Lin-Manuel Miranda Really Wanted To Play One Wicked Character

Songwriter and Tony Award-winner Lin-Manuel Miranda really, really wanted to appear in Jon M. Chu's recent "Wicked" adaptation — but I bet you'll never guess which role he was gunning for.

During an appearance on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" in February 2025, Miranda, the man behind Broadway hits like "Hamilton" and huge cinematic songs like "We Don't Talk About Bruno" from "Encanto" revealed that he basically begged Chu for a specific and incredibly small role in the adaptation of Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman's acclaimed Broadway musical. "In the opening number of the show, this one munchkin runs out and goes, 'Is it true you were her friend?'" Miranda told Colbert. "Because, man, I don't know if you've seen a live production of 'Wicked,' but sometimes they really put some sauce on the ball when they deliver that line. It's where the story starts. So I was like, 'I really wanted to do that line, Jon.' And I was not cast."

After acknowledging that his casting would have been "distracting" (which is probably an understatement), Miranda graciously praised Kirsty Anne Shaw, who's credited as "Skeptical Munchkin" and delivers the line to Glinda the Good Witch, who's played by Oscar nominee Ariana Grande-Butera. "And the young woman who does it in the movie is great," Miranda said. "She does it very earnestly — I would have done very Regina George, 'Mean Girls,' like, 'Is it true you were her friend!?' Didn't make the cut!" So wait — why did Miranda feel bold enough to ask Chu for this role? 

Much like Glinda the Good Witch and Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo), the "villainous" Wicked Witch of the West, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jon M. Chu are friends (though, unlike Glinda and Elphaba, it's not any sort of secret). Chu, who's also known for his blockbuster adaptation of the hit novel "Crazy Rich Asians," directed "In the Heights" in 2021, bringing Miranda's first Tony Award-winning musical to the big screen. Though the release of "In the Heights" was undeniably impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic — which basically ensured that it didn't quite click at the box office — Chu does a phenomenal job adapting this joyful, dense musical, and though he later told Miranda he couldn't be in "Wicked," he did let Miranda play a small role in the movie musical he wrote. 

With Anthony Ramos (an original "Hamilton" cast member from Broadway) in the lead role of Javi, which was originated by Miranda himself onstage, Chu recreates the story beautifully ... and partway through the film, Miranda appears as a Washington Heights piragüero (piragüeros sell shaved ice desserts) who's losing business to other vendors, like Mr. Softee trucks. (He even gets a little song, "Piragua.") If you keep watching after the movie's credits, Miranda reappears to celebrate the fact that the Mr. Softee truck has broken down in "Piragua (Reprise)," and guess who plays the Mr. Softee driver? That would be Christopher Jackson, who originated the role of Benny in the Broadway production of "In the Heights" and went on to play George Washington in "Hamilton."

Let's go back to "Hamilton" for one second, though, because that's probably where you've seen Lin-Manuel Miranda before. After "In the Heights" won a Tony for Best Musical in 2008 (among many, many other awards), Miranda showed up at the White House under President Barack Obama for the "Evening of Poetry, Music, and the Spoken Word" in May 2009 and performed a rap song about ... founding father Alexander Hamilton. Though the audience chuckled when he announced the performance, people stopped laughing pretty quickly once he started singing, and that number became the opening and title track of "Hamilton." The rest is history; "Hamilton" also won the Tony for Best Musical (in 2016) and became one of the biggest cultural sensations of its era. (Whether or not it's aged well as the political climate changed is definitely debatable, but I'm unafraid to admit that the songs are total bangers.)

Since then, Miranda has penned huge songs for movies like "Moana" (he wrote "How Far I'll Go"), "Encanto" (including the aforementioned massive hit "We Don't Talk About Bruno"), and the live-action remake of "The Little Mermaid" and the prequel "Mufasa: The Lion King." He also appeared alongside Emily Blunt in the movie musical "Mary Poppins Returns" in 2018 and directed the adaptation of Jonathan Larson's pre-"Rent" musical "Tick, Tick... Boom!" in 2021, which stars Andrew Garfield as the late writer. A professionally shot version of "Hamilton" is available to watch on Disney+, "In the Heights" is available to stream on Max, and "Tick, Tick...Boom!" is on Netflix — if you need to catch up on Miranda's body of work.