Javier Muñoz (actor)
Javier Muñoz is an American actor who played the leading role on Broadway in two hit musicals, In the Heights and Hamilton. In an admiring review in The New York Times, Ben Brantley described Muñoz's Hamilton as "sexy...with a penetrating stare and a Don Juan smile."[1]
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Childhood
Muñoz, the son of a Puerto Rican family, grew up in the Brooklyn neighborhood of East New York.[2][3] He attended Brooklyn's Edward R. Murrow High School where he participated in the drama club.[2] He got his BFA at New York University and was part of the CAP 21 acting program.[2][4][5]
Career
Muñoz's early roles include Ziad, the "best friend" in Kari Floren's The Porch at Altered Stages in New York,[6] and roles in other off-Broadway productions.[7] He was playing off-Broadway in the musical, All is Love, and had abandoned acting to accept a full-time job as a manager at the restaurant 441/2 in Hell's Kitchen when he auditioned for the musical In the Heights.[2] He landed a minor role that was cut from the show during rehearsals, but he stayed on as a member of the ensemble.[2]
On 16 February 2009 Muñoz took the male lead of Usnavi in the Broadway cast of In the Heights.[8][9][10][11] Muñoz went on to play Usnavi in the national tour.[12] Theater critic Robert Feldberg wrote that he preferred Muñoz in the role originated by Miranda, pointing out that the romance between Usnavi and Vanessa seemed more "believable" and that in putting across the main storyline in a way that Miranda had been unable to do, Muñoz turned the star vehicle into an "emotionally persuasive" ensemble performance.[13]
In 2015 Muñoz began performing as alternate for the role of Alexander Hamilton in the Broadway production Hamilton. As of spring of 2016, Muñoz appears in the role originated by Lin-Manuel Miranda every Sunday and on weekdays whenever Miranda needs to be elsewhere on a weekday.[14][15][16][17][18] Muñoz played the role of Hamilton the night President Obama brought his family to watch the show.[19][20] New York Times theatre critic Ben Brantley noted Muñoz's role subbing for Miranda in the role of Hamilton, stating "the cutting carnal edge of Mr. Muñoz's performance may slightly alter the production's chemistry, especially between Hamilton and Angelica Schuyler, his intellectual equal and sister-in-law."[1]
References
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- ↑ Gans, Andrew. " Lin-Manuel Miranda's Alternate Will Play Title Role in Hamilton Once a Week" playbill.com, July 6, 2015
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