How Lin-Manuel Miranda resurrected an unfinished one-man show as a Hollywood spectacle
Andrew Garfield was exhausted and upset. It had been weeks since Lin-Manuel Miranda pitched him on starring in a musical and invited him to a workshop of the still-being-written script — an unconventional step for any screen project but a highly informative tool for theatermakers like Miranda. But it was scheduled for the day after Garfield closed Broadway's "Angels in America," in which he played the tormented lead, and the role left him desperate to rest and recover.
"Perfect, so that means you're available," Miranda excitedly told Garfield. "You don't have to sing if you're too tired or nervous. We'll just read through it together and see how it goes."
Reluctantly, Garfield agreed to participate, and sat down with a handful of Miranda's actor friends in a back office at the United Palace in New York's Washington Heights.
"Two hours in, I'm having the time of my life in what was essentially a healing musical theater sound bath," recalled Garfield, who, with Miranda's gentle guidance, was starting to sing by the end of the weeklong workshop. Two more were held before filming began, which allowed Garfield and the other actors to establish a trust in the material, in each other and in Miranda.
"We felt like we were all in really great hands, which isn't
