Javier Muñoz
Age: “12 going on 60.”
Hometown: “East New York, in the dead center of Brooklyn.”
Currently: Making the jump from the ensemble of In the Heights to its free-styling leading man and narrator, Usnavi following creator Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Star Power: Muñoz, a self-proclaimed “sci-fi geek,” couldn’t have started out farther from performing. “As a kid, I was focused completely on science—astrophysics, specifically, which is totally crazy looking back,” he explains. It wasn’t until high school at Brooklyn’s Edward R. Murrow High that theater accidentally made it onto his radar, when he went to pick up a few friends at a rehearsal for the school musical. “They were in tech with Annie Get Your Gun, singing ‘Sun in the Morning, Moon at Night.’ I sat back watching it and thinking, ‘I want to do this.” When the school’s next production, The King and I, held auditions, Muñoz was one of the first in line. “I was cast as a servant. I had no lines, no songs; I had to just stand onstage for half the show, and I loved it. After that, science was gone.”
The youngest of four boys all artistically inclined, though none professionally, Muñoz admits his parents who celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on Valentine’s Day “weren’t thrilled” by his shift in interests. “They wanted to give me everything they could but didn’t want to let go of something more rational and practical.” Luckily, bit parts soon turned into leads, and an agent who saw Muñoz play the title role in Sweeney Todd signed him up. At 17, just shy of high school graduation, he was officially a professional actor.
Young Professional:
Playing With the Big Dogs: Hitting the pro audition circuit with no formal training proved to be a shock to Muñoz’s system. “I didn’t know the first thing about how to audition. I got my ass kicked!” he says with a laugh. After a stint with the non-profit group Children and the Classics, which taught literacy through performances in schools, Muñoz enrolled in NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. “I’m the first person in my family to graduate college,” he says, adding that he paid his own way. “I put all my energy and resources into it. It was not easy, but I did it, and it paid off.” Roles in regional productions of Kiss of the Spider Woman and Man of La Mancha followed, and Muñoz lived and worked for a while in Denver and San Francisco, where he even started his own theater company. After 9/11, however, he felt the pull of home. “I don’t drive, so I didn’t want to do the L.A. thing. I felt like if I was going to [act], it was time to go back to New York.”
I Quit! By the winter of 2005, Muñoz hit a wall. “I wasn’t working enough to support myself, so I made the decision to quit,” he recalls. Waiting tables had always been his survival job, and now he had an opportunity to take a management-track position at a new restaurant. Then, opportunity came knocking. While appearing in a workshop of a new musical as a favor to a friend, a reluctant Muñoz was persuaded to audition for a reading of another new show, about a close-knit group of neighbors in Washington Heights. “The music was hip-hop and salsa; it was smart, and there were no drugs or violence—these were hard-working people. It was everything I knew about growing up Latino in New York.” Muñoz enthusiastically came out of retirement to audition for In the Heights, landing the now non-existent role of Nina’s brother, Lincoln. “I gave my notice to the restaurant and have been with the show ever since.” After he played Usnavi during a rehearsal in which Miranda stepped out to watch the show he had composed, Muñoz became the star’s understudy. “And it’s been blessing after friggin’ blessing since that moment. It’s been unbelievable.”
When You’re Home: Four years later, Muñoz remains enthusiastic about the role he now calls his own. “He’s more than optimistic,” he says of Usnavi. “He’s got a strength and an endurance and a love of life in general. I’m absolutely inspired by that quality.” As for stepping into the role that brought Miranda a Best Actor Tony nomination, he says, “They’re huge shoes to fill, but I’m not coming out of left field. I’ve got the tools I need to play the part. But I still get waves of ‘holy crap!’ every now and then. It comes in waves.” Fortunately, Muñoz has the whole cast behind him as he takes center stage. “We’re all brothers and sisters. I want to be there more than anything every day simply because of the amazing family we have become. I know how precious and rare that is. I know it will never be like this again.”
