Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks as always for clicking and listening along. I am very especially excited to bring you this interview today. My conversation with the great Lynn Manuel Miranda. He is, of course, the creator and star of the Broadway phenomenon Hamilton.

It's something he dreamed up while he was on vacation in 2008, reading a biography of

Alexander Hamilton when he saw something perhaps no one else on earth could have seen,

which is a hip-hop musical about the founding fathers, and the rest is history.

Lynn is the director of a new film called Tick-Tick Boom. It tells the story of Jonathan Larson, another guy kind of like

Lin-Manuel Miranda, who was a grinder, who loved Broadway and was writing his own shows,

and eventually composed and wrote Rent, another big Broadway phenomenon.

Now, Jonathan Larson did not live to see the success of Rent, and that's partly what this movie is about.

Andrew Garfield stars as Jonathan Larson. A lot of people talking about awards for this film,

and this is the first time that Lynn has ever directed a feature movie, so it could be some good things coming for him here. He's won Tonys. He's won Emmys. He's won Emmys. He's won the Pulitzer Prize for Hamilton. Could he add an Oscar? We will see. The New York City native, his first big hit was in the Heights. Perhaps you saw the movie that was out this year. Before that,

it was a musical that also won four Tony Awards, including Best Musical well before Hamilton.

So Lin-Manuel Miranda has been at it for a long time. He's been successful for a long time,

even before most of us knew about him in the way we do now when Hamilton came along. So sit back, relax, enjoy a great conversation

with one of the sharpest minds out there right now, the great Lynn Manuel Miranda right now on

the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Lynn, great to see. Good to see you. Thanks for doing this. It's my pleasure.

I told you I just finished tick, tick, Boom, and I have days worth of questions.

I'll try to condense it for you a little bit.

I think we should first just start talking about Jonathan Larson and this story, the basis for it. People know Rent. They may not know the story of Jonathan Larson. So where do we pick up his story with Tick, tick, boom, and why did you view it as something that you wanted to dive into?

Yeah, well, just the existence. So where do we pick up his story with Tick-Tick-Bomb and why did you view it as something that you wanted to dive into?

Yeah.

Well, just the existence of Tick-T-T-T-Boom is really curious thing.

Not a lot of people write their own autobiographies at age 29.

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