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Jun 10, 2021 · In The Heights movie spotlights Latino talent "In The Heights" was a hit off-Broadway in 2007, then moved to Broadway in 2008, where it won the Tony Award for Best Musical. The movie was filmed in ...
In the Heights is a 2021 American musical drama film directed by Jon M. Chu from a screenplay by Quiara Alegría Hudes based on the stage musical of the same name by Hudes and Lin-Manuel Miranda. The film stars Anthony Ramos, Corey Hawkins, Leslie Grace in her film debut, Melissa Barrera, Olga Merediz, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Gregory Diaz IV, and ...
- Overview
- Making new stars
- Invisible no more
Lin-Manuel Miranda was 19 when he first wrote what he called “a very bad musical” that saw only five notes make it into the final version of "In the Heights," which won four Tony Awards following its Broadway premiere in 2008.
Now, after a long trek to get the right studio to produce the film adaptation, the highly anticipated movie premieres Thursday. Like the stage version, it breaks ground because it centers on Latino characters that have long been missing in mainstream films, TV shows and theater productions.
"In the Heights" tells the stories of generations of residents and business owners in the predominantly Latino neighborhood of New York City's Washington Heights — where Miranda, now 41, grew up. They're balancing their personal aspirations with fighting for their tight-knit community as wealthier outsiders start moving in, threatening to displace them.
Miranda and his co-writer, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes, had to fight movie executives and producers who wanted to rely on worn-out tropes that have disproportionately portrayed Latinos as the help, criminals or individuals who only live trauma-ridden lives.
“Quiara and I stuck to our guns and stuck to what we felt was important in the storytelling of the show,” such as having Nina, one of the main characters, embody the internal conflicts a first-generation college student, Miranda told NBC News. Making that central female character a smart, Stanford University student was one of the many intentionally created roles that resonated with Latino audiences when the musical came out.
Achieving nonstereotypical portrayals of Latinos required “a lot of gut checks” during the revision process, to ensure it stayed true to "what are your non-negotiables," Miranda said.
Like "Black Panther" did for Black actors and "Crazy Rich Asians" for Asian actors, "In the Heights" stands out for showcasing Latino talent, including faces and voices who are not yet household names.
In an analysis, the University of Southern California Annenberg Inclusion Initiative found that only 4.9 percent of the speaking roles in 2019’s top movies went to Latinos, even though they represent nearly 19 percent of the nation's population. Forty-four of the 100 top movies that year had absolutely no Latino characters with speaking roles, a rate that did not differ much from 2018 (47 movies) or 2015 (40 movies).
“We’re making up for lost time,” Miranda said.
In an effort to curb this trend, Hudes said she's intentional when she writes.
“As a playwright, as a screenwriter, I'm creating jobs. I get to create roles for actors. And so, I think very carefully about what would be a great job to create,” she said.
With the help of film director Jon M. Chu, the filmmakers cast an effective mix of new, up-and-coming talent and known veteran actors such as Jimmy Smits and Olga Merediz, who's reprising her beloved role as Abuela Claudia (Grandmother Claudia) from the original Broadway version. The formula of established and new actors proved successful in Chu’s 2018 blockbuster "Crazy Rich Asians.”
Merediz, 65, said she remembers filming in Washington Heights and seeing “the real people that live there, walking down the streets and I'd go, ‘Look there's Abuela, there's Daniela,’” referring to some of the main characters from the movie.
“They were the real people from the neighborhood that we were portraying” in the film, Merediz said. “And I like to play characters like that aren’t ordinarily seen — to shine a light on that little old lady that we ignore, that’s invisible.”
In “In the Heights,” Abuela Claudia is the quintessential matriarch. She left Cuba in 1943 and settled in the neighborhood, eventually becoming the surrogate grandmother of all the young people there.
Merediz, the movie’s most likely Oscar contender, said she took inspiration from some of the mother figures in her life, including her aunt and mother.
“I wanted to make her that person that everyone went to for advice or for a nice, cooked meal,” Merediz said. “She's lived so much, she has so much to offer. But I wanted to give her that extra kindness that we all need.”
Abuela Claudia’s kind heart is on full display during Merediz’s masterful performance of what Miranda deemed “a six-minute aria” called “Paciencia y Fe” ("Patience and Faith"). In it, viewers get a glimpse of how this older woman strives to keep her dignity by holding on to a collection of details and memories that remind her of her humanity, despite the hardships.
- 3 min
- Nicole Acevedo
Jun 12, 2021 · Indeed, as In the Heights star Stephanie Beatriz told ET in an interview about the film, “Latino is a very broad statement, but what it has done traditionally is weed out people that are Black ...
In the Heights: Directed by Jon M. Chu. With Anthony Ramos, Melissa Barrera, Leslie Grace, Corey Hawkins. In Washington Heights, a sympathetic New York bodega owner saves every penny every day as he imagines and sings about a better life.
- (53K)
- Drama, Musical, Romance
- Jon M. Chu
- 2021-06-11
Jun 15, 2021 · Before its release, In the Heights was touted as the Latino movie of the season. It starred Latino talent, it featured dozens of Latino extras, was based on a play written by a Latino, Miranda ...
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Jun 11, 2021 · Now “In the Heights” is set to do for the movies what it did on Broadway: bring the stories of present-day, everyday Latinos to life. And not a moment too soon. A lot has changed in Hollywood ...
