Lin-Manuel Miranda takes over AVQ&A, asks In The Heights’ cast about their most tiring on-set moments

With In The Heights looming, we at the A.V. Club sat down to brainstorm: What could we do with longtime reader and big AVC fan Lin-Manuel Miranda, who created the Heights universe? The options ranged from big—a whole site takeover! All Lin all the time!—to a little more manageable. After some back and forth with his team, we landed on one solid idea: An AVQ&A helmed by Miranda, in which he’d pose the question that the rest of the cast of In The Heights would answer.

As you’ll see in the video above, Miranda jumped at the prospect, even saying he “thought [we’d] never ask.” His question? “When was the moment you were most tired during the filming of this movie and how did you push through?,” because, as he noted, “There are so many musical numbers in this and they’re all so physical that you just hit a wall, and then you have to climb over the wall and keep going.”

Interesting enough, a few cast members said it wasn’t during the actual filming of the dance numbers that they were most tired, but before, in the 10 weeks of pre-production rehearsal in the run-up to the film. As Leslie Grace, who plays Nina, told us, it was the real dance training that wore her out, because “we really put our tried to put our best feet forward because we knew we had a lot to bite off. And man, it was hard. We put all of our energy into learning those numbers and getting those dance moves.”

More from the rest of the cast is in the video above, including Anthony Ramos talking about the emotional breakdown he had after shooting “Alabanza” and Olga Merediz elaborating on her preparation for “Paciencia y Fe.”

In The Heights will be in theaters and on HBO Max on June 11.