USA TODAY International Edition
Ramos a champagne supernova
‘A Star is Born’ just latest hit for ‘Hamilton’ veteran
The captain of the private jet had one stern warning for Lady Gaga and Anthony Ramos before shooting a celebratory scene in “A Star Is Born.” Don’t open the champagne. It’ll spill, and it’s a mess to clean up. But Ramos and Gaga were exuberant playing best friends Ramon and Ally, both discovering the joys of rock ’n’ roll luxury courtesy of Ally’s famous boyfriend, Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper). The actors got carried away. “We were so in the moment and having so much fun, we popped the bottle and we started laughing hysterically,” Ramos says. “Boom, there it goes. It was like, ‘We’re in trouble.’ But it was Ally and Ramon having that moment.” It’s more than just their characters who have that dream moment in director Cooper’s lauded drama, which opened last weekend to critical raves and $41.3 million at the box office. Ramos, 26, is exploding like shaken champagne in his role as Ally’s supportive pal from the neighborhood, who also works at the hotel with her. “It’s always amazing when you can do work you care about and that you love,” Ramos says. “And if it just happens to blow up, that’s just icing on the cake.” The Brooklyn native of Puerto Rican descent has shown remarkable range in his short career – breaking out in the dual roles of John Laurens and Philip Hamilton in the Broadway sensation “Hamilton” in 2015. The drama “White Girl” and the coveted role of Mars Blackmon in Spike Lee’s 2017 Netflix series “She’s Gotta Have It” followed. But Ramos still had to fight for the role of Ramon, sending audition tapes to Cooper. The director asked for a final audition with the full cast during a script read of the story. Anderson figured that was impossible, given that he was already committed to a concert in Scottsdale, Arizona, that night. “I was like, ‘Yo, there’s no way I can do this,’ ” Ramos recalls. “But there was something inside of me that was like, this movie could be the opportunity of a lifetime. It’s worth taking a chance.” He flew to meet the cast, including Gaga, who introduced herself by her real name, Stefani (“That’s what I call her, it would feel weird calling her anything else”). The read was such a success that everyone was hugging one another, saying how excited they were to start. “I don’t think anyone knew I was still auditioning,” Ramos says. “I’m on my way to the airport going, ‘OK, that just happened.’ And I got the call. (Cooper) was like, ‘Hey, I want you in the cast.’ Let’s just say my show that night was really good. “ The chemistry with Gaga came naturally in their plane scene. But Gaga had to pretend she had never been on a private jet. “She had been on a bunch. I was asking her ‘What’s this over here?’ She was like, ‘That’s the table and you pull it out.’ We were messing about,” Ramos says. Along with “A Star Is Born,” Ramos is in theaters now as a key witness to a police shooting in the drama “Monsters and Men” and will continue to branch out, playing a special forces soldier in 2019’s “Godzilla: King of Monsters.” He’s plotting his next move after that. “After ‘Hamilton,’ working with Spike Lee and now ‘A Star Is Born,’ I have to hone in,” Ramos says. “It’s like, what’s the next thing where people say, ‘Wow, I didn’t know he could do that!’ ”