‘In the Heights’ Review: In Dreams Begin Responsibilities (Published 2021) (2024)

Hey this is Jon M. Chu, the director of “In the Heights.” So this is the amazing Anthony Ramos, who plays Usnavi, the main storyteller in our movie. And he’s just said the streets are made of music. So we had to get all these people to go to the beat. We had this amazing clave beat that was playing and so all the background people had to go to that beat. [LAUGHING] [RECORD SQUEAK] That manhole cover doesn’t actually move. He just did that with his feet and our VFX team created an amazing spinning turntable there. This is a real bodega that we painted that mural on and aged all the ads on there for this. And then this is Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of the show, who’s playing Piragua Guy. And you can see that piragua cart. He often knocked it over and would fall everywhere. And we’d all have to clean it up. It was not easy to maneuver. And here we are in the bodega. This is an amazing set that we built. We actually built the sidewalk outside the door so that we could make transitions. But here we really wanted to show off that map of the Dominican Republic, which is pieces of glass, bottles, it has keys all in there. And because of the set, we can take out the wall. So here we’re behind the wall actually here. All the food is real, so it was starting to smell over time. Actors would steal food and eat treats. By the end, I would say half those shelves were gone, because we’d just grab cookies. “Ooh!” “Abuela, my fridge broke. I got cafe, but no con leche.” “Ay, dios!” I love the set, because it just looks like a real place. It’s not too clean. There’s a messy beauty to it. Olga Meredith, who plays Abuela Claudia, is amazing. And we knew we would not recast her. She had to be in this movie. “—Abuela, she’s not really—” That moment with Anthony looking at the camera, not a lot of actors can really look at us and invite us in, like we’re one of his homies. But he had that amazing ability. “Well, you must take the A train even farther than Harlem—” We had iPad choreography with your fingers. Actually, it took a long time to figure out how would we do choreography with your fingers on your iPad. It’s more difficult than it seems. “—somebody bought Ortega’s, our neighbors started packing up and picking up. And ever since the rents went up. It’s gotten mad expensive, but we live with just enough.” “In the Heights—” The amount of time we had to put the blanket over the camera and not hurt the lens was tricky. I love this. We call this our community chorus, people who are dancers, and people you see throughout the movie. And I love seeing a neighborhood that works hard, takes care of their families, take care of each other, has dreams and otherwise. And that’s our opening for “In the Heights.”