STACK #203 Sep 2021

FILM FEATURE

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Among the many delights of Jon M. Chu’s joyous film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical, In the Heights , is the opportunity to discover some amazing new talent. Words Gill Pringle

MERCH MONTH of the

A nthony Ramos and Corey Hawkins are likely on many radars already thanks to their roles in A Star is Born and Straight Outta Compton , respectively, although Melissa Barrera and Leslie Grace will doubtless surprise many audiences with their dazzling performances in In the Heights .

Meanwhile, Barrera has already completed filming the title role in Benjamin Millepied‘s reimagining of the musical drama Carmen , co-starring Chris Hemsworth‘s Spanish wife, Elsa Pataky. “I think time has changed and minorities who want to see themselves on screen and in lead

Indeed, director Catherine Hardwicke (celebrated for Lords of Dogtown ) actually beat director Jon M. Chu in discovering Leslie Grace, casting her in a small musical role in crime-drama Miss Bala two years earlier, Grace now poised to play the title role in DC‘s upcoming Batgirl movie.

IN THE HEIGHTS Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

winning Broadway show; a forerunner to his massive Broadway hit, Hamilton . However, Miranda’s dream of translating In

beyond Jennifer Lopez and Shakira and, later, by the toxic involvement of the Weinstein Company, who had initially optioned the script. “I started writing In the Heights because I desperately wanted a life in musicals and I knew I’d never

get cast as Bernardo [ West Side Story ] and that’s all we’ve got if you’re a Puerto Rican dude!” he argues. “In the existing musical theatre canon, Zoot Suit doesn’t get done much, so Bernardo was it and maybe Paul in A Chorus Line . And I also just wanted to see Latinos on stage without holding a knife – I felt like that had already been well-represented by West Side Story . That’s a

“Seeing all of this talent go out in the world and become stars in their own right will be one of the most satisfying aspects of this whole process,” predicted Lin-Manuel Miranda when STACK spoke with him earlier this year. He’s certainly waited long enough, having first written the musical 20 years ago while at university,

pretty perfect musical, but what else can we be on stage?” asks Miranda, while we both leave unsaid the prospect of what Steven Spielberg might bring to his own much-heralded screen adaptation of West Side Story , starring Ansel Elgort and set for release later this year.

the Heights to the big screen were stalled firstly by the short-sightedness of studios who

complained there were no big Latin stars to cast

Lin Manuel Miranda on the set

from where it would become a multi Tony-

16 SEPTEMBER 2021

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