Way back in 2014, co-creator Nikka Graff Lanzarone and I sat down with Lin-Manuel Miranda. This was before Hamilton, before Moana, before Mary Poppins Returns, before DuckTales when he was merely a Tony Award winning composer with three Broadway shows under his belt. When we talked with him he shared why he chooses to deploy an ensemble, the process of writing In The Heights (now in production as a motion picture) and his first steps in writing the opening for Hamilton.

This was five years ago, so it doesn’t have the audio quality of our current episodes. However, Lin is such a sweetheart on mic and is dropping such great truth bombs about ensembles but we felt it was finally time to take the full interview out of the vaults and share it with you. Here, in his own words, is Lin-Manuel Miranda.