A conversation with George Lucas changed Lin-Manuel Miranda's perspective on success

26:34Lin-Manuel Miranda: How a talk with George Lucas changed his perspective on success

In February 2016, Hamilton hadn't yet won a Tony, but it had become a big enough phenomenon that George Lucas had come to see the show.

The Star Wars creator came backstage to speak with the musical's creator, writer and star, Lin-Manuel Miranda. The conversation completely changed his perspective on his achievements. 

"With not an ounce of sarcasm, he went, 'And now your problem is success,'" he tells Q host Tom Power.  "Who's had more success than George Lucas? But he didn't say it like, 'Congratulations.' He was like, 'Now your problem is success. What are you going to do?'"

Rather than be overwhelmed by the expectations, Miranda chose to reframe his success, something that doesn't come naturally to a man who describes himself as being "low-key daunted all the time."

"No matter what I write, it's going to be 'Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda,' so that's freeing," he says. "Galt MacDermot [co-creator of the musical Hair] made a bunch of awesome jazz the rest of his life. He didn't write another Hair, but he made lots of great music for the rest of his life. So if I can think of myself in a Galt MacDermot mode of just, like, 'I'm just going to make shit that I think it's cool and do my best,' then it's a freeing thing as opposed to, 'Now your problem is success.'"

Miranda wrote the songs for the new film Mufasa: The Lion King, When he was first approached about the prequel to The Lion King, he was still putting the finishing touches on the animated musical Encanto, and felt "cooked" at the time. But he was so taken with the Mufasa screenplay that he decided to do it.

He says that this version of Mufasa is very different from the one audiences got to know in the original 1994 film.

"When we think of Mufasa, we think of the best dad ever, living in the clouds and giving us advice," Miranda  says. "This Mufasa is nothing like that. This is young Mufasa figuring it out. It's not unlike seeing home movies of your parents as younger people and being like, 'Oh my God, they don't know what they're doing.'"

The full interview with Lin-Manuel Miranda is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Lin-Manuel Miranda produced by Cora Nijhawan.