Lin Manuel Miranda has been cast as Hermes in the Disney+ ‘PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS’ series

Lin Manuel Miranda has been cast as Hermes in the Disney+ ‘PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS’ series.

Earlier, Luis Miranda, Lin’s dad, told Variety a bit about his son’s early years as a performer. He said that a light bulb went off for the young Lin when playing piano at a middle-school recital. “When he heard the applause, he was like [makes excited, attentive face], and then he played another song. When he heard the applause for that, he started playing another song,” he laughs, “but then the teacher very gently led him offstage.”

It was an auspicious beginning.

During the party, Lin was kind enough to duck into a conference room for 20 minutes with Variety to give what may be the most substantial interview we’ve ever gotten in 20 minutes: About the songbook, his early years as a songwriter, his process, how some of the songs for “Hamilton” and especially “Encanto” came together, and more.

Emotional, and really, really surreal — this is actually the first day I’m seeing it in print, because I was traveling all last week: We had the Hamburg premiere of “Hamilton,” and then I just went down to D.C. to see [“Hamilton” star] Phillipa Soo in “Guys and Dolls” at the Kennedy Center. So I’m fresh off an Acela [train], and I went to the Drama Book Shop and this book was there, waiting.

It feels even more surreal with the company we have here. We invited a bunch of teachers — my best friend since kindergarten, Danny San Germano, still teaches at my old high school, he’s the chair of the arts department — and my ninth grade music teacher, Michael Stratechuk, is here. I learned rudimentary music theory in his class — a 12-tone piece I wrote for his class is still one of the things my hand doodles [on the piano] when I’m writing. It all really also reminds me of how far we’ve come.

The actor, who currently portrays Lee Scoresby in HBO/HBO Max’s His Dark Materials, will guest-star as Hermes in Disney+’s upcoming series adaptation of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, TVLine has confirmed.

Per the character’s official description, Hermes is “the messenger god who looks out for travelers and thieves, and is a bit of a trickster himself. He is charismatic and boisterous, the life of the party. Unfortunately, his charm does not do much to heal his strained relationship with his son Luke. He’s hesitant to help Percy and his friends on their quest as sometimes getting involved is more trouble than it’s worth.”

Based on Rick Riordan’s best-selling book series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians promises to tell the “fantastical story of Percy Jackson, a 12-year-old modern demigod who’s just coming to terms with his divine powers when the sky god Zeus accuses him of stealing his master lightning bolt,” according to the series’ official description. “With help from his friends Grover and Annabeth, Percy must embark on an adventure of a lifetime to find it and restore order to Olympus.”

The award-winning creator of Hamilton and In the Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda, gave a talk at the fifth annual L’Attitude conference in downtown San Diego this week. He offered writing and creative advice to the audience and compared composing music to the process behind starting a small business.

Of course, Miranda’s composition credentials are unquestionable, but what exactly does he know about entrepreneurship? Last year the 42-year-old and a group of friends took over the Drama Book Shop in Manhattan, an iconic store selling all things theater. Rent increases had threatened to put the independent store out of business but Miranda wanted to resurrect the fortunes of the building where he had written, found inspiration and met friends.

“It’s about collaboration. You cannot make theater alone, you cannot have a small business survive alone,” Miranda said. “We really rely on our community to keep us alive. And that’s been a lesson that I sort of take forward into the world of small business.”

Miranda is best known for his theatrical and film-making exploits, most notably the movies In the Heights and Tick, Tick… Boom!, and the Broadway sensation Hamilton.

He has continued his prolific work rate this year and is heavily involved in the upcoming live-action version of The Little Mermaid. Disney’s reimagining of the classic is due to be released in 2023 and Miranda agreed in 2016 to be a songwriter alongside Alan Menken. It has since been announced that Miranda will also co-produce the film with Marc Platt and Rob Marshall.

If you can’t wait until next year for his next piece of work, make sure you catch the upcoming parody biography Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. The film is set to be released on The Roku Channel from November charts a fictionalised account of Weird Al Yankovic’s journey to the top of the charts, starring Lin-Manuel Miranda in an as-yet unspecified role.

Such a big deal that Miranda’s songbook-release party in Manhattan last week was an extended-family gathering, attended by his parents, sister, nephews, friends, music teachers from several New York schools — and even Lin-Manuel’s former teachers — as well as city music programs serving underrepresented children, and fellows from the Miranda Family Fellowship Program, which aims to increase access to education and careers in the arts for emerging artists from underrepresented communities.