Plus: The star teases his next chapter.
(Spoiler alert: He’ll be everywhere.)
A version of this story appears in the June 16 issue of Entertainment Weekly, availablehere.
Credit: Roy Rochlin/FilmMagic
Daveed Diggsnever auditioned forHamilton.
In fact, he fell into the career-making musical smash by accident.
But back to that accident.
I was living at the poverty line at this pointmaybe, he recalls.
Unbeknownst to Diggs, Mirandas Pulitzer-winning opus was already in the works and the rest is modern Broadway legend.
Over lunch, Barris pitched Diggs the part of Johan without an audition.
He was just so grounded and so cool, Barris says.
He takes whats on the page and brings more to it than you thought was there.
When production started, Barris quickly realized he wasnt the only one under Diggs spell.
The first day we had our table read, everyone at the company was there, Barris recalls.
He couldnt figure out why so many people had shown up.
Then I realized, Oh, theyre here for Daveed.
Id never seen that before.
Diggs has mixed feelings abouthis sudden rise.
They were both very fun parents, but my dad takes his fun very seriously, he explains.
We would get chocolate chip cheesecake for breakfast and then go to school.
It was in the fourth grade that Diggs realized he could make his classmates laugh by acting out poems.
I was very shy, he says.
[But] I remember feeling very powerful at that moment.
He replicated that feeling throughout high school in slam poetry competitions.
I was a good performer, so I could win with pretty subpar writing, he says.
It seems like I was doing so much, but it was just grinding, he says.
I didnt have another skill set.
Even his mother knew that to be true.
She was like, You cant do that.'
Oh, and hes working on music in his spare time, too.
Im just trying to do all the things, he says with a laugh.
And it turns out, I like producing!
When it all comes crashing down and Im couch surfing again, Ill remember these times fondly.
We have a feeling hes going to be okay.
