SAN DIEGO — There’s a reason Lin-Manuel Miranda happily took a role in HBO’s upcoming show “His Dark Materials.”
“When my wife [Vanessa Nadal] and I started dating, we read these books together,” he told the crowd at the show’s San Diego Comic-Con panel on Thursday. “This is like part of our falling-in-love story with these books, and it’s a beautiful coming of age story and there’s a love story in there as well. So they’re in a really special place in my heart.”
Miranda, 39, explained that executive producer Jane Tranter and writer Jack Thorne took him to dinner while he was working on “Mary Poppins Returns” in London to tell him about the role.
“They said, ‘His Dark Materials,’ and I said, ‘Yes.’ I didn’t even know what the part was,” he said. “I would have sharpened pencils for this. I am a huge fan of the books.”
The “Hamilton” creator, who plays Texas aëronaut Lee Scoresby, also revealed to the audience his singing chops were immediately utilized on the series.
“I literally come into this thing singing a duet with my demon on a big ass hot air balloon, which was a pretty fun way to enter the world,” he said.
“His Dark Materials,” which comes out in fall 2019, is based on the fantasy trilogy by Philip Pullman.