. >> rose: welcome to the program. tonight hamilton the musical on broadway. we talk this evening with lin-manuel miranda, the man who created it and who stars as alexander hamilton in a series of conversations i did for "60 minutes" in 2015. >> i think i still build scores the way i used to make mix taped for girls. i'm thinking of we've been in this energy for awhile. now i have to wake you up. now we can afford to sit in a balance add for a little while. so when i read the book and started thinking about it, i thought of it the way i thought of making mix tapes for my friends. it's i'm going to take you on the ride and the ride will happen to tell the story of this man's life. >> rose: and the first step is to draw you in? >> yeah, the first song on a mix tape is everything. it just depends whether you-- if you fast forward from the first song, you mess up, right? you are not going to press play.

remember, you're listening to it consecutively and that is what it shares with musical theater. and so i set it as a challenge to myself to sort of encapsulate hamilton's entire life until the moment he reaches new york in one song. and so it forced me to think in a hamiltonian way, like i was telling you before, the thing about hamilton is he spoke in paragraphs. and so the opening sentence of our show is this crazy runon sentence, how does a bas tard, orphan son of a whore and a scotsman dropped in the middle of a forgot enspot in the caribbean by providence, impoverished in squaller, coma, grow up to be a hero and a scholar. that is the question we're going to answer for the next two hours and 45 minutes, but it is a very hamiltonian sentence. >> rose: lin-manuel miranda for the hour next. >> funding for charlie rose is provided by the following. and

by bloomberg, a provider of:. >> from our studios in new york captioning sponsored by rose communications city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: how is it to be back at this house? >> it's very normal. i only live a few blocks away, actually. so it's-- you know, i have been here since i was one year old. >> rose: so this is a house of memories. >> this is a house of memories. a house of memories, a house of ghosts, this is a house of-- but it's also a laboratory for me. i mean i have filmed so many action movies where we're

sitting. i have filmed so many animated movies with my gi joe characters. i was a kid carrying around a camera as a kid. my dad had those big over the shoulder camcorders. he brought one home and we never shot family videos. it was just me making movies. >> rose: did you think you might be a director. >> i did. i wanted to be stephen-- steven spielberg when i grew up. and steven spielberg doesn't get you far in school, so i kind of figured out who i was socially by doing the school plays. i got cast in 6th grade play, i played conrad birdie. i played a lot of people,. >> rose: did that just happen or was-- how is it that one kid wants to do those things, what is it in you that made you want to do those things. because those are the kings that you do. >> isn't it incredible when we get to do what we love? it really is, you have to think about how you lucked into this. i grew up in a house where

z-- were almost always play, we'll take a look at them later. >> rose: all the great albums of all the great musical theater. >> yes, man of la mancha, cam he lot, sound of music, south pacific, king and i. that was the music we played to clean up after parties. it was latin music at the party, and we danced mirangu e because we're puerto rican and when we cleaned up the house after the party, we would put on the cast albums, that is what i keyed into. >> rose: were you shy or like you are now? >> i still think i'm shy. i do. i honestly do. i fell in love with-- i liked applause. i wasn't the kind of person who would just take over a room to take over it. but if i had something i was good at, i was absolutely eager to share it. my mother's favorite story, as i'm sure he had she will tell you is our first piano recital

where i only really practiced well enough to play one song. i learned four but there was only one i could reliably do well every time because i didn't practice a lot. i would play my song and it was i go up the scale and go back downk one of those my first piano songs. an they clapped at the end. and i looked up. and i looked around. and i said, this is going to be the reaction. and i started playing. i played four songs before the piano teacher generally lifted me up off the piano bench and took me off so the other kids could play. >> ted williams once toll me. i said why baseball. he said well, i was pretty good. i got some applause. i wanted to hear some more applause and i got better and heard more applause. it was an incentive. >> yeah. absolutely. >> rose: doing better. >> yeah. and i done think i am cut out to be a novelist. you know, the idea-- . >> rose: sitting alone. >> sitting alone and also not getting the payoff. i'm fine with sitting alone. writing songs, writing hamilton was six years of sitting alone. but the payoff is i get to go

into a room with tomorrowy kale and i get to play for him and he's got three ideas on how to make it even better and alex has three more ideas on how to make it better. and andy will know how to stage it. so there is this show and tell, the grat if i kaition of theater versus film and television is the audience lets you know in the moment how they're feeling about what you are doing. you don't act once in front of a camera and then it's in a can and you hope they like it a year from now. >> rose: and it changes night to night. >> and it changes night to night. and we have a front row of people that literally ron won the lottery to be there. and they paid $10 and they give us everything. bah they are there. they didn't even know they were going to be there that night. they are experiencing it for the first time. so i experience it for the first time because they are. >> rose: so growing up here, you make your way down to manhattan. >> yeah. >> well, we're in manhattan. >> but down from here. >> yes, yeah. >> to hunter college. >> hunter college high school,

elementary school. >> why hunter? >> you have to ask my parents. i took the test when i was five. but i won the lottery. before the $10 lottery i won the lottery when i was five when i passed the battery of mysterious tests that gets you into hunter college elementary school because i got a great prepublic school education k through 12. and i was learning about mat ise and jackson poll october in kindergarten. i remember making jackson poll october drip paintings when i was six and getting my early appreciation of art even then. and a school that really valued the arts and put them on the same level at math and social studies and history, the culmination of our elementary school was to do the six grade play. and we did 20 minute versions of six musicals. and that is a-- of musical theater and i seemed to be the only one without got stuck with it and couldn't let it go. i played conrad birdie in bye

bye birdie. my nanny let me watch all the tv i wanted. made my gold jacket and every girl in the grade had to pretend to fall in love with me and faint when i saning. that's what happens when you play conrad birdie. and i said why would anyone do anything else for a living. this is the best. i was 12 years old, i was three feet tall or shorter than all the girls in my grade. but when i played conrad birdie, i was-- . >> rose: larger-than-life. >> the sex sim bofl the grade which did not happen in real life. >> rose: you knew early on you wanted to be an artist. >> yes, yes. i didn't know whether it would be movies, theater or animation. i loved, was always gravitating towards that. >> rose: but you're doing this without any formal musical training. >> that's right. just high school music class and piano lessons. and you know, we had a great ninth grade music teacher, and i learned my major chords from my minor chord, augmented from

diminished. but i remember calling my friend alex farland and said i'm play ang f sharp, an a and a c what is that? you are playing an f sharp diminished chord. i didn't know the names for the things i was playing but i knew i needed them for the songs. >> rose: and could you tell the difference. did you have a good ear. >> yes, have i a really good ear. >> rose: they say about you you are were a fantastic mimic. >> oh, yeah? >> rose: could you do that. >> yeah, sure. >> rose: could you hear something and repeat it. >> yes. >> rose: could you hear a song, repeat it. >> i got very impatient with piano lessons because the reading was slow. but if i could hear it on the radio, i could figure out the chords and play it faster than it would make me to read it. >> rose: could you hear it and play it. >> it was just a faster system between my ears and my hands and my eyes. >> rose: that served you for the rest of your life. >> yeah. it has served me well. >> rose: what music did you listen to beyond what we talked about, beyond show tunes, beyond famous musicals.

>> well, i listened to hip-hop. i mean i don't remember, see i was born in 1980. so there was never a time when hip-hop wasn't a part of my life. or the landscape-- . >> rose: was it your music from the time you heard it? >> it was my music and my sister's music. my parents weren't bringing hip-hop home, but my sister was bringing hope the fat boys and my sister took me to see beat street which was an early hip mop movie. >> rose: but it resonated from you. >> it was just our music. and then the album that really unlocked it for me, that gave me permission to start writing it or at least think about writing it was an album called bizarre ride to the far side, and this was came out in 1994. i was 14. and the lead single was about these guys who couldn't get girls, it was called passing me by. and so much hip-hop is about bluster and about how much jewelry i have and how great a rapper i am. and this was about people writing love notes and the note

coming back, returned to sender. and i had a crush on my teacher. and i had a crush on this girl but she liked this other guy. and i was like, well, that's-- i could get into that. you know, the great hook has been sampled by millions of artists. you do not know me but i know you very well. let me tell but the feelings i have for you when i try. i made some sort of attempt. i did. damn i wish i wasn't such a wimp because then i would let you know i loved you so. if i was your man i would be true. the only lie would be in the bed with you. it was just so angs tee and great. and i mem orized that album quickly. and then just really started absorbing everything. and you know, i absorbed hip-hop by making mix tapes with my friends. it was still cassette era so i would say i have got this stuff, what do you have. and they would send me, you know, i got into all these different genres. >> rose: the first idea about hamilton was a mix tape. >> yeah, yeah, i think of mix tapes as sonic love letters. and i think a lot of my creative

energy in high school was literally making mix tapes. to girls i liked. to for friends of mine who i wanted them to get to know who i was. it was easier for me to say this 90 minutes on this maxel cassette tape defines who i am. and the difference between a mix tape or mix cd or data cd or whatever they have now is that you have to listen to it consecutively. so i'm taking you on a ride. i'm going to start with a high energy song and switch it up and i might put in a funny interlewd from an adams family or something. and then i hit you with nie fourth song is always the most important. that is the one that tells me who i really am. >> rose: the fourth. >> the fourth one t is batting cleanup. literally fourth in the line-up. and i really, i think i still build scores the way i used to make mix tapes for girls. i'm thinking of, okay, we have been in this energy for a while now i have to wake you up. now we can afford to sit in a balance add for a little while.

and so when i approach, when i read the book and started thinking about t i thought of it the way i thought of making mix tapes for my friends. it's, i'm going to take you on this ride and the ride is going to happen to tell the story of this man's life. >> rose: the first step is to draw you in? >> yes, yeah. the first song on the mix tape is everything. it depends whether you fast forward-- if you fast forward from the first song, you mess up, right. you're not going to press play. remember, you're listening to it consecutively and that is what it shares with musical theater. and so i set it as a challenge to myself to sort of encapsulate hamilton's entire life until the moment he reaches new york in one song. and so it forced me to think in a hamiltonian way. like i was telling you before, the thing about hamilton is he spoke in par graphs. and so the opening sentence of our show is this crazy runon sentence, how does a bas tard, orphan, son of a whore and a scotsman drop in the middle of a

forgot enspot in the caribbean by providence, impoverished in squall or, coma, grow up to be a hero and a schol ar that is the question we'll answer for the next two hours and 45 minutes am but it's a very hamiltonian sentence. >> rose: an ron essentially said that you put in that song 20 years of living for him. >> yeah. >> rose: right? >> yeah. when you've got the hunger and began to think about things and at the same time occasionally going, at least once a year, or more with your parents, to theater, what were you thinking? what was that like? >> oh, it was life changing. and it was life changing in a couple of ways. one, the first show i remember seeing was les miserables. and i remember a few things from the night. i remember crying when fantine died. i remember falling asleep for a little while because i was seven. but i remember javert's suicide.

i remember master of the house and the bawdiness and laughing really hard, much needed laughter after the death of fantien but the thing i also remember most was seeing my parents brought home the two disk, two cd at this point, cast album. and my mother would play bring him home on a loop. and burst into tears. and it really moved me, the affect that music had on her. ♪ god on high ♪ hear my prayer ♪ . >> seeing how this story and this man, you know, wanting this kid to live moved my mother to tears every time-- saning it. i think that is as much a reason that i'm in musical theater as anything else. >> rose: because the emotional connection with your mother. >> yeah. and because of the power that

musical theater has, that really almost nothing else has in terms of emotional connection, you know. musical theat certificate not one art form. it's 14 art forms smashed together. the lighting has to be right, the costumes have to be right. >> rose: the set. >> the set has to be right. but when it all con spires to create those moments, there's nothing else on earth like it. and. >> rose: to say there's nothing on earth like it means it has a-- it delivers more of an emotional punch than any other kind of visual or musical. >> i think so, because it's happening to you live. there is no distance of a screen. you're seeing it, and you can't believe you're seeing it i'm thinking of the final moments of america from "west side story." i'm thinking of the bottle dance on fiddler on the roof. when you think it can't possibly go any further and then it does. and there's these moments where you stand to gaip outside of yourself like how am i really a person watching this.

and you know, when are you creating it, you are looking to create those moments. >> and then you go see "rent." >> yeah. well "rent" did for me in musical theater what the far side did for me in hip-hop. which is it said you can write this. we're not so different, you and i, musical theater and lin-manuel miranda. and it's about people living and dying an struggling as artists. and it was head-long the career i saw myself going into. >> rose: struggling as an artist reasons struggling as an artist. >> rose: and living and dying. >> yeah, and in the present. it took place now. and it took place in a neighborhood just downtown. where my sister grew up. my parents went to nyu together. so they were all in the village. and so that was before i was born. but it was-- it task etly gave me permission, are you allowed to write musicals about what you know in the present, that is fair game for musical theater.

and i did not know that until i saw rent. not in my bones. >> rose: you said it was a starter pistol. >> yeah. >> rose: for your career. >> yeah. absolutely. >> rose: you heard the starter go off. >> yup. >> rose: and for you it just propelled you forward. >> yeah. jonathan larston who sadly died before his show even opened, did so many of the things i wanted to do. he made a contemporary sound relevant and work in a musical theater fore mat. he ended the conversation as to whether rock had a place in musical theater. i mean it started in hair. it started in jesus clies superstar but we would still have these conversations, does rock belong. >> and if you had any doubt after rent. >> yeah. >> and now it's in the dna of almost any show that comes to broadway. it's just a part of the language. we absorbed it the way hip-hop

absorbs different styles. and you know, it was huge. >> rose: do you think it gave you any sense of mortality knowing jonathan's story. >> i think jonathan's passing before his show opened scared the hell out of me. it just scared the hell out of me as a kid. it was you could go at any time. and those ideas, those big ideas you have in your head will stay locked in your head. they go with you unless you get them out into the world. and by the way, that's still true. >> rose: how so? >> in that nothing is promised. tomorrow is not promised. you know, i made plans to come talk to you today but my car could have gone over the ghway on the way here. we never know what the next day will bring. and yet we plan months and years writing a musical. which is the most vain glorious hope that you finish the thing. and so it's both-- it's

terrifying. embarking on a show like this, on anything, a creative endeavor is terrifying because you might not make it to the finish line. >> rose: and the finish line is not tomorrow. >> right, well, the finish line is getting the thing that was in your head out into the world. you know, when in the heights opened it wasn't about having a career, it was get the thing out of my head and on the stage so that it can exist. and then i can get hit by a bus tomorrow, but it exists. >> rose: what was the thing in the heights to get out. >> the thing to get out in in the heights was can we have a latino musical where we're not knife-wielding murderers from the 1950s. by the way, great musicals, "west side story," kate man, great score. but it's such a peculiar sub set and tiny, tiny slice of latino experience to only gangs be represented in the musical theater canon. and that's what we had. and i wanted a life in this business.

and i wanted to see if we could write a musical about latinos that didn't have any drug deals or crime. because are you going to see that on the news. that's what they cover. they cover crimes. and i was much more interested in the hard-working people that i grew up with in this neighborhood than the guy on the corner. >> rose: people here, next door, next door. >> the guy on the corner was there but there is also a guy inside the store on that corner. i wanted to tell his story. >> rose: what did you have to get out with hamilton? >> i had to get out this guy's life. this guy's life outdikens dikens and it wasn't until i really went in and started researching and writing it that i was sort of in the same theme that i was with than the heights. there is an immigrant, there san outsider, who writes his way in. who writes his way to prom thens, writes his way-- you know, charms his wife through letters. writes his way into his personal and professional life. but then he also doesn't know when to shut up.

and he also writes, he self-destructs with his writing. i had a really good idea at the top of the book. and then so he write this poem. hurricane destroyed st. croix, he writes a poem about the carnage. that poem is used for relief efforts and a scholarship is raised to send him to the mainland to get his education. i hear that he literally wrote a poem, and i said that's the most hip-hop thing i've ever heard. because the store of hip-hop is a story of creating something beautiful out of the ashes of something else. it was the south bronx was a mess in the 1970s it was burnt down buildings. it was empty parking lots. and it was graffiti rising up on those blocks. and it was block parties happening. and it was something beautiful being created out of the ashes of something old. and that is what hamilton did when he wrote that poem. and then he wrote about his strilgs and got out, on the strength of his writing. and that is the tra ject ore of so many of the hip top artists

that i respect. >> rose: the ability to express yourself in words. >> not only that, but the ability to be a reporter on the front lines of where you grew up and your struggle. and that is what hamilton did. he said my island is ruined. my island is in trouble. and that's what he did after hurricane katrina. that is what jay z did when he writes about the marse projects. it's writing your way out. and you know, that hope of a meritocracy if you can write and are you smart, you can get out. so i had that good idea at the second chapter. and then the idea of him as a hip-hop artist, it just kept, as i read the book, proving me right. i felt like a mosquito that hit an artery it just kept proving me right in a million different ways. >> the gift that keeps on giving. >> yes, oh he wrote under a sueo nim like so many wrappers do. he took up a mondayicer publius to-- then he becomes washington

aide to camp because he can write well and quickly in english and french. so he is responsible for washington's correspondents during the revolutionary war so he has the front seat. >> rose: but his ambition wanted to be there. >> yes, he wanted to fight. >> rose: yeah. >> and that the over fun thing is he's got the plum job and he's just like give me a command. i want to fight. because he also understood-- . >> rose: because heroes come from the battlefield. >> and soaks mobility k078s from the battle feel am i don't have family connections, you know, mother is gone, dad is lord knows where. and i have got to make my bones as a glorious fighter, or can i die as a martyr which would also be fine. you know, i want to live or die-- . >> rose: it is certification of i belong. >> i belong, i blofnlgt i fought for this country. i belong. >> rose: i'm an american. >> yes, yeah, america doesn't even exist yet and i'm an american, yeah. and the fact that it's an

immigrant outsider who created the notion of one america more than anyone else, through his financial system. we were all thinking of ourselves as come eddies at that point. people would say to jefferson, are you going to vote for hamilton's plan or are you your country's manment and by your country-- hamilton's notion of tieing it together economicically is what began us thinking of ourselves as one nation. and it's an others immigrant elitist who did that. >> is that like the greatest day of your life when you discovered alexander hamilton, aside from family. >> yeah, it was-- . >> rose: because of what you were able to do with it. >> yes. i saw a way in. i just saw a way into the story. and i immediately went to google and i said someone's done this. it's too good a story for there not to be like three musicals about hamilton that i just don't know about and no one had done it. and so i got to work. cuz i wanted to get there first. >> rose: the immigrant thing. >> yeah. >> rose: is there a connection

with your father because he made the decision. >> sure. >> rose: to come here. >> yeah. >> rose: too puerto rico. >> my father is techically not an immigrant because puerto rico is part of the united states. >> rose: but from an island. >> coming here in island, from the caribbean, speaking not a word of english so compounded by the fact that he learned english in school. came here at 18 to get his education. like hamilton did. he had graduated college by 18 in puerto rico. he is the genius of the family. i'm the slacker. >> rose: no. >> i am. >> rose: but do you in anyway have an immigrant's connection in anyway beyond your father? is thered idea of being an immigrant inside of your own psyche? >> well, i grew up in an immigrant neighborhood and historically and like historically immigrant neighborhood, this was all irish when we moved here it was irish immigrants then dominican am grants and latino immigrants.

but i also, i think i come at it from a different angle which was, like i said, i won the lottery when i was five years old and i started commuting from 200th street to the richest zip code in the united states to go to elementary school on 94th street and park avenue. so i learned to pronounce my name differently in english and spanish. i was man lin-manuel at home, i was lin at school. i was speaking spanningish at home, speaking english at school. i was a little of myself in both places. and it wasn't until i grew up that i started bridging all of myself. does that make sense? >> rose: yeah. >> st a great way to make a writer, is to have him bifurcated early and often. and because you're, a part of su always observing because are you trying to figure out where you fit in. >> rose: you had already written in the heights when this occurred, the hamiltonian inspiration. >> yes, yes. and people were asking what is your next thing going to be and i was-- . >> rose: so that was part of it.

you had done something, weren't sure about the next step. >> yeah, i don't think it's a coins dense that it was my first vacation from in the heights where i read this book. you know. it was literally the first time hi had any time off from the show. >> rose: show having done what you had done and you're on the beach, not knowing where you might go. you bought this big 800 page book that what it was. 800 pages. >> yeah. >> rose: by turner and hamilton speaks to you instantly. >> yeah. >> rose: what do you do when you come back from your vacation? >> start writing. i mean i go back into eight shows a week in my show. >> rose: sure. >> but i start writing. i think i finished the book on vacation. and i just was like well, this is going to be a beast. and i started writing. >> rose: but you knew. >> and i was making lists of what the song moments were. >> rose: so it's growing rather than, there is not a moment of doubt that this is dg. >> no. >> rose: huge. >> it was just can i do it. >> rose: this is my opportunity, this is my story. >> yes. >> rose: this is what i can do. i was born to tell alexander

hamilton's story. >> i don't know if i was born. but i know it's a good story and i've got it. >> rose: born because of who you are and who you just said to me. >> yeah. >> rose: can you imagine anyone else better qualified to tell this story than snu. >> well, not in retrospect but at the time i fell like i had a huge fish by the tail thasm is how it felt. i was like okay, it's going to take everything i got to wrestle this thing to the ground. and i went about chasing the experiences that would help me tell it. john wideman is a peer and mentor who wrote a sasins, has wrestled history to the stage. about as well as anybody who has ever done it. >> rose: so you want to him. >> i want to him. i sent him e-mails and said the more research i do. i started reading beyond the book and doing additional research and i started getting bogged down, you know, what was excellent about the-- is the threw-line. and you can say it catches the drama of the threw lines and i would read differrerring accounts of the dual, or differing accounts of this, o or actually jefferson said this and i would e-mail wideman and said

i'm getting really dawntded by this prospect. and he said just keep your head down and write. i mean he really was-- . >> rose: so what seemed impossible? >> getting it all in to one show. >> rose: i mean all the songs are were there. you could feel the songs. >> i could feel song moments, yes. but also, but really being able to get it into a form that was digestible in one evening. >> rose: that what is the hard part. >> could you make a 12-hour mini series about hamilton's line and it would be just as compelling to put in the stuff i had to cut. but yeah, it is, it's lot of stories con currently. also the story of the formation of our nation. it's also george washington's story, cuz you see his rise from general to president to. >> rdz aaron bu rr story. >> aaron bu rr's story who we knew nothing about. even rom doesn't write that much in the book. i had to do a lot of research on

bu rr because i had the very musical theater insight and this was andrew lloyd-webber's inspiration, judas tells jesus' story. che tells he vita's story. >> that is how you know you've got to have aaron bu rr tell the story. the man who kills him. >> yes. >> tells the story. >> it is a great musical theater precedent and a dramatic way to tell the story. and the more i learned about burr, the more i learned he is the on one that could. because he is just like him. they are just twin souls. but very different attitudes. >> yeah. >> rose: twin souls by different attitudes. >> right. and then the drama is this is not val jean, gentleman vert, one committed the crime, one is chasing him. how do you dram atize the difference in approach to life. >> rose: exactly. >> how do you make that concrete? and that was our challenge. because burr, burr who collected lifelong writings could fill a book. hamilton left behind 26 volumes. and that is the difference between them.

burr always wanted to reserve the right to change his mind. >> rose: he always wanted to be cautious. >> always was cautious. >> rose: careful. >> careful. and hamilton was reckless. except in the final moment where burr was reckless and hamilton was cautious, and they-- and one kills the other. >> rose: that's your interpretation of it? one was cautious, one was. >> yeah. i think shall-- . >> rose: one died and one didn't. >> yes. >> rose: the one who was cautious died. >> the one who was cautious died, or cautious isn't the right word. he was not impulsive. he did not fire on his enemy. he wrote a letter, a letter to his friend saying i'm going to waste my shot and he stuck to that plan. and he fired into the air. >> rose: he wrote letters, that is the idea then. >> yeah. >> rose: he wrote a letter saying i'm going to fire into the air. >> he said i'm a good clissian, i'm not going to do it. the challenge was i had have face him because of the code of honor but i'm not going to kill

him. >> rose: did he think he was going to die. >> well, now are you asking questions historians have been asking for 211 years. i had to provide a dramatic answer to that. and it was the last thing i wrote. for the show. was hamilton's bide of the deul. >> rose: because you had not come to any conclusion about it or because show it's almost as you are doing lincoln's story and you can only face up to what happens in the theater when you really prepared to do it? >> well, something happened to me. by the time i reached hamilton's moment in the dual and the bull set comes at him, a couple of things happened. one, i don't care about-- what i cared about, what are the last things going through his head before he dies. i found that much more interesting to me. so while he is wrestling with whether to shoot at this man who is shooting at him, he's also thinking about how he got here. how he got to this moment, the

people who would be waiting for him on the other side, if he passed away. >> rose: his son. >> and the things waiting for him on this side if he lives. and not judging any of it, just what are the moments. >> rose: so do you believe then that alexander hamilton for all that he was and all that he wanted to be and all that he became, was ready to die? >> in the words of the notorious big which is the name of his first album, ready to die, i-- yeah, but i think here is the thing about hamilton. i think hamilton was ready to die from the time he was 14 years old. i think he had-- i think what he has, what i v which is that thing of tomorrow's not promised. you have got to get as much done as i can. so i think he had this curious fases fascination with an obsession with death because he saw it at such a young age. his mother died in bed next to him. they both got sick. she never got better. so what does that do to you?

what does that do to your psyche? >> rose: what does it do to you? >> what did it do to me? >> rose: yes. >> well, it makes me think that my main characters got-- he sees death everywhere. i know i do. >> rose: that's my point. you just said to me that what he had in him, i have in me. >> yeah. >> rose: do it, do it, do it. >> do it. yeah. but you know, and you know, we can say well yes, but we get things done and we still have to plan, you know, next week. hamilton had an appointment on the books that day, that he went to, that dual in the morning. he was still going to have lunch that day. he didn't know he was going to die. i mean a part of him thought he might die that morning. but he also had plans. you know. and that's how we all live. >> rose: to luf a great life you must be prepared to fail, sure. and to die maybe as well. >> yeah. and that's why the things that are the scariest to us are those seeds we plant that might youth live us. children getting married. you're putting too the world things that you might not live

out to see. and it's so scary but it's also so hopeful. so you're full of all this. >> full of it. >> you are. >> full of it. >> rose: you are already thinking that if i do anything museically because of in the heights and also because of who you were, and what you live with, your music is hip-hop, your music is wrap. >> yes, and i also believe that that form is uniquely suited to tell hamilton's story. because it has more words per measure than any other musical genre. >> rose: had it has shakespearean words per. >> yeah. it has rhythm and it has density. and if hamilton had anything in his writings it was his density. you can read it again and you'll find something knew in it. and that's what is true of my favorite hip-hop hartists. and so it was, you know, shakespeare, sond heim has sort

of three tenets. and it's, you know, function follows form. and this was on. >> function follows form. >> and this was the perfect form to tell this story. this musical genre, that i had yom is the best way to tell his story in the story of the revolution. because it took me a year to write my shot. which is hamilton's big i want song. >> rose: i know. >> yeah. >> rose: it took you a year. >> yeah. >> because every coup let needed to be the best coup let i ever wrote. that is how seriously i was taking it. it is-- it starts with the friend, lafayette mulligan and they are doing '80s wrap, i'm john mul ands and the place to be, you know, that we all do a version of that when we were in the '80s. i'm lynn mr anda and the place college degree, likeploma and superlike, then here comes hamilton and it's rhyming, six lines on the line, it is insane,

poly sil a bick internal a sonance, he needs to be hike from the future, just this world beating intellect. so every couplet had to be unimpeachable. >> i'm past patiently waiting and paition adly smashing every expectation, every action, and act of creation. i'm laughing in the face of casuals-- casualties. first time i'm thinking past tomorrow. >> but i'm not throwing away my shot ♪ i'm not throwing away my shoate ♪ i'm like the country, scrappy and hungary ♪ and i'm not throwing away my shot ♪ i will rise up ♪ we going to rise up ♪ we going to rise up ♪ rise up time to talk a shot ♪ rise up rise up time to tack a shot ♪ time to take a shot ♪ take a shot ♪ time to take a shot ♪ and i'm not throwing away ♪ not throwing away my shot >> rose: hamilton demands lots

from you. >> yes. >> rose: i mean he's calling on your best. >> he's calling on my best. because he's the smartest guy in the room. so i have to write from the perspective of the smartest guy in the room when the other people in the room are jefferson and washington and very smart guys. >> rose: okay so what about ten crack commandments. >> ten crack commandments. >> ten crack commandments is a how-to manual on how to deal drugs. and so when i was writing, when i was faced with the challenge in hamilton of how do i explain the duals were not this imprulsive-- impulsive thing. there was a code. they were legal but there was a code. and a lot of people did them. it's just like drugs in our country. it's the same thing. so i riffed on-- . >> re: a lot of people did duals. >> it was-- yeah, and it didn't matter what class orange were you in. were you going to do a du el. >> rose: other people didn't know it was happening. >> but there were rules, you write a challenge letter. you acknowledge, joann freeman from yale wrote a great book

called affairs of honor explaining the rules. i need to explain this to the audience so they don't think the dual is some gun fight that happened impulsively coming out of a bar. this was weeks of letters leading up to it. and i had to explain that. and so using the structure of ten crack commandments which is there is a step by step book let of how to do this and stay alive and support your family and not get killed. that is in your head. >> that is in my head that is what bigie did with that song. that is what i did explaining the dualing code in hamilton. >> rose: and then there is a story of going to the white house. >> yeah. >> you have one song, one song, and wouldn't it be great if you come here, and do sufg's already done, something that you have one song. why were you so hell-bent on

this one song? for a performance at the white house. >> they said we'll be happy if you do anything from the heights. if you have anything else, on the american experience. >> rose: that was what they were looking for, the american experience. >> and i said i have a hot 16 bars of alexander hamilton. it is the only thing have i written since in the heights. and if not at the white house, when. you know what i mean. if the white house calls, and you got 16 about alexander hamilton in your back pocket, the call to perform at the white house felt like a sign, all right, well i've got to do this there. just like when i got asked to do the-- center con srt t was on the date they gave me was hamilton's birthday, january 11thment and i was like-- another sign. you have to listen to those.

♪ how does a bas tard, orphan, son of a whore ♪ in the scotsman dropped in the middle of the forgotten spot ♪ in the caribbean ♪ by providence impoverished in squaller, grow up to be a hero and a scholar ♪ the $10 dollar founding father without a father got a lot farther by working a lot harder, by being a lot smarter ♪ by being a self--starter snroat by 14 they had placed him in charge of the trade and charter ♪ and every day flames were being slaughtered, hamilton kept his guard up. inside he was longing for something to be a part of ♪ the brothers to reads, steag steal, beg barter, then a hurricane came. and oh man saw his future drip, dripping down the drain ♪ connected to the his brain ♪ and he wrote his first refrain ♪ a test am to his pain. word got around. they said this kid is insane, man ♪ took up a collection just to send him to the mainland.

get your education, don't forget froms when you came ♪ and the world is going to know your name, what's your name man ♪ alexander hamilton ♪ his name is alexander hamilton ♪ he lives a million things he hasn't done ♪ but just you wait ♪ just you wait ♪ he was ten his father split ♪ full of it death ridden of ♪ two years later see alex and his mother bed ridden, half dead ♪ sitting in their own sick ♪ the scent thick and alex got better but his mother went quick ♪ moved in with the could you singer the cousin committed suicide, left him with fog but ruined pride, something new inside. the voice saying alex you have to send for your sevment he started retrieving and reading. there was nothing left to do for someone less astute. we have been dead or des teut, started working, clerking for his late mother's landlord. trading sugar cane, all the things he can't afford.

every book he can get his hands on ♪ planning for the future see him now ♪ he stands on the bow of a ship ♪ headed for renew land ♪ new york, you can be a new man ♪ the ship is in the harbor now ♪ see if you can spot him ♪ another immigrant coming up from the bottom ♪ his enemies destroy ♪ i'm the damn fool that shot him. >> rose: so when did you t and you look at the video now, on youtube. >> terrified, a qulowng puerto rican man, terrified. and you can see it too. because once the song starts, i'm good. i know another one, remember. but my intro, i'm stammering, i'm sayingu m,u m, which i don't do in ordinary speemp. but i'm terrified. because there is the leader of the free world, newly elected leader of the free world, his entire family there is biden, there's stephanopoulos, there is

saul williams, one of my favorite poats. there is angie martinez, jd hunt 97. the hip-hop world was there too, there is james earl jones it was like if i died i couldn't have drement up this room, of heroes. and luminaries. >> rose: all the more perfect. >> and i'm closing. >> rose: all the more perfect place for this song. >> and i'm closing the night. >> rose: are you the last act. >> i'm the last act. >> rose: and when you finished? >> i was 50 pounds lighter. >> rose: did you know you had done the right thing and that you had nailed it. >> oh, yeah, yeah. if you watch the video, that video is a micros could am of my entire hamilton experience. i say hip-hop, alexander hamilton, everyone laughs. and i say you laugh but it's true. and by the end they're not laughing. because they're in it because they've been sucked into the story just like i got sucked into the story. and i think the secret sauce of this show, and besides the

unbelievable work done by my collaborators, this incredible cast and crew, i think the secret sauce in the writing is that i can't believe this story is true. it's such an improbable and amazing story. and i learned about it while i was writing it. and i think that enthusiasm is baked into the recipe. that was a great moment for you and for hamilton and-- when people really at least in a wider way understood that this is good. this is the way to express alexander hamilton. >> it was the thesis. >> rose: and this well constructed. >> yes. and i had a bit of luck too. because hbo filmed that evening. there was-- you know, form normally this t is c-span cameras, three, circumstances, cameras and that is what it is. the way it was shot t wasn't released on youtube until november of that year. it happened in may. and then in november, this unbelievable hd footage. d still don't believe it's me

when i watch it. and teachers are using it in their classes, go listen to youtube. my teacher showed me this, in a push class, which is ap u.s. history. is that song now still your favorite song in the entire, everything you had written? >> no. >> i love that song. i'm superproud of it. but there's a couple of songs in hamilton that z really pushed me to the limits of what i know about writing. one of them is satisfied, swi angelica's song. where we see the doubtership of hamilton and his wife an rewine the whole thing and we see it from the perspective of her sister who met hamilton and fell in love with him first. but she didn't marry him so that story is not told. but we hear from her how electric it is. and we see one, the woman is the smartest person in the room. she reads hamilton the moment she sees him. she sees he's perfect for her sister. she knows that her sister can

marry him safely because she dnt have to marry for money. her job is to marry for money for the safety of their family. and. >> rose: but she loved him. >> but she loved him. but she loved him. so it's an unrequited love song. >> rose: women in this musical are important. >> yeah. >> rose: really important. >> yeah. and to ron's credit, they were important in his book as well. the book begins and ends with he liza's story. and so does our show, really. our show ends with eliza's story. >> rose: she lives on. >> she lives more than twice as long. >> rose: i know. >> she meets lincoln when he is a senator. and that's extraordinary. that's an extraordinary life that she lives. you know, if we're not promised tomorrow, she got so many tomorrows. and she did so much with it. and that is very moving to me. >> rose: when you write all, i mean i've been told you write

and if it's sad, tears come to your eyes. are you in the moment. >> yeah. >> to express yourself. >> yeah, i think of acting and writing as pretty of the same thing. they're just two sides of the same coin. i have to -- >> rose: writing and acting are the same thing. >> yes. and sond heim would tell you the same thing. he has to pretend to be the person. he has to understand what it's like in their skin. >> but he never acted. >> yeah, but if you scratch them, i promise you. he, it's all about getting inside. skin of your character and seeing where they are and knowing how they have grown up. you have to know all this, like in your bones. what they've come up against. who they are. and then you just start talking. and you write until the rust comes out of the faw set and it's clear water. and you write down the clear water. >> rose: cuz the clear water

is the perfection. >> it's the stuff that feels true. and it feels true ang like it could happen if the moment, you write it down. >> it's very hard for us more tal people to understand how difficult that creative act is.. >> until you see the clear water and the artist knows what the clear water looks like, sounds like, tastes like. >> but the secret is the thing that we have which is the hardest thing for us to do as people, which is empathy, it's all about empathy. i've got to understand, i've got to see the guy who shot, and i got to get in his head. and i've got to get into his heart and into his blood stream. and understand what he was thinking and what he's scared of and what he's excited about. i have sto get into all of them. >> but you're hamilton. >> yes. >> but i was bur too. >> i know. >> and i was angelica too. >> i know, are they equally satisfying. >> absolutely.

it's so much fun rrs even though the inspiration is alexander hamilton. >> yes, yes. they are equally as fun. because they are all, you get to express so many different parts of yourself. through all of them. i guess to be maria-- like you. >> rose. >> why wouldn't you get-- . >> rose: writing these lines, there is a double entrend re. there is all kinds of stuff going into it. ask that a process of editing? over that year? write one song to get everything right, are you also getting this. because some say they want to go back and back and back to see hamilton. >> yeah. well, that's a function ofng the hip-hop origin of the idea. >> oh. >> because i go back and listen, i will still go listen to that

far side album i fell in love with in eight grade and hear some sounding or lyric i didn't get because i was 14 and now imget it as an adult. the fun of hip-hop is you can pack it to the gills with meaning, with verbal tricks and cleverness, but also emotions. you know, the notion of the triple entrend ddz re, something i learned about through hip-hop, and i find that so exciting. so based into the dna was i wanted it to be a satisfying listening experience that you would go back to again and again and that is carried over into the show. >> when did you know that this thing was going to have this huge, huge impact, this thing being hamilton at the public theater, hamilton on broadway, hamilton that people are causing are calling a game changer.

>> when did i know? i knew when we announced-- we sold tickets very quickly. when we announced our opening. i knew that was going to happen because i had been very active on twitter and people had been waiting since that video, history teachers. fans of that one song. >> rose: so there was allegation. >> i knew we with sell out the initial run. i felt very confident about that. when we announced the extension oscar husband tus walked into the theater and said you broke our phone bank. our phones are down. and our internet is down. >> rose: nobody has seen a preview. nobody has seen anything. >> no. >> rose: except the video on youtube. >> right. >> that's when i knew i began to get an inkling of what was happening. yeah. when oscar says you broke our phones. the it is probably as big as it gets off broadway and not for

profit institution in theater, as . >> rose: and innovative theater too. >> and we broke the phones. >> rose: we grabbed the tiger by the tail here, folks. >> yeah, yeah. >> rose: and what will history say about hamilton in the evolution of hip top sth. >> i don't know. i'll be dead, oh, in the evolution of hip-hop. >> rose: yeah. >> i don't know. it has been really heartening that the hip-hop community has embraced the show. that means the world to me, because it's a love letter to hip-hop in so many ways. it's my love letter and statement about what hip-hop does in our lives. it gives us stories of strulg el and stories of triumph, allows us to think bigger than ourselves. the same way musical theater does n those moments we chase. and so it's thrilling to me that the writers and the rappers, that i respect, have been coming to see the show. because it's a love letter to their art form.

in a slightly different art form. so i don't know what it's going do to hip-hop. i'm thrilled that hip-hop likes it. cuz it's my mix tape to them. >> rose: for more about this program and earlier episodes visit us online at pbs.org and charlie rose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> rose: funding for charlie rose is provided by the following: an bli boomberg, a provider of multimedia gnaws and information services worldwide.

kacyra: it kind of was, like, the bang that set off the night. rogers: that is the funkiest restaurant. thomas: the honey-walnut prawns will make your insides smile. [ laughter ] klugman: more tortillas, please! khazar: what is comfort food if it isn't gluten and grease? braff: i love crème brûlée. sobel: the octopus should have been, like, quadripus, because it was really small. sbrocco: and you know that when you split something, all the calories evaporate, and then there's none. whalen: that's right.