In the Heights Cast Interview

Automatically transcribed; may contain errors.

hey i'm allison with FlickDirect and i am here today with leslie grace jimmy smits and olga i'm going to pronounce your name wrong there it is meredith oh okay then i'll get it right then hi how are you so we're talking about in the heights this phenomenal musical that is now a very anticipated movie and i would like to start with both jimmy and olga because you were part of this long before it ever hit broadway so how have you seen the story evolve and to what it's become today i started when with readings workshops i was doing another part and then they couldn't find an elderly lady to sing that song my song in the show and so i came up with claudia off broadway and then broadway and lynn was just she was so young this was his school project you know and and so to see the whole to be in this entire journey with this character in this project has been like a dream come true for me and the you know it's very rare for someone that plays it in the theaters so that's very rare and there's a few surprises a few changes that that happen that weren't in the in the broadway show and also with the addition of john chu directing it and his visual uh creativity um it just lifts it and just it's it's really magical anything to add to me i i reveled in being a cheerleader making a fan watching old guy doing both off it opened up a bit in terms of this the script and the collaboration between john [Music] original broadway writer and but in it in a way that i think makes it even more resonate in a cinematic leslie for you how similar do you feel you can relate to nina and her journey to find herself oh big time i think we all can i think we all that's why she's such a beloved character as well especially for the for the you know younger latin latinx generation first generation second generation uh because the way that her role is written is it delves into a rarely told story about that identity crisis that you know you face especially if you're a kid of immigrants you face of not being enough of one thing or the other and not being able to claim who you are um and then if you're just going off to college i think everybody can relate to wanting to make their parents proud what major are you choosing all of those things and so nina she really uh you really get to explore the guilt factor of that of admitting the fear of pursuing your dreams or your parents dreams or feeling responsibility you know that doesn't belong to you i don't even think it's just her father or her parents it's her entire community absolutely could be a big weight but she finds out that it's an opportunity yeah i got to process that even for myself you did mention john m chu lin-manuel miranda how much pressure was on the cast to make this film and make it great and not mistake make mistakes and not alienate people yeah i think we all felt personal pressure it was never external though it never came from lynn or john or no uh you know i always say we had our uh table read our first table read and you all went around signing our scripts and when you went around to john's script it was it was some somebody wrote don't f this up signed lin manuel i'm still figuring out if you really wrote that or not but we all took it very literally for ourselves as well not only for john but you know it was all it was all love it was all like allowance and liberty and giving so much context i mean lynn and oligar and kiara people who have lived with the show for so long you know they gave us all the background i think it was just so important for all of us to do our best we knew that the stakes were you know to bring this story and to make it the best possible we all just joined together and just said let's you know let's bring our a game to this well i think it actually translated up to the screen because you could feel a sense of community with all of you so thank you so much this film is fantastic june 11th cannot wait for everyone else to see it yes thank you thank you so much [Music] you