Tick, Tick, Boom interview: Andrew Garfield and Lin-Manuel Miranda - GoldDerby

The “Sunday” number in Netflix’s musical “tick, tick…BOOM” is nirvana for Broadway lovers because of the number of Great White Way legends who make cameos including Joel Grey, Chita Rivera, Bernadette Peters, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Billy Porter. “It was the biggest swing we took from a tech perspective, from an effects perspective, from a musical perspective,” revealed Lin-Manuel Miranda (“Hamilton,” “In the Heights”), who made his feature directorial debut with this adaptation of Jonathan Larson’s 1991 show. Larson died in 1996 at the age of 35 the day before the first off-Broadway preview performance of the ground-breaking, classic musical “Rent.”

During a recent Variety Zoom interview about the film, which recently earned PGA and DGA nominations, Miranda explained he hired Michael Starobin, who did original arrangements for Stephen Sondheim’s classic “Sunday in the Park with George,” to arrange “Sunday.” But shooting the number was complicated by COVID. “What should have been an incredibly fun, easy two days with everyone singing live and singing their hearts out became a week in which we quarantined the crew to keep our performers safe,” Miranda noted. “We created new levels of quarantine and zones because we have legends on stage.”

“You have to protect them at all costs,” added Andrew Garfield, who reaped a SAG for his sweetly passionate performance as Larson. He was Oscar-nominated five years ago for “Hacksaw Ridge” and is a strong contender for this new Netflix film.  “It was an incredible logistic challenge,” noted Miranda. “I’m so glad we had that week of theatrical release before it was on Netflix because I got to sit in the Paris Theatre [in New York] five times and watch the gasps as that number gains momentum . It’s really magical”

For Garfield, who won a Tony Award four years ago for the revival of Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America,” doing “Sunday” was akin to be “dropped into musical theater heaven. My task was to basically not run away, fall to my knees ‘Wayne’s World” style an proclaim ‘I’m not worthy’ over and over again. My job was to stay standing and act as if I belonged. And then, I think, I got to pour all of that adoration that I was feeling and filled up with just from being around everyone in that scene and got to just vomit it all on Bernadette Peters in that one moment and just kind of let her know how important she is to all of us.”

Though he hadn’t sung or played the piano before “BOOM,” Garfield said he quickly agreed to do the film. “Forgive my bad pun, but I was in the heights of my Lin-Manuel Miranda obsession,” he noted. “Just kind of every nook and cranny of my psyche was occupied by his music whether it was ‘In the Heights’ or ‘Hamilton.’ It was, like, surreal.”

Garfield then had to transform himself into a musical performer. “I learned [the piano] as much as I needed to by rote,” he explained. “As much as Lin needed to get on camera because as we get older, it’s harder to absorb and learn new skills. Thank god, I had a year. Thank god, I had resources that Lin helped [with] and Netflix provided.” Besides piano lessons, those resources included a vocal coach.

Larson, added Garfield, “was such a passionate player, he was such a passionate singer and musician.” So, the most important thing for Garfield was to be able to capture Larson’s spirit. “I remember in the screen test, it was my first time at the piano. Lin had set up this beautiful space for us just to kind of play and be free. And I was like ‘I’m not really ready to play and be free.”’ Then Miranda put on one of Garfield’s favorite songs, “Back in Time” from 1985’s “Back to the Future” by Huey Lewis and the News. “Suddenly, Jon came alive,” said Garfield “Andrew/Jon felt like he was confident to let loose, even though he was making terrible Muppet sounds on the piano.”

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