He was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2015. He won a Pulitzer Prize for Hamilton : An American Musical in 2016. He took home an Emmy for his work on the song Bigger for the 67th Tony Awards. He won Grammys for both the In the Heights and Hamilton soundtracks. And hes been awarded a total of three Tonys for those two shows, as well.
Now all Lin-Manuel Miranda has to do is take home the Oscar for Best Original Song at this years ceremony and he will MacPEGOT , an honor yet to be accomplished by any performer in the biz.
When reminded of this remarkable feat during a recent phone conversation with The Huffington Post, Miranda whos nominated for his song How Far Ill Go from Disneys Moana laughed and insisted, Thats not a thing! Thats crazy.
Obviously, you cant worry about that, he continued. I think the term EGOT was coined by someone who didnt win any of the things, right? So I think once you start trying to win awards, you immediately stop winning them, that is my feeling about it [laughs]. But Im really proud of my work. Im really proud to be in this company. But I have no control over whether we win. Im just excited to take my mom to the Oscars , since I watched it with her so many times.
Miranda is up against big Oscar contender La La Land and two of the films songs, Audition (The Fools Who Dream) and City of Stars, as well as Cant Stop the Feeling! from Trolls and The Empty Chair from Jim: The James Foley Story.
Its the Mad Libs of a category, Miranda said. Im lucky enough to be nominated for Tonys, and those are your peers theyre generally people you know and you go, Oh my gosh, yay! Alan Menken is nominated again! Or whoever your co-nominee is. But to be in a category with Justin Timberlake and Sting is crazy. And Ive known Benj Pasek and Justin Paul for many years, and Im thrilled with their success. This is going to be a huge year for them between La La Land and Dear Evan Hansen, which is just cleaning up on Broadway.
Miranda has always been a huge fan of the Oscars and has taped the ceremony every year since The Little Mermaid the movie that made him want to be in this game won Best Score and Best Song in 1990. Although he says its a real thrill to be attending the award show, hes very anxious to be in the room where it happens.
Ill be so nervous. Anything other than just sitting in the audience nervously will be hard for me, he told HuffPost of the possibility of being a part of a performance of How Far Ill Go. (It was confirmed on Thursday that Miranda will be singing a duet of the song with Moana star Aulii Cravalho.) Im there for the party. Im there to really just soak it all up. You grow up watching the Oscars so to actually be there, Im really excited.
During the process of writing, staging and starring in his musical (have you heard of it? ) Hamilton, Miranda also took on the job of songwriter for Moana, which follows a Polynesian princess who sails out on a daring mission with demigod Maui to fulfill her ancestors unfinished quest. Lets just say it was a tough balancing act.
Having an excuse to sort of shut out the world, which had gotten very loud in that year, to help create this young womans journey -- I mean, it kind of saved my life."
- Lin-Manuel Miranda
It was pretty surreal, he said of working on both projects at once. The Moana team was pretty cool when I was still making changes to Hamilton they kind of left me alone for that stretch of time. Then once we opened, it became a part of my routine. Honestly, [working on Moana] was one of the things that kept me sane during the Hamilton phenomenon. Articles are being written and my heroes are showing up to see the show, but I knew I had music due every Tuesday and Thursday Id have a Skype meeting with the creative team of Moana so it forced me to clear up my day; it forced me to say no to parties and to say no to the things that you can get caught up in and forget why you are where you are.
The 37-year-old spent two days a week writing music and lyrics for Moana, living a bit of a monastic life in between Hamilton performances in order to sail around with Moana and Maui in my mind.
Having an excuse to sort of shut out the world, which had gotten very loud in that year, to help create this young womans journey I mean, it kind of saved my life, Miranda admitted.
Eventually, Miranda and co-composers Mark Mancina and Opetaia FoaI headed to California for numerous off-site meetings, where theyd watch screenings of the film and have a real say in how the story was being told.
Youre not sitting with execs in a tower. Youre sitting with people who are making all the other movies in the studios pipeline. Youre getting notes from Jennifer Lee, the director of Frozen, and from the people who make the things your fellow artists, Miranda said, explaining that there were many iterations of How Far Ill Go before he landed on the ultimate version.
This is not the story of a young woman who gets where she is in one week; this is the story of a young woman who loves where she is and loves her people and loves her island, and she hears this voice anyway. She hears this voice saying, Go, go, go! So thats when it really started to take shape. Once we embraced the complexity, the song really took off into its final form.
The pressure to deliver a Disney hit reminiscent of Part of Your World from The Little Mermaid or Colors of the Wind from Pocahontas was palpable for Miranda, who soaked up every bit of information he could from Frozen songwriters Bobby Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez. He wanted his lyrics to be conversational but still elevated and beautiful.
[But] once you sit down at a piano, you have to forget about all of that, he said. You have to just put yourself in Moanas shoes or Mauis shoes [...] and live inside their skin and talk to yourself to reveal the truth, and then you write it down. In that terms, it was just like writing Hamilton or In the Heights. You just have to act your way through it until it feels real.
And real it felt, as Miranda could possibly win an Oscar for his work on the beloved tune. (And, again, MacPEGOT.)
Despite all these goings-on in his life, Miranda hasnt slowed down . Although his run as Alexander Hamilton on Broadway has ended, the actor is currently in rehearsals for Mary Poppins Returns, which hes starring in alongside Emily Blunt .
Its a giant effing musical, he said. I feel really comfortable because coming from the theater, I know its a luxury to have a lot of rehearsal, but you dont always get that when youre making a movie. So for me, it feels like a theater project that were getting to put on film. I keep joking like, When do we start previews? I cant wait! I am dancing harder than I have danced since In the Heights, because I didnt dance that much in Hamilton, and so getting to do that has been really fun, exciting, liberating. Its been really good.
If (and we mean IF) Miranda doesnt win the Oscar this time around, its pretty clear hell be in the running again soon enough. You know, because hes Lin-Manuel Miranda .
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The Oscars air on Sunday, Feb. 26, at 7 p.m. on ABC.
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