Lin-Manuel Miranda fell in love with musicals during his school years.
The 44-year-old star - who created the Broadway musicals 'In the Heights' and 'Hamilton' - has revealed that he developed a passion for musicals while he was doing school plays.
Lin-Manuel told The Times newspaper: "The thing about school plays is you cannot hire, fire or pay anyone involved. So your job is to make the thing as fun as f****** possible."
Asked if he sees himself as a standard bearer for musical theatre, Lin-Manuel replied: "When Steve Sondheim passed away I think I probably doubled the number of letters from young writers I responded to because I was like, ‘S***, our encourager-in-chief isn’t here any more.'"
Despite this, Lin-Manuel acknowledged that some of his own family members aren't musical fans.
He said: "I have a couple in my family. It’s because they didn’t grow up with it and they just don’t understand the leap from speech to song.
"Other people associate it with a kind of earnestness that they wouldn’t be caught dead liking. I would direct them to watch 'All That Jazz' by Bob Fosse - there are plenty of cynical musicals."
Lin-Manuel made his feature directorial debut with 'Tick, Tick... Boom!' in 2021.
The actor would love to helm another film one day, but he's reluctant to lead a big-budget production.
He said: "I’m watching my friend Tommy Kail direct the live-action 'Moana' and he’s doing an incredible job but, man, he has a lot of meetings about effects and water. That’s not interesting to me.
"I just want to work with actors and sing and dance in a room."
