There was a lot of the 'Hamilton' experience that was like a locomotive. It was a hurricane, so the apartment often looked like a hurricane. There were clothes and shoes all over. We were getting more things in than we had room for. We had to figure out how to make space for all the blessings and goodness coming toward us.

I'm in no way running from 'Hamilton' or its success or these beautiful songs that I've been blessed to be able to be the one to introduce them. I certainly won't be the last to sing them, but to be the first, I feel very lucky.

The record company felt wisely that we should get something out before I left 'Hamilton' or around awards time, and that deadline was not easy.

To get even realer with you for a second, as a black actor, as a performer of color, I don't know how many more roles like Aaron Burr are gonna come along for me.

I've realized along the way that a lot of things that I do as a performer are about waiting for somebody to write something for me or develop something for me, but music, music was the thing that I don't have to wait for anybody's permission to do.

It's not about doing something that's as big as 'Hamilton.' That may never happen again, and that's okay.

'Hamilton' has restored my faith in theater.

I had no vision of me being a part of that show ever. But I was committed to being the first super-fan of 'The Hamilton Mixtape' that there ever was. I was in love with this thing.

If I'm allowed it, I'm really looking forward to a little time on the couch and a little time on a beach in Brazil.

I've spent a long time learning my way around a stage as an actor, but this I don't know as well. Humbly, I'm excited to get with a band and perform regularly as an artist and see what I can learn and how I can grow in that space.

I know it's hard for people to imagine a time when 'Hamilton' wasn't 'Hamilton,' but for years, it was just this little thing that I was telling people about that didn't make any sense to anybody as I was describing it. But I loved it.

We want to pull out songs from the American song book, and we want to make them palatable for a modern audience.

You hear a song like 'Wait For It,' you hear a song like 'Dear Theodosia' - if you get one of those songs in a musical - one - it's worth dropping everything to sing that one song.

I think for a lot of us, you know, what 'Hamilton' gave us the opportunity to, what it gave me the opportunity to do, was to go, 'Here's what I've learned in 35 years.'

All I try to do is put as many colors as I can on the canvas every night.

You can't judge the people that you play anyway; you leave that for somebody else to do.

Oh, Alexander Hamilton fell short of his best self every now and again, and he still managed to do these wonderful things - well, so do I. So what am I capable of?

I grew up in Philadelphia.

I've done a lot of translation in TV, and I can do it. I'm trained to do it. I know how to inject a certain amount of my naturalness into that and where I come from into those things, but it helps if somebody's writing with my experience in mind.

I want to know that I'm gonna knock 'em dead every night.

You go see a great production of 'Romeo and Juliet,' where those kids are full of life and love, you hope and forget.

If you're an open channel when you're onstage, if you're just a vessel, things are going to come out that are stored away deep in your DNA.

At 14, 15 years old, I started reading 'Backstage' regularly. Eventually, I got enough courage to look at the auditions section.

It's about polarization. You're trying to stir up something in your audience.