Stardom on his own terms
Exuberant performance in film version of ‘In the Heights’ may be Anthony Ramos’ breakout moment
This just might be the summer of Anthony Ramos, when this Brooklyn-bred actor — who has already parlayed his freckled face, built-for-Calvin Klein physique and founding role in the Broadway cast of “Hamilton” into a prolific screen and recording career — takes his place in the Hollywood firmament.
If he does, it will be largely on the basis of his exuberant lead performance in the film version of “In the Heights,” which is adapted from the Tony Award-winning musical about the interlocking lives of an Upper Manhattan neighborhood and is being released in theaters and on HBO Max on June 10.
That Ramos, 29, even finds himself in this spot — singing, swinging and charming his way through bodega aisles as the film’s irrepressible hero, Usnavi — is the result of a life spent chasing down every opportunity with maximum tenacity and plowing lanes for himself where none previously existed.
The arrival of “In the Heights,” with songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda and a screenplay by Quiara Alegria Hudes, will also test whether mass audiences will turn out for a movie musical led by a cast of relatively unknown, mostly Latino performers and will embrace the qualities that its creators see abundantly in Ramos, who is of Puerto Rican descent.
As Jon M. Chu, the director of “In the Heights,” said, “In every ounce of his body, he already exudes a movie-star quality. But he looks different than any movie star you’ve ever seen. He literally has it all, and we’re all looking for, what does the new leading man look and feel like? Anthony Ramos fills every box.”
To this day, Ramos can instantly summon up the 2012 email informing him that he’d earned an audition for a production of “In the Heights” in Salt Lake City, which cast him as Sonny, the cousin and sidekick of Usnavi, and got him his Actors’ Equity card.
But he bombed his audition for the show’s national tour, and he was hardly familiar to the show’s creative team when he came back to them in 2014 to try out for “Hamilton.”
“The casting director was like, ‘Have you been in for “Hamilton” yet?’ And he went, ‘What’s a “Hamilton”?’ ” Miranda, the show’s creator and star, recalled. “He was auditioning for a commercial in another room. That’s how much he wasn’t known.”
When he tested for the dual role of John Laurens and Philip Hamilton, Ramos was already committed to “Heart and Lights,” a Rockettes show. But when “Heart and Lights” was abruptly canceled, Ramos was snapped up for “Hamilton,” and he never looked back.
“I lost my job at 1 o’clock and then, boom, got the job that would change my life at 4,” he said.
Getting Ramos and his “In the Heights” co-stars — including Melissa Barrera, Corey Hawkins and Leslie Grace — into those marquee positions was a lengthy tactical effort. For years, the film adaptation languished at studios like Universal and the Weinstein Company, in part because executives wanted established pop singers in its cast.
As Miranda, who is a producer of the film, recalled, it was “that self-defeating cycle of, we don’t have the Latino stars to make this movie. I was like, wait, I thought we were making Latino stars?”
Chu signed on to direct in 2016, and two years later, he made “Crazy Rich Asians,” a box-office smash that made its then-untested star, Henry Golding, into a leading man. As Chu sought out his Usnavi, he said, Ramos was on his list of candidates, but he hoped for an actor who had no prior connection to “In the Heights.”
While Warner Bros. acquired the project from the collapse of The Weinstein Co., Ramos continued to advocate enthusiastically for himself. So, too, did Miranda, who had played Usnavi in the original off-Broadway and Broadway runs of the show.
Ramos, he said, had the striver’s soul of a true Usnavi. “Anthony grew up repping his neighborhood hard,” Miranda said. “You can’t talk to him for five seconds without hearing about Bushwick. He’s born to play that role, and it requires putting on nothing for him to do it.”
Chu said he was convinced that Ramos could carry the film after sitting down with him one-on-one, hearing his life story and becoming captivated by his energy.
“The moment I met him is the moment the whole movie wrapped around him, not the other way around,” Chu said. “He wasn’t coming into our movie — we were coming to him.”
Bringing “In the Heights” to moviegoers took longer than expected when the pandemic required its release to be pushed back a full year.
While biding his time on what everyone has assured him will be his breakout performance, Ramos has filmed roles in “Distant,” an upcoming science-fiction movie, and the new season of the HBO drama “In Treatment.” He has been releasing his latest tracks from a forthcoming album on Republic Records.
On the strength of “In the Heights,” Ramos was also chosen to star in the next installment of the “Transformers” franchise.
This abundance of prospects is a far cry from what Ramos faced when he first entered the business and was encouraged to conceal his distinguishing characteristics.
“I had teachers tell me, grow your hair out, change the way you speak, so you can be more ethnically ambiguous,” he said. “And I was like, why do I need to be ethnically ambiguous? Why can’t I just be Puerto Rican?”
Back then, he said, “I started taking dance classes like an animal because I was like, if I can dance, I could be, like, the token Latino in the ensemble.”
A decade later, Ramos said that in his experience, film and television continue to lag behind theater in their efforts to cast diverse performers, and even Broadway, despite occasional innovations like “Hamilton,” was still too homogeneous.
“Why can’t we all do it?” he asked. “Why can’t you have the white girl, the Black guy, the Latin guy and the Asian girl? We ain’t in 1930 no more.”
But as he has also learned, time has a way of organizing events to his advantage and bringing new priorities to the forefront. And some goals that once seemed very far off for Ramos are now suddenly looking very attainable.
As he said triumphantly, “After this year, I’m going to buy myself a house.”