Lin-Manuel Miranda warned Andrew Garfield he might not get it at first as he slid music and lyrics across the table. What Garfield did get, eventually, was a "long-lost brother" in the late Jonathan Larson, writer of the musical phenomenon "Rent." And, one supposes, by a kind of associative property, in Miranda as well.
Miranda (the charming but mad scientist — involved in four films released last year) and Garfield (dapper, dedicated, sincere) sat down with The Envelope to chat about the making of Miranda's studio feature directorial debut, "Tick, Tick ... Boom!," based on the musical monologue of the same name Larson wrote about his own creative struggles. In a 2014 stage production, Miranda played the role of Larson, who died suddenly at 35 in 1996, on the eve of "Rent" being unveiled to the public.
Q: We can talk about "Rent," how revolutionary the rock musical was, populated by ethnicities and sexual orientations not generally at home on the "Beauty and the Beast" and "Miss Saigon" Broadway of its time, while also confronting the AIDS crisis — but let's get it from today's preeminent maker of musical theater: How did Larson's one song of glory affect Miranda?
