Hamilton ’s Anthony Ramos on His Upcoming Wedding, Debut Album, and Filming In the Heights
“If you had asked me, ‘Did you always know you wanted to do this?,’ I would’ve said no,” Anthony Ramos tells me, scrolling through his phone. “Then my mom found this letter I wrote in the third grade.” He locates a picture of the note and starts reading from it: “If I had the opportunity to be on television, I would like to entertain all the people. I would sing some funny songs and some romantic songs. The tone would be high and low.” It seems nine-year-old Ramos had a sense of his future that not even the adult Ramos can quite comprehend.
We are sitting inside a buzzing Park Slope diner, around the corner from Ramos’s Brooklyn apartment, where he lives with his fiancée, Jasmine Cephas Jones. The two met when they were performing as part of the original cast of Hamilton (Ramos played the dual roles of John Laurens and Philip Hamilton; Cephas Jones played Peggy Schuyler and Maria Reynolds) and got engaged late last year. The proposal, which took place in front of Cephas Jones’s mother and grandmother, as well as friends like Cynthia Erivo, was videotaped and posted to YouTube for Hamilcouple fans. Still in the early stages of wedding planning, they’ve already figured out their priorities.
“Jasmine and I both love music, so the DJ’s gotta be on point,” he tells me. “I want people sweating, suit jackets off, chancletas on.”
Wearing a gray tee, denim shorts, and an old Calvin Klein Jeans baseball cap, Ramos has an easy charm—like the guy in your high school who’s friends with everyone. Our waiter greets him by name, asking if he wants his usual (steak and eggs). When he speaks, he is animated, with an accent that reveals his Brooklyn roots. (He once mentioned to Lin-Manuel Miranda, “You know, I talk too ghetto sometimes. I should change the way I talk.” Miranda told him to change nothing.)
Ramos grew up not far from here, in the Hope Gardens housing development in Bushwick, living with his single mother, his older brother, and his younger sister. “We were pretty broke,” he tells me. “I asked my mom all the time, ‘Why do we eat rice, beans, and chicken every day?’ ” Ramos was a self-described lackluster student, but music was an escape; Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP spoke to him in particular: “It was a dude crying out through his music, and I was like, ‘Damn.’ ” In middle school, a teacher heard him sing and encouraged him and two of his classmates to start a group that would perform at school assemblies. Unable to afford college, Ramos toyed with the idea of joining the Navy before another teacher strong-armed him into completing an application to New York’s American Musical and Dramatic Academy and then secured him a free ride through the Seinfeld Scholarship Program. “In that moment, boom. My life was changed,” he says.
That Cinderella story would repeat itself throughout the 27-year-old’s career. Last year, after only a handful of appearances in films, he played Lady Gaga’s best friend, Ramon, in A Star Is Born. When we speak, he’s just wrapped up filming the adaptation of Miranda’s Tony-winning In the Heights, in which he stars as Usnavi, the protagonist and narrator. Fittingly, it was seeing that show that kept him in the business years earlier, when he was beginning to doubt his prospects. “I remember feeling like I wanted to quit,” he tells me, “and I went and saw In the Heights. I was sitting there being like, I can’t quit. I know all of these characters. Maybe there is a place for me.”
In October, he released his debut album, The Good & The Bad, a mix of club bangers and introspective ballads. In “Figure It Out,” he sings, “I’m making me a promise, to admit my problems/Ain’t saying I’m going to solve them, but I’m making progress.” “The song’s about loneliness. Men, especially, don’t embrace loneliness,” he explains; another track, “One More Hour,” is about the first time he and Cephas Jones kissed. Given that Ramos collaborated with writers and producers behind some of the biggest contemporary hits, it’s surprising how personal the final result is. “This album is better than what I dreamed of writing,” he says. His first concert for the record took place at Joe’s Pub within New York’s Public Theater, where Hamilton debuted. “The fact that I get to play my first show there means a lot to me,” Ramos says. “We told that story, and now I get to tell mine.”
Anthony Ramos just released the video for his new single “Mind Over Matter,” co-starring his fiancé, Jasmine Cephas Jones—who stars in the upcoming STARZ series Blindspotting and is renowned for originating the dual roles of Peggy Schuyler and Maria Reynolds in Hamilton where they met. The video comes ahead of the release for his debut album, The Good & The Bad, on October 25th.
Watch the music video for “Mind Over Matter” below:
Originally Appeared on Vogue
