‘Mufasa’ Songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda On Working With “Great Storyteller” Barry Jenkins & Why The ‘Hamilton’ Parallel Is A Myth

Lin-Manuel Miranda has been very, very busy. Last week, Mufasa: The Lion King was released and is soaring at the box office, he’s circling an EGOT (again) and he’s prepping for All Inhis first ever play on Broadway.

“And it’s snowing like crazy here in New York!” he says, tilting his screen to the window over video call. “It’s all lovely, lovely times.”

“Lovely times” is right for the Pulitzer Prize-winner, currently on a packed press tour for writing the soundtrack to Barry Jenkins’ Mufasa: The Lion Kinga prequel to the 2019 remake of The Lion King. The original 1994 animated movie featured songs written by Tim Rice and Sir Elton John, which seemed impossibly big shoes for Miranda to fill.

“It was daunting, I was low-key daunted,” he says with a wide grin, sans his trademark goatee.

Miranda had a lot going on when he took on Mufasa in 2021. He was working on his first debut directorial feature Tick, Tick… Boom!doing press for Netflix’s Vivo and Jon M. Chu’s film adaptation of his breakout musical In The Heightsand had just finished writing the Billboard #1 soundtrack for Disney’s animation hit Charm.

For Miranda, however, saying yes to Barry Jenkins was a no-brainer. “I try to say yes to things I know I’ll learn from,” Miranda says. “Barry is one of our great storytellers.” Miranda also knew that Jenkins would be a great collaborator. “I knew I wouldn’t be going, ‘Here are your songs, Barry, see you at opening night!’”

The decision paid off. Miranda’s song “Tell Me It’s You” from the Mufasa soundtrack was shortlisted for an Oscar nomination earlier this month.

The soundtrack features seven songs written and co-produced by Miranda, who worked with Lebo M. and Dave Metzger on the music. One of the songs is a villain track for Mads Mikkelsen, which Miranda says he pushed for after finding an old video of Mikkelsen singing on a variety show in his twenties.

“I sent it to Barry and I was like ‘Look!’” says Miranda. “I think we have an opportunity here.”

Thankfully it was director Jenkins’ job to convince Mikkelsen to sing, but according to Miranda, “When you sign on to The Lion Kingyou know that anyone or anybody could be singing at any given time.”

Lebo M. and Metzger made the soundtrack for The Lion King stage adaptation as well, and were a dream to work with says Miranda. “Part of saying yes to the gig was that I wanted to work with Lebo M.,” Miranda says. “He’s the musical force of all of these different amazing artists who have worked in this world.”

Eagle-eyed fans pointed out similarities between the characters of Mufasa and Taka to that of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr from Hamiltonthe musical that shot Miranda’s star into the stratosphere, but Miranda doesn’t see it. “I wasn’t thinking of Hamilton at all,” he says. The one overlap he could see was that with both musicals, the only thing the audience knew going in was that the two main characters ultimately hated each other.

“What we know about Mufasa and Scar from the original movie is tragic, so to go back and see them madly in love with each other as adopted siblings is very poignant,” said Miranda.

Now, with two Emmys, five Grammys, and three Tony Awards, Miranda is an Oscar away from coveted EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) status. But he seems unaffected by the prospect. He agrees that the EGOT club is small and iconic, but adds that it’s “also made up. Nobody gave a sh*t about it until about 20 years ago when there was a 30 Rock episode about it.” He points out that most of his heroes never received an EGOT either. “Stephen Sondheim never got one,” he says.

Oscar or no, Miranda would rather focus on the year ahead. He is starting 2025 off on stage again with a turn in All In—a series of comedy short stories written by SNL writer Simon Rich, featuring a rotating ensemble cast that includes John Mulaney, Jimmy Fallon, Richard Kind, Aidy Bryant, and Miranda’s Hamilton co-stars Renée Elise Goldsberry and Andrew Rannells. It’s Miranda’s first time on stage since 2022’s Freestyle Love Supreme—the Thomas Kail-directed show Miranda did with the improvisational hip-hop comedy musical group he started with Anthony Veneziale back in 2004. It is also his first non-musical Broadway outing ever. “Richard Kind described it as ‘The Vagina Monologues but funnier’,” he grins, saying he’s excited to work with people “so much funnier than I am”.

In more long-term plans, discussions are underway to adapt the concept album Warriors—made with singer-songwriter and playwright Eisa Davis—into a stage musical. The album, which was inspired by the 1979 action film The Warriorscame out in October this year, and was executive-produced by rapper Nas. It was Miranda’s first time building an album in a studio as opposed to creating one for a musical, which was much helped by having Nas as a sounding board. “He fell into the project very organically,” says Miranda. “I told him I’m working on a Warriors adaptation and his eyes popped out of his head; he said, ‘That’s my favorite movie!’”

Although the album is based on the original cult action film, Miranda has no plans to push for it to join the train of remakes that is flooding Hollywood at the moment. “It is the New York movie,” he says. “For me, the score is a love letter to the movie, not a reason to supplant it.”

The buzz around his recent work is reminiscent of Miranda’s 2020-21 era, when he had multiple projects releasing at the same time. His name was everywhere, and he found himself being regularly roasted on TikTok for various reasons that likely first began with ubiquity and overexposure and that included critiques of his lip-biting poses and the tone of his voice. He says of this time, “I was sick of myself too by the end of 2021.”

In June 2021, the online discursive cited a lack of Afro Latinx representation in the cast of In The Heights and Miranda issued an apology on X. Just days later, Bill Maher used his show Real Time to support Miranda, calling those critics “bullies”.

Then, Miranda did not return for the Moana sequel, despite “How Far I’ll Go”, his original song on that film being Oscar-nominated and widely adored by fans (Miranda collaborated on Moana‘s songs with Mark Mancina and Opetaia Foa’i). But Miranda explains his absence from Moana 2 was down to scheduling conflicts and he is “very proud” the Moana 2 songwriters Barlow & Bear (Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear) had the opportunity. They are the first female songwriting duo on a Disney film. Miranda is, however, still working on frequent collaborator Kail’s live-action Moana adaptation, set to release in 2026. “All is well,” he says.

These projects notwithstanding, Miranda says 2025 is the year he’s “going to go take a nice well-deserved vacation” to recharge. “I’m living my life and going to write as much sh*t as I can before I die,” he says.