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Remember movie premieres? It’s kind of a relic of the past for now since the film industry has been shifting to straight-to-home releases due to global health concerns. Anthony Ramos is in a unique position because both Trolls World Tour and Hamilton changed their initial plans to have major theatrical releases. Ramos got back together with the cast of the Broadway phenomenon virtually recently for John Krasinski’s Some Good News show, but he has yet to meet the star-studded co-stars he shared billing with for the Trolls sequel.
For the past three months, Anthony Ramos, his fiancé (Jasmine Cephas Jones) and their pups (Nala and Prince) have been hanging at home like many of us. In a recent interview with CinemaBlend, the actor explained why missing out on a big premiere for Trolls World Tour changes the experience itself:
I was definitely looking forward to the premiere and getting to meet a few of [the cast] if not all of them. Slapping and shaking hands, you know and saying congratulations, getting to meet everybody. It’s funny, sometimes you’ll shoot entire movies and meet one cast member. If you have one or two scene partners, but the other eight are doing other things and you never interact with them. So you don’t see them until the premiere.
In Trolls World Tour, Anthony Ramos’ voice is found between the likes of Justin Timberlake, Kelly Clarkson, Anderson Paak, Kenan Thompson, Mary J. Blige, Rachel Bloom, Anna Kendrick and Sam Rockwell. In order for a cast of this scale to come together, many of them record their lines separately at different times and never actually meet each other. Ramos told me he still hasn’t met his Trolls co-stars, and the premiere would have been the room where it would have happened.
An animated movie is a huge collaboration, and coming together to a theater to celebrate this is something Trolls World Tour lost out on when it went straight to VOD rental in April, instead of delaying its theatrical date. Yet, families can certainly thank the production for making that sacrifice to offer something new to watch at home.
And next week, the release of the Hamilton movie will also take place in homes instead of with a big city premiere, with the likes of Lin-Manuel Miranda, Daveed Diggs and Leslie Odom Jr. How is Anthony Ramos celebrating these career milestones at home? In his words:
These movies are such big films and it’s so strange to not be able to go to the premiere and have that experience and celebration that you typically would when a movie like that comes out. I think the way we’re celebrating is the way we can right now, online. You just make it happen the way you can and hopefully god willing when we can all come back together and get a hold of this pandemic and actually be at places at the same time in large numbers we can all celebrate then. For now, we just do it within the confinement of our homes with your family or what have you. Eventually though, we’ll party - especially for Hamilton. That’s something that will be ongoing in our lives, Hamilton is something for all of us who have been a part of it is such a big part of our lives that we won’t stop celebrating.
The Hamilton cast is like family, and in that respect it doesn’t sound like Anthony Ramos feels left out of a big premiere the film might have had if it hit theaters next year instead of dropping on Disney+ this Independence Day weekend. Even though he will not get to physically gather with his recent cast-mates, he does get to be part of two major home releases in a time when high-profile film releases are not happening on a regular basis.
He can, however, count on this experience for his first major leading role in In The Heights, which skipped its planned summer 2020 release for a theatrical drop on June 18, 2021. Director Jon M. Chu and Lin-Manuel Miranda specifically decided to move back the date to give the musical a chance at the big screen.
Trolls World Tour is available to own on Digital today, and it is coming to Blu-ray and DVD on July 7.
