Lin-Manuel Miranda: Scoring With Encanto

By Gill Pringle

A little like the muggles of the Harry Potter universe, Disney’s Encanto features lead character Mirabel Madrigal, who is the only one among her family not to be bestowed with any magical talents. Voiced by Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Stephanie Beatriz, Mirabel is also the first Disney heroine to wear spectacles, proving that neither great eyesight nor special gifts are necessary in order to be extraordinary. It’s a tough lesson to learn given how Mirabel’s mum has the gift to cook food that heals ailments while her older sister Luisa has the gift of super strength, and her oldest sister Isabela can literally make flowers bloom in her footsteps.

Set in a colourful Colombia and directed by Jared Bush, Byron Howard and Charise Castro Smith, there was also plenty of magic involved in Encanto’s musical lyricism, with Lin-Manuel Miranda (In The Heights, tick tick…BOOM!) composing eight original songs for this charming animated movie. The creator and original star of Broadway’s Hamilton, Miranda won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Drama, as well as earning sixteen Tony nominations, and twelve Emmy nods this year for its Disney+ run. Meanwhile, Miranda’s work on Disney’s Moana earned him a Grammy for Best Song Written For Visual Media for “How Far I’ll Go”, while the Moana soundtrack broke a Billboard Soundtrack chart record for the amount of time spent at number one. FilmInk chats with Miranda about his enchanted Encanto inspiration…

You’re of Puerto Rican descent, but Encanto is firmly placed in Colombia. What are the commonalities?

“It really began with family. The notion of a family musical that gets to the complexity and interconnectedness of families was really interesting. In the beginning, we told a lot of personal stories, and one of the ongoing themes was how we all cast our family members in certain roles. How do those roles change over time? How do they stay the same?”

In keeping with Disney’s tradition of seeking source inspiration, you visited Colombia and brought your dad Luis along for the ride. How was that?

“I don’t know if my dad was actually invited by Disney or if he just sort of showed up on the trip! It still remains a mystery. But his experience and what he brought to the table actually ended up being invaluable. I remember him telling us a story about his grandmother in Puerto Rico. She had lots of kids, and those kids married, and they all stayed under the same roof. And she ruled with such certainty that people would bring their paychecks to her, and she would reallocate the wealth amongst the kids and the married couples, and her children and grandchildren. And that is the kind of rule that ended up informing Abuela Alma, who really loves her family dearly, but holds it super tight. That’s where our story begins.”

“Dos Oruguitas” is one of the most emotional songs, and it brings the audience to tears. I understand that this is the first song that you wrote from beginning to end in Spanish.  Tell us about the inspiration behind this song?

“Well, it was a couple of things. One, being there from the beginning really allowed for more of a give and take than I’ve ever experienced on an animated film. There were songs where I put points on the board and was like, ‘All right, here’s our opening number. Here’s how everyone’s related, and what they can do.’ I wrote that opening number before we had a second or a third act to our film, because we needed it for ourselves to keep track of everybody. And these names may change and the powers may change, but we know that the audience is gonna need a guide, and Mirabel’s gonna be our guide, so let’s write that song early. But then ‘Dos Oruguitas’ was really inspired by the visuals coming out of the incredible animation department. And I loved the way that they embodied the miracle by having this flame from a candle turn into a butterfly, and then into a cascade of butterflies. And in approaching this moment, without spoilers, it’s a moment where we reveal a really personal part of the Madrigal family history, and it didn’t feel right to have a character sing in real time, which is what all the other characters do over the course of the movie.”

And this is what sets “Dos Oruguitas” apart from the other songs in Encanto?

“Yes, and so I thought, ‘We need a folk song. We need a song that feels like it’s always existed.’  And riffing off the butterfly imagery, I thought, ‘Well, you know, butterflies have to go through a miracle to even become butterflies.’ And so I wrote this song about two caterpillars who are in love, and are scared of letting each other go, but of course have to let each other go to become their next selves. It was a nature metaphor that was already baked into the visuals of the film, but speaks so specifically to what this family is going through in terms of trying to see each other more fully, and in terms of how you have to change to get to the next level and you have to allow yourselves to change. But then Sebastian Yatra takes it to a whole other level with his beautiful vocal performance of the song.”

Is it harder to rhyme in English or Spanish?

“It’s not harder to rhyme in Spanish. I just have a much more limited vocab in Spanish. So I had to really reach for my thesaurus, and outside my comfort zone, to really try to write a song that feels like it’s always existed. That was the goal and I hope we’ve achieved it.”

Mirabel’s oldest sister, Isabela, is the golden child who brings flowers to bloom with every step she takes. Without giving too much away, can you talk about how Encanto plays an important part in bringing families back to cinemas this holiday season? 

“Yeah! It is the family-est family film that ever familied! It really is. We took family as our thesis in the movie. It’s not about something that happens to this family, it is about the relationships between these family members themselves. And that’s complicated. Anyone who has grown up in any family understands the tension of how you see yourself versus how your family sees you, and how that grows and changes over time. That is multiplied by your siblings, and your aunts, and your uncles, and your cousins, and the ways in which you interact with all those folks. And that’s all meaty stuff to write about. And, honestly, I don’t think there is a person who can go to this movie and not identify with a character up on that screen. So the song, ‘Surface Pressure’, was my love letter slash apology to my older sister.”

And now that you have kids of your own, how does that resonate?

“You make all your mistakes on the first kid! And that first kid also, inadvertently, always bears more responsibility than their younger siblings. And to write from that perspective, and to write what that feels like, was really incredible. And also, it reflects my sister in the sense that it’s the toughest exterior in the family, and then actually the most sensitive underbelly underneath. So I love the turn in that song when you just get beyond the exterior and it’s puppies and rainbows and unicorns, and it’s like, ‘But I have to hide this because I gotta be strong.’ And that was a joy to write, so I can’t wait for families to see themselves reflected up on that screen.”

You’ve been making musicals now for half your life. Does it get easier, or was Encanto just as hard as the first time?

“That blank page doesn’t get any less blank, my friend! But what makes it fun and what makes every experience different is the folks in the room with whom you’re collaborating. And all our team met every Friday night at 9pm my time, 6pm their time, and it became a place to bring in new music; a place to experiment and play, and tell our own stories, and make mistakes. And that’s always what allows you to make something bigger than you could ever make alone. The fun of working on this project was that it was a team of stars, and what they pulled out of me, and what we pulled out of each other. We could not have made it in any other configuration. That’s always what makes every page new, and what makes you attack the blank page with renewed fervor.”

Let’s talk about “I Want” songs? Can you give any examples of “I Want” songs in Disney classics, and which song services that in Encanto?

“I can give you all the examples, because Disney has almost cornered the market in this particular type of song. And it’s an intimidating fact, you know? There’s ‘Part Of Your World’; there’s ‘Into The Unknown’; there’s ‘Reflection’ from Mulan; there’s ‘Out There’ from The Hunchback Of Notre Dame; there’s ‘I Just Can’t Wait To Be King’. I could go on and on, which is probably why the ‘I Want’ song is always what takes me the longest. I’m just trying to push all those other songs out of my head because you know that, if you do it right, you’re going on that playlist. Something that all of those songs that I just listed share, is that they soar in this really specific way so that, as a kid, you go, ‘I get it, I understand, and I’m with you on this journey.’ And that is the hardest to pin down because it takes making your entire movie to understand the journey you’re going on in the first place. So, by the time I wrote ‘Waiting On A Miracle’, time was of the essence, not only with the production of the movie, but with Stephanie Beatriz because she was eight and a half months pregnant. And it was like, ‘We really gotta finish this song. Like, we are on a real ticking clock.’ And the joy of Steph’s vocals on that tune, with her child sitting on her lungs while she has to hit these notes, and the fact that she is singing ‘Waiting On A Miracle’ while she is literally waiting on a miracle, I will never forget that. Those two experiences of seeing her singing at this moment in her life are inextricably bound up together for me. I’ll always cherish that.”

What did you learn about Colombian music working on Encanto?

“A lot of the rhythms are familiar to me, but the instrumentation and orchestration is different and often unique to Colombia. One of the most fun things is that the accordion is so central to the music. It was really a joy immersing myself in artists that I didn’t know, and doing deeper dives into those I’ve grown up loving – like Carlos Vives – who we’re lucky enough to work with on this movie. This entire process has been about falling in love with Colombian music and culture and getting to play in that space.”

Encanto is released in cinemas on December 2. Click here for our review.