tick, tick… BOOM! director Lin-Manuel Miranda took some time to take fans behind the creative process for his directorial debut in a Netflix Film Club’s First Film behind the scenes look. tick, tick… BOOM! made its Netflix debut on November 12th and quickly became a favorite for both musical theater fans and non-musical theater fans alike.
The Andrew Garfield, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexandra Shipp, and Robin de Jesús starring film told the semi-autobiographical story of Jonathan Larson (Garfield) who wrote and performed the original one-man show in the early 1990s. Larson, who became a household name in musical theater for his Tony award-winning production Rent, wrote tick, tick… BOOM! about his own life on the brink of turning 30. The show is all about finding your own successes and staying true to yourself while navigating the ups and downs of personal relationships.
Speaking of “personal,” in the Netflix short, Miranda says that when you’re directing your first film, “it’s important to go personal,” adding that when making tough decisions about your labor of love, you’ll better “know the answers'' when keeping it a topic close to your heart. Miranda found a lot of himself in the story of tick, tick… BOOM! Aside from Larson’s Rent being the reason behind why Miranda got into the musical business, he says that tick, tick...BOOM! hit even closer to home, with the director seeing himself in the lead character that continued to chase his childhood dreams even though everyone surrounding him was getting “real jobs” outside of the entertainment industry.
Miranda comments that he treated the film like a musical, workshopping the feature in rehearsals several times before taking a run at it. Garfield underwent piano and voice lessons to better prepare for the role of Larson. Coming from his extensive theater background, being the star and creator of both groundbreaking musicals, In The Heights and Hamilton, one can imagine that Miranda’s background in workshopping these types of projects helped make the feature as successful as it was. Miranda added that the hardest thing surrounding a musical to film adaptation is upholding the “suspension of disbelief” and making audiences okay with the actors “breaking out into song."
The short also covers the creative vision behind what would be included in the film and what would be left out via the gathering of Larson’s original sketches and works, storyboard drawings, the importance of collaborating, and how Miranda pulled off the big moment that was the song, “Sunday."
Check out the full First Film short below and be sure to check out, as Miranda describes it, “a movie about failure and getting back up,” in Netflix’s tick, tick… BOOM!