The best thing about it is there’s no right way to be gay. “Queer culture is about happiness and love.
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BOOM!, entrenched in a queerness so specific to the theater space, her identity only further informs her understanding of the movie musical. The concept of coming out can feel archaic, but Shipp was aware of how her platform could impact the queer community. It made me cry.”Ģ021 has been a big year for Shipp: Not only did she turn 30 this past July, but she also came out (publically at least, “Everyone who knows me personally is like, she gay,” she says). “It was really beautiful for her to see her brother.
As an executive producer on the film, Julie got to witness Garfield become Jonathan for the first time.
His performance feels like one Larson would be proud of, and Shipp tells me that Larson’s sister, Julie Larson, is. Garfield is goddamn good, an uncanny Jonathan Larson in both appearance and swagger. Through my Zoom screen, Shipp’s eyes grow big and her hand lands on her chest. I’m saving these tears for my take and you’re out here just making me sob, honey.’ It’s so realistic that it’s almost overwhelming,” she says. The camera wouldn’t even be on me and I would be crying, and I’d be like, ‘Stop. Garfield’s portrayal of that inner battle was transcendent.
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I walked out of that room and I was like, ‘I am torn to pieces, but I think I got it.’” Shipp and Garfield create a world between them that is full of joy and reluctant disappointment, offering the quintessential artist question: How does one dedicate oneself to art without sacrificing personal relationships, or love? When it came to Shipp’s chemistry with Garfield, according to the actor, that was undeniable from their first audition scene: “I’m crying and Andrew is crying, and we look over and Lin is crying. I really wanted to master that.” And she mined her own past relationships to adopt Susan’s mindset, “I was like, ‘Okay, I know this feeling. Not a dancer herself, Shipp dedicated hours of practice to embody their everyday movements: “Dancers hold themselves a certain way, they walk a certain way, there is a grace and regality to how they move about space. She embodies Susan, a dancer with a gentle yet fiery spirit, who has a lot of love for her struggling artist partner and a simple wish for him to put her first. Together with Garfield, Shipp creates a moving portrait of a relationship at the crossroads. Jonathan Larson’s clock famously stopped ticking too soon, as the venerable actor and composer tragically passed away the morning of RENT’s Off Broadway premiere. BOOM!, the semi-autobiographical one-man show by the late, great Jonathan Larson, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning rock opera RENT.Ī legend in his own right, Miranda sets the stage for a tremendously talented cast to shine in his latest joyride (and tearjerker), which follows the young theater composer (Garfield) in early 90s New York City, as he battles internal pressure to make it as a young artist, the pitfalls of his personal relationships, the harsh reality of the AIDS epidemic, and as the title’s ticking clock suggests: time. Shipp, who has starred as the heroic Storm in X-Men: Apocalypse and X-Men: Dark Phoenix and iconic singer Aaliyah in the Lifetime biopic, co-stars in her first musical alongside the Academy Award-nominated Andrew Garfield in a film adaptation of tick, tick. auditions, her forever love of musicals and desire to play Annie, and her fast bond with co-star Vanessa Hudgens.
We cover a lot of ground, walking through her early-2000s memories of MapQuesting her way to L.A. It’s so easy to talk to her that to call this an interview almost feels too formal. BOOM!, fills my computer screen with her warm smile, animated hands, and an immediately palpable energy. Even via the staid confines of video conferencing, the rising talent, who plays Susan in the new Lin-Manuel Miranda-directed tick, tick. I can’t possibly imagine how magnetic Alexandra Shipp is I.R.L.