The buzz around “In The Heights” has been building for a year. Warner Bros.’ crowd-pleasing movie musical that helped Jon M. Chu land the coveted gig directing the long-awaited film adaptation of “Wicked.” Through all the murmurs of how impressive “Heights” is, and trust, it’s likely your first Best Picture nominee of 2022, there was still one surprise, the star-making turn of Anthony Ramos.
READ MORE: “In The Heights” Is A Joyous Celebration Of The Latinx Diaspora [Review]
Granted, anyone who saw the original stage production of another Lin-Manuel Miranda production, “Hamilton,” or his supporting turn in “A Star is Born” knew he had talent, but “In The Heights” is the sort of performance that comes along once in a blue moon. And as Usnavi, Ramos is the emotional centerpiece of the musical. Cast the wrong actor and the film simply won’t work. Chu says it was the now 29-year-old’s own pains to make it as an actor that sold him on the part.
“When he sat down he told his story about struggle, about not thinking he was worthy of an acting career. And then having teachers give him scholarships and breadcrumbs along the way to get him there,” Chu recalls. “And so he knew what that meant, struggle, and he wanted it. And when you talk to him, it’s like, anything that comes out of his mouth is 100% the truth. I knew that we had to put the movie through the filter of Anthony Ramos, not put Anthony Ramos into a movie. And that if we could steer that so that the music felt like it came as genuinely as he could break out in song.”
And as for what the triple thread does next? Chu, who has directed everything from romantic comedies to action films to dance flicks, thinks Ramos can do it all.
“He’s an action star. He’s a romantic lead. He’s charming as hell. He’s funny as hell. He can dance. He can sing,” Chu says. “You want to talk about an entertainer? A full-on entertainer is hard to find these days. A full-on entertainer that can bring you in and make you feel like you’re his homie and then dazzle you, doesn’t even exist anymore. And he has it, and he’s at the right age and he’s about to blow.”
During our conversation last week Chu also discussed how tough it’s been to let “In The Heights” go, how he thinks he landed the job in the first place, just how much say he has on “Wicked” and the one number you might not think is a triumph but is in his eyes.
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The Playlist: Landing a job directing a musical is never easy. It doesn’t matter if you’re an Oscar winner or not. You have to go in and pitch what your specific take is to turn a stage musical into a movie. What do you think was in your pitch that got you this gig?
Jon M. Chu: One was probably my personal connection to watching the show and knowing what, even though I’m not from Washington Heights, even though I’m not Latino, but knowing that it connected me in so many ways of growing up in an immigrant household, of being raised by not just your parents, but by your aunties and your uncles and my Abuela. Claudia was my boo-boo and who taught me how to make wontons. I think that that was one hook. I think the other hook was that Lin and I talked a lot about dreams and dreaming as kids in our bedrooms and seeing a world that didn’t exist anywhere in what we were experiencing. And I knew that the musical numbers had to portray what it felt like to dream, that it would be like art installations inside the space. If we’re going to shoot and watch at nights we weren’t going to cut to them at a mansion in Beverly Hills. We were going to bring the mansion to the streets of Washington Heights. And so I think that concept connected the dots for how the show could translate to a movie.
I think the two scenes that speak most to the “art installations” is the subway sequence and dancing on the side of the building Were those ideas that you had even back then?
Those specific ideas came probably a little bit later, but definitely the idea of bringing theatrical lights to tunnels and streets and street lamps as part of the presentation of those moments that were part of it. Like, I think I had a picture of a tunnel underneath, I don’t know, it was an overpass and there were like colored lights inside of it. And so that idea was originated back then. I just didn’t know how and when that would be used. And so that felt cool, that, “Oh, you know what, the street lamps can turn into spotlights.” And so that was fine. And then turning on the side of the building that didn’t come till much later until I went to Washington Heights. And so I was trying to figure out what does it feel like to be in love here? What are you seeing? Is it like graffiti art coming to life? Is it the steam from the vents coming out? And then I looked up and you saw this giant building where all the fire escapes were. And because of my angle, I was like, “Oh, that looks like a ballroom floor. That would be the most elegant ballroom floor you could have a dance on.” And then made sense like, “What if the whole world rotated like ‘Royal Wedding,’ like a Fred Astaire number. And those two danced along all those and that the fire escapes became benches and birds flew vertically instead of horizontally. That’s where that came from.
And that sequence itself is that actually like a moving stage? Because most of it’s in one shot, correct?
Well, the beginning . The first minute and a half as we rotate around is all one shot. And then the second half is all one shot too. So it’s sort of like the bread on a piece of sandwich or something. But yeah, so we get to see that when we transition in, we watched that whole thing, like a magic trick that we never cut away from it.
That magic trick, was it harder to pull off with the actors to make it look so elegant and choreographed as you hoped it would be?
I thought it was going to be way more difficult because they’re not “dancer dancers” and they’re very vulnerable in that position. I can’t cut away to somebody else. It’s just them. There’s no dance doubles here. Although I was prepared to have dance levels. I was like, “All right, if this doesn’t work, then what are we going to do?” But those two, Leslie [Grace] and Corey [Hawkins], they’re fricking warriors. They trained their butts off because they didn’t want to embarrass themselves and made it work. It’s pretty crazy.
Anthony Ramos is such a star in this movie. We already knew he was a great actor from his stage work, but when did you realize he’d taken it to another level?
I knew when I met him that he was something very, very special. I’ve seen a lot of actors over the years and when somebody pops like that it’s very rare. But when he sat down he told his story about struggle, about not thinking he was worthy of an acting career. And then having teachers give him scholarships and breadcrumbs along the way to get him there. And so he knew what that meant, struggle, and he wanted it. And when you talk to him, it’s like, anything that comes out of his mouth is 100% the truth. I knew that we had to put the movie through the filter of Anthony Ramos, not put Anthony Ramos into a movie. And that if we could steer that so that the music felt like it came as genuinely as he could break out in song. And if every cast member had the ability to do that, that we had something very, very different than any musical before. And the fact that we’re going to be in Washington Heights on those streets? This guy has so much to give. He’s an action star. He’s a romantic lead. He’s charming as hell. He’s funny as hell. He can dance. He can sing. You want to talk about an entertainer? A full-on entertainer are hard to find these days. A full-on entertainer that can bring you in and make you feel like you’re his homie and then dazzle you, doesn’t even exist anymore. And he has it, and he’s at the right age and he’s about to blow.
What was the most difficult aspect, bringing the musical from stage to the screen?
It was focus. A movie needs to have a focus because you have perspective in a movie. It’s not presenting on a stage and all the different seats have to accept it. We have one seat, and the seat we move around to different places. And this is a big cast and this had a lot of different storylines, and this did not have one centered villain. In an easy movie, we have a villain that everyone fights against. But it didn’t have that. It’s a slice of life, which is a difficult movie to make. So I needed to find focus. How the audience was going to root for anybody? Who were they going to root for? When were they going to root? That was the main thing. And I think the framework and a lot of the credit to Quiara [Alegría Hudes] because she wrote it. But the framework of Usnavi telling the story to kids on a beach, really not just set up our world made of music, but also that this was actually his story through his point of view. That meant that Vanessa had to have more of a story of who she was and what she was chasing after. In the [stage] show you don’t know why she wants to go downtown. We had to give her a dream. And so that gave us sort of pick points of where to bolster in this movie and what songs needed to exist to support that.
And correct me if I’m wrong because I’ve not seen the stage musical, but was the Dreamers aspect part of the original production?
That’s something we added and the reason we added that, well, one, the Broadway show is actually a period piece late ’90s. So when we started it was, “Are we still a period piece?” But I feel like so many things have changed since then. So, that was a big change. Once you change it [to] post gentrification era, O.K., things are still changing, but you’re not fighting that. So now what are you going to do? You’re in that in-between zone of like, “Are you going to stay? Are you going to go, how are you going to deal with it?” And that zone was very, very interesting for us. And how could you talk about home if you didn’t talk about somebody who only knew this home. Who only knew what it felt like to live here and be here and know where the handball games were at? And yet he was going to be asked to leave this place. That was just a natural part. It wasn’t supposed to be political, it was supposed to be human. This is the reality of what it feels like.
You’ve been attached to this project since 2016. You finally make it and then COVID hits. A release date delay, another delay, and now it’s finally coming out in theaters almost two years after you shot it. How do you feel personally about this journey? Are you ready to let the movie go out into the world?
I think the past year has been very hard. We’ve had to sort of compartmentalize that piece of it. When you have something that you know is special and you can’t share it. And I think we all had to go through that, our whole cast. We were texting each other throughout and, but we had other things to worry about. We had our families to protect, we had the world to think about. But now that we’re showing it, I think it’s all like draining out of us. We’re like emotional every day. Just talking about it makes me cry. Like I think it’s like getting it out of our brain now. And it feels so nice to share, but even more so to be in a theater where people are laughing and crying and singing along and bringing out their own flags. That’s what I hope, that everyone comes out of this and just feels joy again and knows how to get back up after struggling because Washington Heights does that on a monthly basis that they have to protect each other and pick each other up and what a perfect place to guide us out of this darkness into light.
Your next project is another big musical, “Wicked.” I was listening to a podcast recently that randomly brought up the idea that the steampunk aspect of that show may feel dated now. As you move forward with that one, do you feel like you have the freedom to move away from that? Or is this a project where the stage musical has to be recreated for the screen?
I’m not going to go into too many details of what I’m going to do, but I can tell you, I definitely have the power to not make it steampunk.
Hey, that answer works. How soon are you to beginning production?
I can’t answer that yet as well, but I can say that we are on a train and we’ve got to get it right. And so, as the train is moving, I’m getting it right, right now.
One last question for you on, “In the Heights.” People are going to see this movie more than once. If there was one performance that you would maybe tell people to check it out again or pay more attention the second time they see it which would it be?
I think it’s [the number] “Champagne” because Anthony, and Melissa [Barrera], [did it in] one take, like three minutes. Those are live vocals. And we’re in a real apartment. Our steady cam is like inches away from them without camera shadow. We had to hide all the lights, the squeaking of the floors. You wouldn’t imagine what we had to do to make sure the floor isn’t speaking live. We had a pianist in the middle of the street of Washington Heights, playing with ear wigs. And they are performing with all of their languages, with dialogue, then switching into song and movement and avoiding, hitting, running into the camera, and being as present as possible. They’re arguing while singing, they’re doing a scene, it is like mind-blowing. And then they have this magical moment together and hair can’t be in the face. And the lifts couldn’t smack in a certain way. Like everything had to be perfect. And they had to be so present and our camera department and our production design department, choreography, everyone had to be on the same page. And it seems so simple. I don’t even think you notice it, but to me, it’s a triumph.
“In The Heights” opens nationwide (and on HBO Max if you have to) on Friday.