Lin-Manuel Miranda says his career was inspired by ‘The Little Mermaid’.
The 40-year-old composer, who penned the award-winning musical ‘Hamilton’, was obsessed with Disney’s beloved 1989 animation as a child and can recall being mesmerised by the song ‘Under The Sea’, which was performed by cute crab Sebastian.
It was watching that movie and falling in love with the songs that gave him his passion for musical theatre and inspired him to want to write his own shows.
Speaking on Deadline’s ‘The Film That Lit My Fuse’ series, Lin-Manuel recalled: "The first time I remember feeling weightless during a musical number was during ‘Under The Sea’ in ‘The Little Mermaid’. I just couldn’t believe what I had seen.
"I couldn’t believe I was seeing a singing crab, nothing about it made sense. That’s how unlikely it felt for me but it showed you could do anything."
The ‘In The Heights’ creator added that he took a day off from school when the 1989 movie was released on home video.
Lin-Manuel said: "I called in sick from school the day it came out on VHS. I couldn’t wait until the end of the day to see the film."
Lin-Manuel is working on Disney’s live action remake of ‘The Little Mermaid’ as a producer and he is also writing new songs with Alan Menken, who penned the soundtrack from the original movie along with Howard Ashman.
Menken also composed the score for the cartoon version and his and Ashman’s work went on to win two Oscars for Best Original Score and Best Original Song for ‘Under the Sea’.