In the Heights' Corey Hawkins thought his dance number would be done by doubles
Corey Hawkins has undoubtedly one of the best dance numbers in In the Heights, the movie version of Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical of the same name.
He plays Benny, and together with Leslie Grace (who plays Nina), they dance on a rotating fire escape, which you might think to be the magic of CGI and stunt performers.
It's not.
"Jon [M Chu, director] first told us about that experience at the very beginning. It was the last thing that we actually ended up shooting, so that whole fire escape – because they had to build the thing. and I remember Jon sitting down with us and being like, 'You know, so here's the storyboard Nina and Benny and the building and they end up going up the side of the—'
"I'm like, 'That's beautiful, that's great. I can't wait [to see] how you put the dancers in harnesses – you know, the doubles do that.' And he was like, 'Uh, no there ain't no harnesses and there ain't no doubles. Y'all are doing this.'
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"So cut to the end, we had rehearsed and rehearsed in addition to all the other numbers, we rehearsed forever. And then finally when we got to do it it was beautiful to take on this, like, Fred and Ginger Rogers vision. It was an honour, it was a pleasure, it was hard."
During filming for the moment shown in the trailer, where he runs up the side of the building as it tilts on hydraulics, Corey recalls: "I'm running up, and I remember I couldn't stop and I fell over the side. It was lots of craziness! I fell on a mat so I was okay, but we were just having a good time."
Bruises aside, the physicality of the performance "worked in tandem" with the development of his character. "A lot of that prep work just allows you to show up on set and fill — be okay busting out into song. It allows you the right to sing Lin-Manuel's music."
Related: How to watch In the Heights online at home
There has been a lot of talk about diversity and representation in In the Heights, both its successes and its failures. For Hawkins, though, he approached the film from a perspective of simply doing the job.
"We wouldn't be artists if we didn't know what it was that we were working on," he admits. "We knew the heaviness of it but also the lightness of being able to say this is who we are."
In this particular story, Hawkins says, it's about a community shown without violence. He also lived in Washington Heights himself and says that he "was Benny".
"I knew what that was to be welcomed in that community. So we weren't unaware of the responsibility but we couldn't let that lead us. We just had to tell the story."
In the Heights is out now in cinemas and on HBO Max in the US, and opens in UK cinemas on June 18.
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