as somebody who can’t write while also trying to watch TV at the same time, I am in awe of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s ability here. To be writing original music for Moana while also listening to the music of Les Mis and, you know, performing the lead in an entirely separate stage musical shows an incredible amount of focus.
Also, how cool is it to be able to get a live audio feed of Les Mis every single night? Did other theaters get the audio feed for Hamilton every night? That only seems fair. Hilariously, Lin-Manuel Miranda responded to the Instagram post of Andrew Rannells' comments saying…
I CANT BELIEVE YOU TOLD THEM ABOUT MY SECRET LES MIS FEED
The secret is out. Of course, now everybody working on Broadway is going to try and get a special audio feed of their favorite show piped into their dressing room, and it's all thanks to Andrew Rannells spilling the beans. Check out his full comments below.
Of course, it has to be said that playing Alexander Hamilton and listening to Les Mis every night must be worth something, because the music Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote for Moana was incredible. The music has made the movie one of the most streamed films on any platform for years. It earned Oscar nominations and got itself a sequel. In fact, the biggest criticism of Moana 2 was that the music, not written by Miranda this time around, simply didn’t live up to the original film.
Lin-Manuel Miranda didn't work on the Moana sequel, but he did take his Moana success into other Disney projects, writing songs for Encanto and the live-action version of The Little Mermaid. His newest music can be heard in Mufasa: The Lion King.
