Lin-Manuel Miranda apologizes for the perceived color in ‘In The Heights: NPR

at Twitter Mail, in the heights Co-creator Lin-Manuel Miranda has leveled criticism of the film’s cast, which has suggested that only light-skinned actors have roles as the main Latin musical characters.

Miranda apologized, writing Monday evening: “I heard that without adequate dark-skinned Afro-Latino representation, the world feels extracted from the community we wanted to represent with pride and joy. And in trying to paint a mosaic of that community, we’ve failed. I’m really sorry.”

The film version of the popular Broadway musical, set in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City, only includes Afr0-Latinx performers in background and dance roles. (One of the main characters, Penny, is Black and is played by non-Latin actor Cory Hawkins.) have noticed That real Washington Heights is largely of Afro-Latino descent.

Miranda, who wrote the music and lyrics for the musical with Quiara Alegría Hudes’ book, said on Twitter: at heights Because I didn’t feel the vision. And for the past 20 years, all I wanted was for all of us to feel visible. I see the debate about Afro-Latino representation in our film this weekend, and it’s clear that many in our dark-skinned Afro-Latino community don’t feel adequately represented within it, especially among the main roles. I can hear the hurt and frustration with the coloring, and the feeling of not being seen in the comments.”

Miranda continued, “I’m learning from the comments, and thank you for raising them, and I’m listening. I try to reserve space for both incredible pride in the movie we made and being accountable for our shortcomings. Thank you for your honest comments. I promise to do better in my future projects, and I Dedicated to the learning and development that we all have to do to make sure we honor our diverse and vibrant community. Siempre, LMM.”

to rootWriter Phyllis Lyon, who is of African-Cuban descent, interviewed the film’s director, John M. Choo, as well as actors Hawkins, Leslie Grace, and Melissa Barrera. Leon asked about the lack of Black Latinx performers in the film’s lead roles.

It’s something we definitely talked about, Zhou said, and I needed to learn about it [it], Definitely. Ultimately, when we were looking at the cast, we tried to get the best people for those roles specifically. …I think it’s a really good conversation, it’s something we should all talk about.”

Leon wrote that she requested an interview with Miranda, but was not approved.