Garfield came to the project from a different angle, aware of Rent because “it was in the ether” but knowing next to nothing about Larson. Lin-Manuel Miranda wears a Ralph Lauren jacket.

“There was a beautiful singer in there that Lin saw from the beginning,” says the film’s screenwriter Steven Levenson of Garfield. There was a beautiful singer in there that Lin saw from the beginning.” Steven Levenson ( Dear Evan Hansen screenwriter), who adapted Tick, Tick for the screen, recalls, “When Lin first brought up Andrew, I was like, ‘Can he sing?’ And Lin was sort of like, ‘No, but he’s going to learn how.’ When I finally arrived on the set and heard the playback of him performing one of the songs, I honestly thought it was somebody else because I couldn’t believe the power and the confidence in his voice. Surrounded by a terrific cast of seasoned musical performers, among them Vanessa Hudgens, Alexandra Shipp, Robin de Jesús, and Joshua Henry, Garfield gives a blazingly self-assured performance-melancholy and ebullient, nuanced and unabashedly over-the-top-that pays off on Miranda’s bet, and then some. Boom!, Miranda’s love letter to the late songwriter whose masterpiece (that would be Rent) changed his life, is getting set to stream on Netflix. Now, nearly four years, one pandemic, and countless vocal lessons later, Tick, Tick. “He was such a life force-he burned so bright on that stage-and I realized that he had everything I was looking for: incredible intensity but also incredible empathy.” Boom! “It was such an incredible feat, and I thought, Oh, this guy can do anything,” Miranda recalls. So, it’s a testament to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s genius for spotting unlikely connections that, while he was watching Garfield’s Tony-winning performance in the 2018 Broadway revival of Angels in America, he immediately knew that he had found the leading man for his upcoming film adaptation of Jonathan Larson’s autobiographical pop musical Tick, Tick. But when it comes to high-octane, sell-it-to-the-back-row musical theater performers, his is not the first name that springs to mind. If you’re in the market for a stage and screen actor of peerless honesty, fervor, and daring, Andrew Garfield is your man.

Tick tick boom play