>> rose: welcome to the program. on the eve of the tony nominations we revisit a conversation with lin-manuel miranda and tomorrowee kail of hamilton. >> he said some of the loudest moments on broadway and some of the quietest moments on broadway and they're all in one show. and i can feel that in the audience too. i can feel them rise and fall with us. as hamilton rises and falls. and they're with us every step of the way. and we learn an enormous amount from them. >> rose: also from hamilton we conclude this evening with jonathan groff who plays in a remarkable scene-steeler-- stealer, king george 3. >> and i said yes without having seen or heard anything because of lin, because lin is just that, as a person you say yes to. and then, and i had seen in the heights and i had loved in the

heights and i sat in the audience in the public theater and you can feel the energy in the theater before the show was going to begin. and the show began and i just wept from start to finish. i was so moved by, as everyone is that comes to see t by the ingenuity of the writing and the freshness and the direction, tomorrowee kail's direction and the choreography and the cast. the whole like idea was just so incredible. let alone the story itself. it's such an emotional, moving, inspiring piece. >> rose: lin-manuel miranda, thomas kail and jonathan groff when we continue. >> funding for charlie rose is provided by the following:

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. so there you are, the guy who he calls his creative spouse, he talks to as much as he talks to his wife. a man who he gives a huge amount of credit to. how did working relationship? this. >> i would be curious to hear your version of thsm because if you really want to go to the room where it happened, i remember when i first saw lin, i went up to westling university, hi heard about him, i heard about this early version of a show called in the heights that he had done by a couple of my good friends. and we went up in 2002 to see his senior thesis. he walked around the corner. >> not my finest hour. my senior thesis. in the heights was pretty good,

senior thesis, not so much. >> and lin walked around the corner and i believe i promptly dropped something showing my su ave. >> he dropped hissed soda. >> his fester vrg of me was dropping the soda and trying to rub it into the carpet, like hey, i am going to change your life. probably not the best way to start. >> is that what you said. >> probably what i meant but not what i said. i just said hello. >> we met when he came to see my show but when we first sat down to talk was to talk about in the heights. and tomorrowee had 15 ideas to every one of mine. and he saidz he is a great character but only in three scenes in the show, he should be the narrator because everybody goes through his bod egga. in washington height there was a great-- it should be the first song and he could introduce all the characters. and i'm sitting there like this, going, oh, this guy is going to make my show a lot better. and he's after the same thing i am. >> you know, i had heard this

demo version of in the heights in 2 thousand. and so i had had two years to wait to think about what i would say when i finally got a chance to meet him. >> rose: so what was the buzz about it? >> about this one? >> rose: yeah. >> bold, not interested in doing things the way that they should be done. you know, he was-- . >> rose: like alex anker hamilton. >> if only i had known. you know, he was the freshman who was in the play the senior did. he was the guy who was writing a show and then producing it his freshman year. and freshman didn't do that. so my initial hearings of him which were just the whispers of this slightly aggravating overanxious freshman were, you know, his-- his refusal to play by the rules. he thought well i want to do this, so i'm going do it. i heard about the show he had

written the next year once i graduated. and once i heard that i realized that he was after something that was also full of depth and that ambition was not without reason or merit. >> rose: and did you feel like at that time you could add value? >> yes. but i also felt like i was in the process. i just turned 25 years old. lin was 22. i was also in the process of trying to surround myself with people that could do things that i couldn't do. and i was looking for fellowship. i was looking for other people that seemed to bon the same frequent see. and my hunch from listening to those early versions of "heights" is that we might be fluent in the same language. we might have similar interests. we might have a similar pool of things to draw from. >> rose: fluent in the same language. >> yes. which is for me english and for him-- . >> rose: some other language. >> something else. yeah, i mean what lin showed in those early versions of "heights" was that he wanted to use today's music to tell a story about something that might

be, you know, not focused on by, and you know when people talk about writing what do i want to write about, lin said what if i wrote about the neighborhood which was. or what if i wrote about the neighborhood that i wanted to belong to, or what it meant to try to find your way and establish an identity. and all of those things that i think were somewhere unarticulated within me, i found access in that show. >> rose: with today's music. >> with today's music. >> rose: when did you first hear the idea of hamilton? >> it was probably-- i remember i was rehearsing a show with alex, the music director who then ended up obviously going on to play at the white house with lin. so it was somewhere around when the-- act came through, lin it had talked about it i have an early, mail where lin took his vacation where he grabbed the book. this famous vacation, apparently lin went to mexico, i keep on reading about. and so lin went to mexico, grabbed this big book by ron chern ou and he and i were instant messaging.

>> on g dhat. >> as we did. >> and there is a g chat that i found that actually was my opening night gift to him sent on august 1st 2-rbgs 008. so not yesterday. >> rose: and what did it say? >> it said hey, i'm drinking a lot of this kind of alcohol. i am catching up on the first season of madmen which was this new show that everyone was talking about and i'm reading this hamilton book. and i think i had said great, when are you back. i mean it did not even register. >> rose: didn't even register. did any part of you, when you realized that this was just more much than just this book he's reading, did you think man, that's crazy? >> no. >> rose: man. >> i've been down crazy road with him and this wasn't crazy. >> i stopped doubting him in 2002. so when i first-- when i first met him and realized in that initial conversation what he was after and the passion of his pursuit, i would be foolish to not listen and to try to-- .

>> rose: when did you know if he is working with you? >> 2002. but i knew he was the right fit for hamilton because again, just like the heights, he was saying all the right things. i did-- . >> rose: saying all the right things? >> yeah, well, one, tomorrowee grew-- tommy grew up in virginia. tommy grew up in the part of the country that i didn't. and is also very well represented in the show. his mother is a historical-- ar cheffist so he came all that just like he came by all the themes of "in the heights," that is also within him. and he also heard the second song i wrote for the show and he said you should be writing this a lot faster. he said it's great. and you're taking your time. a song a year is not a great output and-- . >> rose: we'll be here awhile. >> yeah. and so we just started plotting. that day, i think started plotting.

all right, what are we going to work towards to get more songs out. >> an to lin's credit, he wrote the first song. when the thing happened at the white house. it didn't exist. there was no video of it. i remember lin saying, you know, they filmed it. it went really well, i wonder if it will ever see the light of day. and months and months later they decided to put out this little youtube on this white house.gof clan theal started ricocheting around the world. >> there was a good six months of me performing it. >> i was in rehergsal, he went down with alex, they did it. he said it went really well. great, where do you want to have lunch. congrats. >> and then when you saw it, do you know what everybody was talking about? >> yes, i knew what he was talking about. i had heard the song. he had played the song for me. the other thing i think about a lot with this, of all of the sliding doors that needed to slide into place for us to be sitting here, talking to you s if lin had really choked during that performance on that white house stage, i mean it happens to be something no matter how many times i watch it, like no,

you should do it like that. >> yeah. >> he just knocked it out of the park. so that happens, you know, it comes out six months later. so it is 2009. we were doing the benefits for the show free style love supreme that we have. and lin decided to perform a song. now we have also as we were looking back through e-mails which is basically what opening night is, is a chance to go back w foolish we were then. lookhich look hout smart we might have been. so i was looking back at e-mails from 2001 and lin was going to perform a song he wrote. and there was sort of a stand alone song he was going to do. and it was in the rundown for the night. in the next e-mail, my shot is in that rundown. so again, whatever conversation that was that was-- that show nujed you to do that, he does my shot. he does it by himself, 98 people are watching. it's a very small theater. and we're know in the summer of 2011. so you know, a song every 16 mojts or so. and we're standing at this party afterwards, everyone is coming

up and patting his back and you know, wiping his brow. and i'm just sort of stairing at him. i said you know, we should get going because it would be great if you were younger than hamilton by the time this thing was finished. and something really kicked in. because the next day we had talked that night. we said let's just find anywhere to do this. let's pick a date, six months from now. wock on two songs a month. let's try to get a dozen songs and see what we have. the next day when lin and i spoke he said i think we have a plan. something dropped. the needle dropped between that performance and the next morning. >> rose: a bit of alexander hamilton in him, then. >> yeah. >> rose: pushing, urgent, let's get it going. 16 months is not enough. one song is not enough for 16 months. >> it's funny because a lot of the moments between snobby and sonny in heights which is sort of the song we did coming out of our childhood into early adulthood, i look at a lot of these scenes between washington and hamilton in this show, and i

think lin's just writing about us. look at him. he's just writing about us. he doesn't really know it. and i'm not sure who's who. >> depends on the scene. >> depends on the scene, on the moment. i think the two of us have recognized in each other disability to-- this ability to use their-- the other standard for our own pursuit. so i hear lin when i'm having these kfergs of lin on stage and i'm talking to our choreographer andy or one of my designers or looking at the picture and trying to figure something out without the benefit of having, you know, him right next to me, i hear him. and so that is certainly allows some sort of expedited process. because there was a moment we were working on something in rehearsal. and someone would sing the song for the first time. and i looked at lin and he looked at me and he said i got it. he said you don't even know what i'm going to say. he said i got it. so he, you know,. >> rose: he wrote it down. >> we finished the moment and he

looks at me and says what was i going to saivment and not only did i say it verbatim and in my annoying cadence but just said it and said it distilled in one sentence. and i thought oh wow, now we're on some sort of sub liminal, you know, tel ken isis level, it was an early thing with the just the few of us in the room. >> rose: are you just hearing this. >> i done remember that. >> it happened so unconsciously for him. i think that is a testament also to our other collaborators, alex and andy, the life mind which lin speaks about. mine is simple, make sure we're on the same page, telling the same story. and the reality is. >> rose: make sure we are on the same page telling the same story. >> the hardest thing. >> exactly. >> but it's the simplest focus i have. if i can do that, then i've done my job. when you work with people that it's not only finishing each other's sentences, it's having the paragraph in their head before you can say it. >> rose: i was go to ask you, do you have to hold it in as well or is it simply giving him

the surroundings that make what he does better. >> it depends. it's song to song. because some of these things just come out fully formed. and he says i have this idea. and some of the smartest comments i've ever had were good, keep going. >> rose: is an an affirmation of your instincts? >> absolutely. but then there's also the moment where tommy has an insight that completely unlocks a song. and i might have been hitting it, attacking the moment from ten different directions. i will give you a great example. one of the songs we rewrote for broadway, washington. washington is stepping down, he's doing this audacious act of stepping down from office. and i've written versions of it. and it all feels writerly, it doesn't feel like something someone says. tommy goes well, offhandedly, because he is the son of virginia, he goes, well, you know, there is also washington's whole vine and figure tree thing. and i went vine and figure tree thing. you know, the quote, its vine

and figure free. i said i don't know what are you talking about. he goes oh, that was washington's favorite bible quote. he would always say it in speeches. everyone gets their own vine, their own figure tree. and i went-- and he went away to rehearsal and i looked up the pass age. and it was exactly what we needed to capture. it was washington's favorite bible quote underscores how his main concern is the safety of the future of this nation. and it is so beautifulfully put by the bieb elevator, i can't improve on the bible. i just needed to quote it. and i would never have known that, but tomorrowee said vine and figure tree thing. it totally unlockedded moment that needed to happen. >> by the way, it was a washington hamilton moment, right, so i felt like we really needed to investigate that. the other thing in that situation which is a credit to the speed at which all of our experience has lead us to, we were actually rehearsing in the other room, andy was running a

sequence. i just popped into the place where lin was. lin was in room c, we were in room b, this was like a six minute conversation. he's just banging his head against the wall, talking, trying to figure this thing out. i say this, i'm always very truck. when lin says he dunts know something, that happens, you know, once every seven and a half months. so that is a little strange for me. we had the conversation. and then he comes in what minutes later and he says i got it. so once the penny drops or the faw set is on or whatever image you want to use, it's unlocked and it just happens. and that song then was done. and then he took that little seed and he grie it and you walk in next tiesm, oh,s that he a a redwood t doesn't just become a sapling. it's immediately this other thing. >> do you have a feeling for that, what he just described? >> of when the right idea hits? >> rose: yeah. >> absolutely. >> rose: when a seedling becomes a redwood. >> yeah, and some of these, and

it is songs a song, there are songs like the room where it happens that took weeks because they are cross word puzzles. are you getting a lot of information. trying to find the most compelling way to impart that information. then there are also moments in the show, called that would be enough. and her husband has just been fired. and she is pregnant with her first child. and she basically says i just need you to come home at the end of the day. and i wrote that song in 45 minutes. cried the whole time i was writing it. and it is about as pure an expression of, i think what we hope for in our relationships as can i get and it doesn't require a part of history. it doesn't require knowing all of these historical facts. it's just, you know, a wife saying to her husband, i don't care about what you make or what you do. i just need you to come home at the end of the day.

and those moments are you grateful for because they come up at peace. that song was written in 4r5 minutes, are you grateful when it comes at oncement because a lot of the time you are picking at it to unearth it. >> and also, i remember reading about writers and how they work and i think it was hemingway who talked about the i fact that you are always writing. and lynn is always writing, it's just sometimes you have to have the soil prepared to accept the thing. but he's writing-- when something gets unlocked in 45 minutes or an hour or a day or two, that was eight and a half straight months of think being it even if it is something we didn't know we needed. there were some songs we knew we had this moment for burr, that we talked about and walked about. just like we talked about the idea for a washington hamilton moment, that song felt right for a moment in act two to see our two, you know, our two heroes come together and have this one last chance to express their

affections, to speak to the country, to do all of these things. and that was the one i kept on saying yeah, yeah, yeah. and then there is that song with those guys, and he said yeah, but look what i wrote. luckily there was so much room to expand and to cover. but when they come out, you know, there's not a lot of shutdown, you know. and you know in the writer part of him. >> rose: yeah. >> so then it's about unlocking. a lot of my job is to create an environment where when it's unlocked, it has a place to go. >> rose: and how important is it to have someone to do that? >> it's the wol ballgame. it's the wol ballgame. it's-- because it requires-- tommee has to know what-- how to unlock paul when he is creating the costume, he has to know the right thing to say to paul when they're having their meeting. just like he has to come and talk to me and say that moment is not quite there yet, this is coming. what if you did this. it is what i do in a thousand

different directions. and in 1,000 different disciplines. so i am in a-we of that. of that ability. and then extends to every actor. and understanding when a word of praise is exactly what's needed. or whether it's a deep philosophical discussion, or whether it's good, keep going. he code switches with every person he interacts with, and gets them in the same direction. that's superhard. >> rose: choosing actors. >> the fun part. >> rose: the fun part, why. >> putting the team together is, you know, that's the thing. we talk about this a lot. when you do a show, the show starts at 8:00. between will and the time the show ends, i know where they're going to be standing, what they are going to be wearing, what they are going to say. and how quickly they're going to move through that particular moment. the show is two and a half hours of the day. it's the 8, 10, 12 hours in the dark that really matter. so one of the things that we talk about constantly and have since 2002 is try to find the

people who can do the job between the lines, but let's try to find human beings that want to be around. and so that takes time. but when you have material that gives the actors so much information and so much blood and fuel, i am not always able to say i know who it is. but i'm getting pretty good at identifying when they walk in the room. and that's the thing in putting together this particular company, which i think is as fine as a company as has been assembled. it certainly-- and it also made me need to be better it made him need to write at a level that was going to be elevated. because we were all trying to put something out there that was unlike what we've done. >> rose: let me take you through the characters. george washington. >> sometimes me, sometimeses lin. but always chris jackson. >> always chris jackson. >> but always chris jacksonment

because there is a dignity and an inherent understanding of what it means to lead, that you can't coach and you can't teach. they say you can't coach heights. chris jackson has it. he was given that and we have understood in our dozen years of knowing him from our relationship at in the heights and beyond that, to understand that if you want someone to play the greatest american superhero, you know, who can also play grornlg, who can also play a guy named george who was scared sometimes and didn't know what he wanted to do, and wanted to go home and have that humanity there, you know, lin keeps on holding on to this idea of who these people could be, as characters. and chris jackson was just someone who was never far from any conversation about what washington was able to do in our show. >> rose: aaron burr.

>> despite lin's best efforts to play aaron burr,. >> rose: what does that mean? >> lin wrote himself into snobbee and wrote himself out of burr. this guy is et going pretty singe. i know what your skill set. is i feel like you're making a laugh. >> rose: all right, explain that. > well, i think you know, what lin, and lin has said this many times, and we talked about this a lot in the making of the show, there is a little of every character in lin. and there's a lot of lin in all of these characters. the "hamilton" part of-- hamilton part of lin understands going after something with focus and determination, blinders. the part of lin that also wants to make sure it's the write moment is the burr part of lin. so he writes them both with equal compassion and ability. and i think what leslie provides in this show is someone who is

the other temperature of lin's hamilton. and hamilton the character. because part of the conversation we were having really early in the show, is this show has to be about hamilton, not lin playing hamilton. and lin's generosity of spirit is much like a good host. he makes sure everyone else has eaten before he eats. that is why his music is the music done last. >> no, i will eat in a minute, i'll eat in a minute. here's something for you george washington, angelica, burr, everybody else gets theirs and the last thing that gets written is the dual or his part of one last time. there's a reason for that and it's that spirit of generosity. >> rose: thomas jefferson, thomas jefferson. >> lin and i were working on the show early on, when it was kind of just the two of us kicking the tires on this thing. and we were pretty certain that we wanted layfayette to come back as thomas jefferson. this idea of doubling the

characters. that his friends would become his toes, his closee friends his sons. that was something really early on in our conversation. >> yes. >> and digs was this secret that a lot of other people knew about that we also happened to foa about. and we were thinking well, who can do this. and they also have to do that. but who has the charisma and they have to fill the stage and be a better rapper than hall will il ton, oh it's daf ed. >> do you want to call him or do you want me to call him. i remember a early conversation with da veed, i said i'm not sure what you are doing in a couple of weeks but if you could cancel it it would be great. because we're dhog sit around, just trying some stuff out, i'm working on a new show from lin, we had known him from free stifl supreme. our friend anthony introduced him to us years before. i had seen him on stage and i worked with him. lin had been on stage with him. and he has a relationship with the audience which is chemical. because he walks on stage. and they stop looking at anything else but him. >> right.

>> and thomas jefferson and layfayette needed to be that commanding and that powerful, to be on hamilton's level. and daveed has proven day in and day out from rehearsal to performance and everything else, that he has those qualities. >> rose: i said to him earlier, if you come back for a second time and third time, you can't wait for his entrance. which is exactly the quality you are talking about. >> now these are all success stories. did you ever get it wrong? did you say let's go here and it turned out either you thought about it, you got closer to it. i mean casting. >> and when are you doing a show where the casting set extends t, because the fullness of this ensemble and the fact that the story telling is embraced and held up and supported by every one on stage, that was something that made our rigor, you know,

extend from you know, all the way down the line. everybody on stage needed to be able to imbue and dimensionallize every moment. because we were going to ask that for all of them. and there is nowhere to hide up here. >> rose: what is interesting is you describe this, it's not just, you know, here's the music man. >> 76 trom bones. >> it's a real gimmicky. >> rose: exactly. but here's the music man. but you know exactly if that music is missing something, or needs to be underlined or needs to be expanded. >> yes. and i-- . >> rose: you know that. and i have an instinct to it and am smart enough to surround myself with people that if i can't discertain that, that i can turn to our music director alex or andy and identify collectively what that is. and then it's something we talk

about all the time. this is a shift for me. when you are a young director, you feel like you have to have all the answers. then you get to a certain place in your career and you realize that identifying the best idea is more important than having the best idea. and when you have a group of people working at this level. >> rose: called judgement. >> and it's-- that to me, that was the big shift for me, when i-- when i was able to-- . >> rose: were you confident in your judgement? >> yes. and i think getting old certificate about being able to silence all the noise and listen to your instincts. that little man inside of you and double indim-- indemnity, that is saying hey, him, or her, or yes, need something else, maybe it's this. you know, you know how to listen to that more effectively. and lin said something really early on which i think is also true. you get a lot of ideas flying around. when you wake up the next morning with a stomach ache, about one or two of them, that is probably the thing you should work on. >> rose: you know that.

>> yeah. >> yeah, it's also how i read criticism. i can, you know, there are criticisms, i have read reefs where i said you don't actually know what the play is about and i have read pans where they say oh, well they're right about that one part. and the other part hurt my feelings. but the-- . >> rose: they show you they understood something. >> but if something hurts my stomach the next day, i go, there's something to that. because otherwise i would have let it go. i would have brushed it off, good or bad. i have a pretty good gut about that stuff. >> rose: you have to be smart and confident. >> why is that hitting something in me. >> rose: yeah. and understand exactly why it's hitting you. >> that's the hard part. >> rose: yeah. >> one of the things that happened when we were off broadway, is there was a lot of conversation abouted length of the show. and the conversation that was then translated to us, what we actually herald is, do we have right amount of events. is it too much. >> it's not about what time are

you getting out. although there is a psychological impact of looking and sighing oh, it's quarter to 11, or two minutes to 11:00, or where is my parking, all that stuff that happens. but for us the opportunity to get back in after off broadway was not cutting time, it was making sure that we were staying along the branch, you know, that we wanted to stay along. and not breaking off and taking away the energy from the audience so that at the end of the show was not able to be fully absorbed. an lin is as ju di shus and ruthless with his work as anyone i had ever worked with. so yes, it was good and it worked and it got a laugh, great, not the right kind of laugh, it's gone. and no more conversation about it. his ego works in different ways. >> rose: how does his ego work? >> oh boy. >> you know, the number one question that i get after what does a director do, is how is lin handling this. i mean that's-- if i was to do my family feud, that would be

the one that comes up. how is lin handling this. what people, what lin thinks about himself, and his perception of himself is not informed by that. it's about trying to make something he can be proud of. and i think that that standard is the thing that drives him. so do i think he likes to look at pictures of himself and read an article? >> yes. but lin will also read the article and will both find the one thing that says that he's not quite, or almost, and that's the thing. >> rose: he won't take it seriously if he thinks it merits it. >> or just laugh on it. i might be on the cover of a magazine, it doesn't mean i'm a supermodel. >> definitely not. >> rose: he's talked about the 11 things here, and it is such a collaboration. how do you take a set, i mean is this considered in the anals of musical theater a simple set or

complex set. >> it's a simple set that actually is, a god beggar bn machines is this design to set the mus you can. >> yes. my set designer and i boxer worked on a few things. we knew that the actors were going to be pop lating a world that was going to be brick and rope and wood. and oscar encouraged us to be conscience of the fact that the people that were building houses back then were also building ships. so i didn't want it to look like deadwood and i didn't want it to look like a boat. so i had this reaction to it. and then that sort of unlocked. and i thought but that's what they had. he's right. oscar's right. so lean into that. what we wanted to do was create a palate, no walls, nothing that would be an obstruction so that we could have a song like the end of act one that actually is seven or eight years just like you can have a song like satisfied which goes back and

looks at one night and takes five minutes. five minutes of showtime and five minutes of show time, six years, one night. and so because of the tel scoppic nature of lin's writing and collide scopic nature of that as well, we wanted to make sure that this environment was something that embraced the ability to move quickly and the publicness of the time. so the way that we tried to make the second level was the operating theaters of the day. you know, was looking at particle am back then. these fights were happening in front of people and privately but if we wanted our story tellers to be witness to history as we are talking about fundamentally who tells stories and how we absorb that, then we needed to be able to be in the shadows and watch. and we needed to embrace the fact that these people that made this country were doing so in rooms that were for all to see. and so that's why we wanted the levels. >> rose: and the turntable? >> and the turntable was a late edition that our set designer mentioned in our very first

meeting and then we said let's make sure we can do it without it let's make sure we can do it without it. we did a work shop without it and the show played. then we started thinking a little more. and our choreographer andy had never worked on a turntable. and i had only done a play. an it's a-- you know, it's like learning how to ride a bike on the moon. if you don't know how to use this thing, there's a mathematics to it that you have to understand. blanken muler understood it. and taught himself how to get on top of this thing. but david corn said think about what we can do if it's a double turntable. then we can have different directions. think about the cyclical nature. and then again, if someone has a better idea, learn how to say yes. and so we said yes and that was it, and we never looked back. >> rose: then when you did the cast album. there was an elaborate doing. >> i grew up not seeing broadway shows, but loving cast albums. and ushered those songs through am when you have our cast albums, you have the oral experience of our show. so we are trying to represent that in a way that you can go

home and listen to. and you are going to imagine your own version of hamilton. because frankly it's tough to get a ticket. it's tough to get a ticket to our show right now. and it's the way it lives in the world for most of the world. so it really is our ambassador, our representation of what we have created on stage to the world at large. >> rose: can you do things here you couldn't do at the public theater. >> you can share the show with more people. i think the performances grew and became deeper. the experience of just doing the thing of doing a hundred, 150 performances teach us something that makes it better than when i'm there pushing and pulling and poking. that's why the show is better a month, two months after you open then when are you there noting the show every day. i think the conversation-- . >> rose: you favor that. >> yes. and frankly, like part of my job

is knowing when to take my hands off. you know, when something is saturated, when something is full and just needs to, you know, embrace whatever is there and get the nutrients out of that, you have to learn how to just watch the show and know that when you go backstage and see somebody, you're going to talk about the gain. about what their dog did that day and then say i'll see you tomorrow. and that's as valuable. i had two thoughts about that scene. you know what, that is how that at you have trusted all along. and that's not hard to do in this group. >> what did the audience teach you? >> the audience tawtd us a lot. one, man, were they paying attention. and i have learned we have nights when they are kaw sus-- raucous, nights when they are silent, and i love both. because they both mean we're in, an we're along for the ride and

we're trying to catch every word you're throwing at us. and every idea you're throwing at us. and they also there's moments, tomorrowee said it really well when he was actually telling us to be quiet backstage. he said this is some of the loudest moments on broadway and some. quiet-- quietest moments on broadway an they're all in one show. and i can feel that in the audience too. i can feel them rise and fall with us. at hamilton rises and falls. and they're with us every step of the way. and we learn an enormous amount from them. there's moments where the audience explodes, immigrants, we get the job done in a moment of explosion. we added bars to give them room to explode between off broadway and broadway. and we added too many bars. >> is that because it is a hot topical situation, idea. >> i think it's because it's such a simple idea that we always forget. >> yeah. >> of course. >> of course the creative of our

financial system and one of the greatest commanders were both immigrants. nd moses of the people if they aren't immigrants their parents were or grant parents were, it is an american idea we forget every 20 years or so. they remember, they go oh, and they're delighted to remember because it is the founding of our country too. >> rose: thank you, for a remarkable partnership. >> thank you. jonathan groff is here. he plays king george 3 in lin-manuel mir's hit musical hamilton. ben brantly calls groff's performance as the jilted king of england delicious. that's him. he previously starred in the hbo series looking, a conversation film that will air next week-- next year to wrap up the acclaimed comedy dram blanca i'm pleased to have jonathan groff at this table for the first time. welcome. >> i love this table too. i heard this is-- lz shall.

>> rose: the table loves having you here. >> it is the original table. >> rose: i will turn to "hamilton," why, why, why? does it have such a hold on all of us. everybody who i know who comes to new york wants to go everybody i know who lives in new york is wanting to go and waiting to go. >> yeah. >> rose: you know, i did a "60 minutes" tease and part of the genius of lin-manuel miranda is all there. >> yeah. >> rose: but what is it for you? >> oh god, so many things. >> rose: that makes it so magical. >> it's unlike anything i have ever been a part of. or ever seen before. i got to see the show before i joined the cast off broadway. and i said yes to doing the show before i had seen or heard anything. the factor that was playing king george off broadway had to leave to fulfill another commitment. so a week after they opened to the public, i stepped in. and i'm friends with lin. and lin as you know because you've met him, is the most,

like, nergtic, positive, intoxicating human being. and we had met years before when i was doing spring awakening and he was doing in the heights. and he asked me to come in and step in for this actor playing king george off broadway. and i said yes, without having seen or heard anything because of lin. because lin is just that-- as a person you say yes so. -- to. and then i-- nd i had seen in the heights and i loved in the heights and i sat in the audience at the public theater and you can feel the energy in the theater before the show even began. and the show began and i just wept from start to finish. i was so moved by as everyone is that comes to see it, by the ingenuity of the writing and the freshness and the direction, tommee kail's direction and the choreography and the cast. and the whole like idea was just so incredible. let alone the story itself. it is just such an emotional, moving, inspiring piece.

and so then i got to go into it off broadway. and then i got to join the cast for the move to broadway. and it's just been-- it's just been one of the most extraordinary things. >> rose: but you never saw brian. >> i did, yeah. >> rose: you saw brian. >> yeah, totally saw him do it. >> rose: i didn't know that. >> yeah, yeah, i saw him. i flew into new york on a friday. i saw the show over the weekend, five times in a row. and then i went in on tuesday. i had a day of rehearsal. >> rose: five times. >> saw it five times in a row. at the eni said to lirn i said i feel like i'm going to need stherpee if i see the show one more time and weep for three hours, i will have a mental breakdown. i can't watch it again. >> rose: you seemed to have shaped it in your own way. was it written that way or did you slaip it that way? >> i have this theory. when i did spring awakening, we did that for two years and we had a lot of actors come through and replace. so i this have-- this-- sometimes when people come into a show and try and make it their own right a wa, i find that really annoying. and i-- so my sort of take is

you go in, you respect what has been there before, and you just try and not mess anybody up when you first go in. anyone else up. are you there to like come in, stand in and dot thing. and so that is what i did i sort of came in, did the job that was there, did what brian did. and then as time wore on, and i became more familiar with the part and more familiar with the company and more familiar with the audience and the piece and the show, i started to shape it and make it my own. and i put in, i decided to do like an accent, decided to do a british accent which starteds alike an rp standard thing and morphed into like a character accent. so all of that, the off broadway run for me was kind of like, like two months of a rehearsal in front of an audience. and it was amazing. and it was exploratory and i learned a lot from it. >> rose: how many appearances did you make in the-- how many appearances did you make during the two and a half hours of the production.

>> i do like three, have i three numbers, yeah. >> rose: how do you fill the time in between. >> it's nine minutes of stage time. and when we were off broadway, i watched the show every day. because the way the public theater is set up, there are like, it's a where you can enter from the audience. and i could stand in the vam and still perfectly watch the stage. so every night when we were off broadway, i would leave it, i was like i can't believe i'm in this show. i would leave the stage and go stand in the vom an watch. and it was amazing. particularly off broadway because the show was still he vofling and finding its power. and the performers were still, like, still discovering some big things. and so like the room where it happens, leslie's big number, it is almost like i watched through the course of the two months of off broadway from when it opened, i pretty much joined after it opened and it ran for two months. i watched that number become a production number. because it's like suddenly, the

performances get bigger. that by the end of the public theater run, it was like the show wanted to explode out of the theater. it was like-- between the audience of anticipation's growk and growing, and then the actors on stage, filling the space, it was like, it got, i could in the watch it i could not leave the stage and watch the show because it had this explosive flrg with the public. >> what happened when you came out t is almost like king george says to america or to the kol knees or to revolution, we have a love affair. and i-- you've got to come back. you really will come back. if you don't come back, i will have to kill you and your family. that's what he said. >> uh-huh. >> but he says it with, the way you say it, it is a show stopper. it's what it is. and you know that. >> well, it is such a brilliant piece of writing because i feel like in the show, it's the first song that isn't really rapped. and it's also the first

character from history that we see walk out that is completely recognizable as we know, granted i'm 30 years old. so it say little different than we are used to seeing in history books. >> rose: but the costume says something. >> the costume. >> rose. >> and the wig. the minute king george walks out, everybody knows who this person is. and everybody knows his per spek itch. everybody knows i'm sure their projecting already the minute he walks out his feelings. and so it's this brilliant moment in the show of writingwise that lin has written where everything is sort of, and tomorrowee who is the amazing director and andy blanken muler who corio graferred it, the show is so full of move am, there is a revolving stage, all this rapping happening. and the show itself stops and king george walks out and the audience immediately knows who it is. and tommy, our director said to me, this is the moment about stillness. so that was his big thing of direction to me from when i started with the show. >> rose: stillness. >> a moment of stillness. it's like the one moment the

audience gets of stillness. so whatever that means to you, embrace it how you may. but being as still as possible, is the most powerful thing for this moment. >> rose: an what's your first words? >> you say the price of my love is not a price that you're willing to pay. you cry in your tea which you hurl in the sea when you see me go by. why so sad? >> rose: it's great. >> it's so delicious writing. it-- . >> rose: and you love saying it every night. >> i love saying it every night. and before i joined the show i knew that it was nine minutes of show time. i thought that will be fun, it's lin and i'm sort of there for him and i am there because i heard so many great things about this show. but have i not golt ensick of-- have i done it over a hundred times. and it's nine minutes. but it is so-- it is so naughty and wonderful am and the

audience is always so receptive to it again because of all the reasons we described, that it's like a drug coming out there every night. it is-- it's so amazing to be just breathing in the air of the "hamilton" experience and that alone is incredibly special and something i'll never forget. >> rose: you know a little bit about broadway. has broadway seen anything like this for awhile? >> no. this is one like-- what was really interesting is that when we were in previews and after we had opened, the album had not come out yet. and the "60 minutes" piece had not come out yet. and they had not released, really, clips from the show. >> right. >> and so for about two and a half months we were sold out, no one knew anything about the show, and the light was go down and people would start screaming. like they knew what was going to-- like they-- it was like a show, it was like rent in its tenth year when people have the words memorized and the lights go down and people are excited.

this was the lights going down with people excited about like a show-- an original, original piece of theater with no celebrities in it, just about, even a historical celebrity. >> rose: all people of hispanics and blacks. >> yeah. playing the founding fathers. >> chris jackson plays george washington. i mean it's like-- daveed digs is thomas swrefer son. >> rose: an la fayette. >> it's brilliant. and that people where embracing it. and when president obama came to see. >> rose: for the first time. >> the firs time he saw the sixth preview. it was a saturday matinee. and he came backstage at intermission to meet everyone. he couldn't come back after because they closed down 46th street. so les miss who was next door and finding neverland across the street, everyone was locked in their theater until president obama left 46th street so he couldn't come back after. so he came back at intermission and he said, and it was really

meaningful what he said. he said you know, people make great things. and oftentimes it never gets recognized or it takes a long time for it to get recognized. and you gies just really take in and enjoy the fact that you have created something great. and from the beginning its' been embraced in a way that it should be. >> rose: george lucas saw it and said it's shake piecer. >> yow. >> rose: beyonce saw it and walked imsh ---- goes backstage and says i want to take that walk. >> i know. >> rose: i want to put that walk in my act, your walk. >> i love that she-- . >> rose: you. >> you do a good beyonce, you doing beyonce is making me blush. i'm obsessed with beyonce as so many of us are. >> rose: yes around the globe. >> yeah, yeah, yeah, the world is obsessed with beyonce. she came to the show and with jay-z. we were all freaking out. afterwards, like, there was only two times that the-- and it's a

big cast. and it's a loud, rowdy, sort of energetic group. and famous people and politicians and everyone come on stage and it feels like a party. everyone's talking. there were two times when the entire company has been on stage vowrnding someone and could you hear a pin drop. and it was president obama, and beyonce and jay-z. those are the two times when they were on stage and everyone is like-- just sort of waiting to hear what they're going to say and lessening to hear what they say to everyone. and jay-z and beyonce were so generous and so-- and so kind to everyone. >> rose: but think about this. the guy who created a characters in terms of the the lines and the songs and the lyrics looks out to an audience and he says today's leaders. >> hmmmm. >> rose: there the vice president, there is the president there is dick cheney. and he's singing these songs about all the conflicts at the time of the founding of the republic. and there is george washington,

thomas jefferson and thomas jefferson engaged in a war of words with alexander hamilton, both singing in rap. it's just an extraordinary thing that you would never-- if you told someone that this is going to happen, they would say show me. >> yeah. >> rose: so how will it change you? i mean from personally and professionally. >> i mean hearing, the great thing about theater, i think, is that you do it eight times a week. so it is almost a religious experience when you are doing theater. because you are repeating the same words, every night, an you're lessening to the same words every night. and it can't help but have an indelible print on your soul after you're done with a theatre piece. and as an actor i've tried to really pick my theater pieces carefully, because of that very thing. you end up getting infected by whatever sort of message the show is.

because you sing it every night. it's like a prayer, almost, every night, in front of an audience. are you sharing this thing every night and it becomes a part of you. and so being surrounded by lin's energy alone, lin and i share like a dressing room space. and so we're calling it the year we shared a studio apartment in midtown. the two of us. we share a bathroom and it's hilarious. i i watch him play anyone tendo. and so that alone, he's such an inoperational-- inspirational human being. that being surrounded by him is like you just want to like take in that air. >> rose: he said to me in that "60 minutes" piece, i will know it's great when kids are learning it in high school. >> yeah. >> rose: that will be the real test. >> and won't that be great? imagining high school kids performing hamilton is like-- and i know that is a big-- that's a big dream for him and i know that it's a dream that he is trying to expedite so

it doesn't take as long to get to schools as shows normally do, to wait for the whole broadway run, usually. i know he is trying to expedite that. s.le come in, the production a >> totally, high schools an things like that. >> totally. there is a whole thing happening in the spring. we had schools coming in, student matinees, that were great. >> rose: i will never forget opening night when lin came out. >> oh my god. >> rose: it was unbelievable. he just stood there, he couldn't. >> and it felt like-- . >> rose: the anticipation was society so great. >> it felt like the thing that i love, and lin is a genius. literally certified genius, and yet ang yet is he so celebratory of everybody. and at that opening night, he came on stage, you were there. it felt like a high school pep rally. it didn't feel like a fancy, highbrow, new york, you know, i'm a genius and welcome to my amazing piece it was-- there is nothing sophisticated-- i mean there is everything

sophisticated about the writing t speaks for itself. when i kairm on stage at the end of that night, he called everyone out like it was a high school pep rally and everyone was like-- . >> rose: pick this up. this is asking you to do r your love for your love, for your praise. >> for your praise. >> rose: and i will love you till me dying days. >> when you're gone, i'll go mad, so don't throw away this thing we had. cuz when push comes to shove, i will kill your friends and family who remind to remind you of my love. >> rose: i wanted that for the close. >> isn't that great? >> rose: thank you so much. >> thank you. >> rose: great to you have. >> so great to be here, thanks for having me. >> rose: go see "hamilton" if you can. for more about there

program and earlier episodes visit us online at pbs.org an charlie rose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by: >> on tomorrow's pbs househour, hearg from parents whose children fled home to fight for isis

a kqed television production. ♪ like sort of old fisherman's wharf. it reminds me of old san francisco. >> the calories, the cholesterol. >> it's like an adventure. >> oatmeal with a touch of wet dog. >> i did. inhaled it. >>