Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I've been involved with 'Hamilton' for about two and a half years. I've learned so much. I came into it a young man. Now I've dropped the 'young.'
I've been in a long-term relationship, and I'll tell you, it's never boring! People trying to merge their lives together always run into challenges.
As an artist, I'm very used to waking up and sort of not knowing what my day's going to be and not knowing where my next paycheck is going to come from.
'Rent' opened up my heart, my senses. I was never the same. I hadn't been back in that place in the same way since. 'Hamilton' put me back in that place.
We're reminded yet again: we are stronger, we are smarter, we have more fun when we include each other - when we include as many perspectives as possible.
To get even realer with you for a second, as a black actor, as a performer of color, I don't know how many more roles like Aaron Burr are gonna come along for me.
Oh, Alexander Hamilton fell short of his best self every now and again, and he still managed to do these wonderful things - well, so do I. So what am I capable of?
I know what not being able to pay your bills feels like real well... I know that way better than a room full of beautiful people and Tony awards and Grammy awards.
You must be an artist and a citizen of the world. You must speak to this stuff that's happening. You must do what you can to shine a light on it, help people through it.
I remember Ella Fitzgerald sort of coming into my life like a bolt of lightning - like, what is that? It was one of the purest examples of God in art that I'd ever seen.
None of us wants to be judged by our worst act on our worst day, and we consistently judge Burr for that. He was not a perfect man, but he's not a villain. He's a dude, just a guy.
I had no vision of me being a part of that show ever. But I was committed to being the first super-fan of 'The Hamilton Mixtape' that there ever was. I was in love with this thing.
You hear a song like 'Wait For It,' you hear a song like 'Dear Theodosia' - if you get one of those songs in a musical - one - it's worth dropping everything to sing that one song.
You gotta love this thing. Whatever you choose to pursue - medicine, law, writing, you have to love it. You study it, you eat it, you drink it, you try it, you do it, you love it in every way.
I feel like every night, when you see a really good production of 'Romeo and Juliet' or something, you should hope that it ends differently. That's why we watch our favorite movies again and again.
I grew up in Philadelphia in a time where we took it for granted that we were supposed to be young and gifted and black. It was a culture of excellence - and all my friends were more talented than I was.
The only reason to keep talking about history is if you are juxtaposing it with the world that we live in today, if you are learning something about our world by looking at the way they shaped their world.
Donny Hathaway's 'For All We Know' is the song that I've sung the longest. It is a beautiful song about living in the moment and appreciating this very second. That is the song I did for my 'Rent' audition.
It's still a political statement to stand on stage as a person of color and be excellent. We still need those images to combat the narrative we're often fed - as someone innately inferior or inexorably linked with lack.
My dad was always in sales. My mom had a heart for the ages. Worked in recreation, doing rehabilitation in nursing homes. Very nice, practical folks who were very proud of me but had no inclination toward the stage in any way.
I'm in no way running from 'Hamilton' or its success or these beautiful songs that I've been blessed to be able to be the one to introduce them. I certainly won't be the last to sing them, but to be the first, I feel very lucky.
I've been fortunate in my life. It hasn't been easy, but there has been a focus on the positive, and it has reverberated. Eventually, the outlook mirrors itself back to you in the friends you have, in the partner that you choose.
I've spent a long time learning my way around a stage as an actor, but this I don't know as well. Humbly, I'm excited to get with a band and perform regularly as an artist and see what I can learn and how I can grow in that space.
Josh Gad was in my class. Katy Mixon. Griffin Matthews. Josh Groban - he ended up leaving to become a huge star, but he was in our class in freshman year. I remember Josh was this nerdy kid in a turtleneck with a voice from heaven.
I know it's hard for people to imagine a time when 'Hamilton' wasn't 'Hamilton,' but for years, it was just this little thing that I was telling people about that didn't make any sense to anybody as I was describing it. But I loved it.
I remember when I was in 'Rent,' Daphne Rubin-Vega threw a party. At the time, she had a loft in TriBeCa, and the elevator opened right into her apartment. I was like, 'I've never seen anything like that.' I didn't know it was possible.
I think it was, my parents got me a karaoke machine when I was about 9 years old. Even before that, they got me a tape recorder that I used to walk around my life with. And there was something about recording and then hearing myself back.
What is the future going to say about us now? What are our kids going to look at us and say, 'How could you not stop that person from getting into power? How could you not stop that environmental disaster that you saw coming a mile away?'
I haven't had a chance to decorate my dressing room yet, but I have these pictures of myself as a kid that I want to put up because I said, 'I really want to make sure that I take that kid with me on this journey.' I want him to experience this.
I can only imagine what the show would have meant to me as a 16- or 17-year-old. I know what 'Rent' meant to me in my life, how that show changed the course of my life, and we can only hope that 'Hamilton' will have the same effect on a few kids.
I've done a lot of translation in TV, and I can do it. I'm trained to do it. I know how to inject a certain amount of my naturalness into that and where I come from into those things, but it helps if somebody's writing with my experience in mind.
I've realized along the way that a lot of things that I do as a performer are about waiting for somebody to write something for me or develop something for me, but music, music was the thing that I don't have to wait for anybody's permission to do.
People are coming to you at their most vulnerable; they're showing you the parts of themselves that they're afraid to show: the parts that they're not so sure about, not so secure in. And so it's a really holy profession I think, teaching. If you do it right, it can change somebody's life.
There was a lot of the 'Hamilton' experience that was like a locomotive. It was a hurricane, so the apartment often looked like a hurricane. There were clothes and shoes all over. We were getting more things in than we had room for. We had to figure out how to make space for all the blessings and goodness coming toward us.