'In the Heights' Is Filled With 'Hamilton' Easter Eggs You May Have Missed

Mustafa Gatollari - Author
By

PUBLISHED Jun. 12 2021, 1:55 p.m. ET

'In the Heights' easter eggs
Source: Warner Bros.

Whether it's folks who take their lampooning of his lip-biting selfies too far, or those who think that he wasn't "woke enough" with Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda went from an over-exposed entertainment darling to a meme. Regardless of what your opinion is of the quality of his work or selfies are, it can't be argued that he's had tremendous musical success with his Broadway plays, and there are Easter Eggs head-nodding that success in the film adaptation of In the Heights.

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Eagle-eyed 'Hamilton' fans will definitely notice these 'In the Heights' easter eggs.

In the Heights earned Miranda a whopping 13 Tony Award Nominations and four wins, including Best Musical. It was a raging success for Miranda and ushered him into a new career stratosphere. But it was Hamilton that would become not only Miranda's "crown jewel," but one of the biggest Broadway successes and cultural phenomenons in recent years: 16 nominations and 11 wins. Wow.

in the heights easter eggs
Source: YouTube
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It was almost impossible for people to get tickets to the show. There were giveaways, lotteries, long lines, and scalpers all making their own Hamilton micro-economic system. Heck there was a dedicated NY retail store that just sold Hamilton merchandise.

A film adaptation of the play doesn't exist — however, there is a recorded performance of the show available on Disney Plus that was taken at the height of its popularity.

So it makes sense that there are a bunch of nods to the play in the movie version of In the Heights. One of the easiest to spot Easter eggs is an audio one. Jimmy Smits' character, Kevin Rosario, is on the phone with a college admissions officer at Stanford to see if he can still pay his daughter Nina's tuition, but he's informed that the time limit has passed.

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Source: Twitter

While on the phone, he listens to some brief "hold" music, and that music is the melody from a Hamilton song "You'll Be Back," a track performed by Jonathan Groff who played King George. Director Jon M. Chu said it was Lin Manuel's idea to do so: "That was indeed a Lin idea, and we wanted to make it a Muzak version. It's all part of the 'Lin-ematic Universe."

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in the heights easter eggs
Source: YouTube

Anthony Ramos is another "Easter Egg" of sorts as he also starred in Hamilton, and is now the lead of In the Heights. Miranda can be considered an Easter Egg as well, as he takes on the film's "Piragua Man" role.

There's a rivalry between Piraguero and Mr. Softee in In the Heights, but the character is never shown in the play. He is, however, in the film version, and he's played by another In The Heights original cast member.

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Source: Twitter

Christopher Jackson tackled the role of Benny. You're probably wondering to yourself, "But how is that a Hamilton Easter Egg?" That's because he was George Washington in the play as well.

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Source: Twitter

If you want to watch In The Heights, you'll have to do so on HBO Max. The movie's currently enjoying a 97 percent Rotten Tomatoes score ... but if you're not a fan of musical theater, no amount of fresh tomatoes will probably get you to like it. OK, maybe a mango piragua might change your mind.

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