Time for the tenors. Tony-winner Jonathan Groff stars as video-game-obsessed Henry; he’s also good friends with the show’s original Henry, Lucille Lo
Time for the tenors. Tony-winner Jonathan Groff stars as video-game-obsessed Henry; he’s also good friends with the show’s original Henry, Lucille Lortel nominee Alex Gibson. “When I talked to Jonathan about this, he was like, ‘I go to the same gym as Alex. That’s my honey,’” says Miranda. So that was a nice connection between the OG octet and the novel one.”
Another IRL friendship played an vital role in Octet. While sitting in on rehearsals for the recent Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd—directed by Miranda’s longtime collaborator Tommy Kail—Miranda saw Stranger Things star Gaten Matarazzo sing live for the first time. Theater actor Paul-Jordan Jansen was also in the ensemble of that show. Matarazzo, a tenor, stars in Octet as a nihilist who, like his Sweeney character, is named Toby; Jansen, a bass, plays incel-adjacent Ed.
Severance Emmy-winner and bass Tramell Tillman rounds out the cast as Marvin, a neurochemist questioning his relationship to faith and reality. “I’m the only person on earth who hasn’t seen Severance. But I had seen the clip of Tramell dancing with the marching band from season two of Severance, so I knew he was musical,” says Miranda. “He’s such an incredibly gifted and thoughtful actor. I just really wanted him in that room.”
Unlike the big-budget Disney films Miranda is accustomed to working on, Octet was independently financed. “We raised the money ourselves to make this film. We are looking for distribution. That was also new to me,” he says. “Rehearsal is cheaper than shooting. So, we rehearsed for five weeks. Then [had] 22 days to shoot.” By Miranda’s estimates, maybe 50% of the film’s vocals were captured live.
Why not more? “I’m not a Tom Hooper absolutist that it all has to be sung live,” he says, name-checking the director of the 2012 Les Mis film. “If you’re dancing, even Gene Kelly wasn’t singing live.” At the same time, “Dave has moments that are so vocally dense and verbally dense that it’s actually harder to lip-sync than it is to just get it live. You can’t do it. You’ve got to get it live.” The film’s opening number was shot live in one uninterrupted take. “The other thing I experimented with is, I have a lot of oners,” he adds. “A lot of complex stuff is happening, and the camera’s just not cutting.”
Now that he’s helmed two films, Miranda is more equipped to unpack the differences between composing and directing. “I love being a composer. I love being the guy to bring in the songs, and working with directors to unlock the songs and adapt the songs,” he says. “But weirdly, something I’ve discovered is that when you’re directing, you’re answering every question to every department. [So] the movies come out almost more personal than the ones you wrote the score for.”
Shooting Octet actually reminded him of a deeply personal experience: his wedding to Vanessa. “The thing I kept saying over the course of this shoot was, ‘I’m planning 22 weddings,’” says Miranda. In this case, no two weddings were alike. “Some days I have a civil ceremony, and it’s just the octet in the room all day. Some days I have really elaborate special effects. When you plan a wedding, every detail ends up being personal because you’re thinking, What do I want on a special day when I am filming this song, and it’s my only chance to get this song? The other thing that makes that metaphor work is, it’s your wedding. You can’t get bogged down in the details. You have to stay fucking present.”
