A Quote by Lin-Manuel Miranda

A lot of the reason the Universal version of 'Heights' went away is that they were afraid they didn't have a big enough Latino star to bankroll this movie. The people I dealt with at the studio who wanted to make this movie were very passionate about it.
I'm not a movie star like other actors in the way that I need to walk around with a bodyguard. My goal is just to get some interesting parts and make enough money to live free. Otherwise, to be a movie star, it's a lot of compromise and also a lot of headaches. You can't do what you want. You become a prisoner of your fame. This happened to me in France and I don't want it. I want to go to the terrace of a café, have a coffee. I have no problems with the fact that people recognize me, I'm very glad about it, but to be a movie star is kind of unreal for me.
The whole first movie [Twilight] was pretty fun. I had never really done a movie like it, when there's such a big cast of people that are around about the same age. Everyone didn't really know what was going to happen with the movie, but there was a good energy. There was something which people were fighting for, in a way. They wanted it to be something special. None of us were really known then, as well. It felt like a big deal, at the time.
The whole first movie [Twilight] was pretty fun. I had never really done a movie like it, when there's such a big cast of people that are around about the same age. Everyone didn't really know what was going to happen with the movie, but there was a good energy. There was something which people were fighting for in a way. They wanted it to be something special. Also, none of us were really known then as well.
When I was growing up, all the films about teenagers were played by Tony Curtis or John Cassavetes when they were 27, 28 years old. We would see these teenage movies in the theaters and I would say, "They don't look like they're my age at all." So I wanted to make a movie that was real and I wanted to make a movie that wasn't about me.
I'm a veteran, and I come from a family of veterans and people who served in that war. And the stories that I heard were a hell of a lot different than the movies that I was seeing, so I wanted to make a movie about the people that were really there.
A lot of the commercials that I was doing were very slice-of-life, emotional, documentary-style, not big and cinematic and ultimately like the kind of movie I wanted to make.
People call me a movie star. If you're in the business, a movie star is someone who can make a film bankable. My name and $6 million will make a $6 million movie. I'm a working actor. Because I started late, I had a very short run as a leading man, and my films didn't make money in America.
It really has been a blessing because you can go and look at our other movies we've done in a studio system. We didn't get to make the movie that we wanted to make. We made the movie that someone else wanted us to make. That can be a little disheartening, a lot disheartening. While there have been struggles, it doesn't matter which table you're at because you're going to have obstacles, but I kind of like being able to make the movie that you want to make.
It was great. We knew we were going back when we finished the movie. It was such a big movie [Star Wars].
The good thing about those original credit card commercials was that they were very "filmic", they were like little movies, so it wasn't a big step to think well maybe we could make a big movie using this character, which we eventually did.
What I wanted to do was put a woman of color, front and center, in my movie combining a lot of themes that were relevant to both men and women. I actively wanted her to carry the weight of this movie because I'm a woman. And I actively wanted to explore many of the issues that affected her as a woman of color. That was very important to me. And although these issues affect some women of color, I don't think they're only of interest to women of color. They're of universal interest.
I think one of the biggest things is the budget.For a studio, becomes a very big challenge to make sure that movie will work even better on every level. As an actor I don't think in those terms when I make a movie.
I've seen 'Absentia,' which was amazing. I loved 'Absentia.' I loved that for no money, he was able to make a movie about something that you never saw. You never saw the bad guys. That was amazing to me. You never saw what you were supposed to be afraid of; you just knew you were supposed to be afraid of it. It was a phenomenal movie.
Sometimes it takes time to become part of the collective unconscious, just like 'Fanboys' did. Going into that movie, I said to myself that if you were a 'Star Wars' fan, you were going to love that movie. It's an homage to everything science-fiction, but especially 'Star Wars.'
I remember a lot of conversations where I was constantly hearing, 'You've gotta do this movie so you can do that movie. You've gotta make a big movie so you can make a small movie.' But I can't act like that.
Yeah, it was always a low-budget passion project. It's my directing debut. I've always wanted to make an improv movie because I have so much experience in it, but it's not a big studio movie. It was an experiment that turned out better than I thought.
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