Andrew Garfield makes quite the transformation as he plays Jonathan Larson, the composer behind the iconic rock musical Rent.
Andrew is starring in the upcoming film tick, tick…BOOM!, an adaptation of Larson’s autobiographical musical of the same name.
In the film’s trailer, we see Andrew as the floppy-haired composer just before he turns 30, living the life of a starving artist in New York City. It’s a pressure cooker of a life, as Jonathan feels like he must race against time to write the next great American musical – even as he struggles to make ends meet and continues to lose friends to the AIDS epidemic.
The film is the directorial debut of Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda. It also stars Alexandra Shipp, Robin de Jesús, Joshua Henry, Mj Rodriguez, Bradley Whitford, Tariq Trotter (aka The Roots’ Black Thought), Judith Light, and Vanessa Hudgens.
The film was written by Steven Levenson and produced by Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Julie Oh, and Lin-Manuel.
tick, tick…BOOM! first opened on stage in 1990 under the title Boho Days – a one-man “rock monologue” performed by Jonathan himself. At the same time, he was working on Rent, a rock opera loosely based on Puccini’s La Boheme.
Jonathan died suddenly at age 35 on the day of Rent’s first off-Broadway preview show in January 1996 – but the show would go on to become a smash hit, and Jonathan would be posthumously awarded several Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
tick, tick…BOOM! is set to premiere on November 19. – Rappler.com