'We Are Freestyle Love Supreme' on Hulu: Cast recalls Lin-Manuel Miranda darting onto incoming traffic just for laughs
The new music documentary 'We Are Freestyle Love Supreme' has just dropped on Hulu as of July 17 and fans are currently raving online about its sheer entertainment value and vast emotional depth. Directed by Andrew Fried, the feature consists of dated footage as well as recent interviews and serves as the origin story of the legendary improv rap collective, Freestyle Love Supreme. This entertaining ensemble used their lightning-fast wit and spontaneous creativity back in the early 2000s to come up with some comedic freestyle rap gems for awestruck viewers and audiences over the next 15 years. The improv hip-hop crew, which was founded in 2003, features stars who went on to become Broadway royalty, including members like Lin-Manuel Miranda, Thomas Kail, Anthony Veneziale, Christopher Jackson, James Monroe Iglehart, Bill Sherman, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Andrew Bancroft, Chris Sullivan, Arthur Lewis and more. You may recognize many of these big names from productions of the Tony-award-wining musicals 'In The Heights' and 'Hamilton', and this serves as a closer look at the friendly synergy and creative spark that the band of brothers (and later on, sisters as well) still share to this day.
Now that the documentary is out, the members of Freestyle Love Supreme recently held a watch party for fans and also dished out some fresh insights on some significant and memorable moments from the movie.
One of the biggest and most surprising moments came right at the beginning when Lin-Manuel Miranda could be seen darting into oncoming traffic in order to cross the street and meet his friends. The group's de facto host and emcee Anthony Veneziale later tweeted, "Lin running across the street in this moment is UNBELIEVABLY out of character for him. He has nightmares about being hit by a car jay-walking to this day. We were all totally stunned that he did this."
Lin also confirmed this when he tweeted, "Literally my biggest fear is getting hit by a vehicle -- I only did that to make my friends laugh. #WeAreFreestyleLoveSupreme."
Anthony Veneziale also posted this gem: "Also @Lin_Manuel loves to curse while he freestyles. That's why we couldn't sell this to Disney+"
Towards the end of the documentary, we learn that the group's director Thomas Kail and Veneziale had a brief falling out, and the latter admitted on Twitter, "It’s true. Tommy and I had a falling out over a stupid email I sent and I still wish to this day that I didn’t send it. He’s a genius and I’m so lucky to work with him over the past 20+ years. I hope he knows how much he’s meant to me."
The Hamilton cast also tweeted, "This Tommy and @AnthVeneziale section is so important and so well done. Life happens. Real, actual, adult life! This is REAL. And this isn't in #WeAreFreestyleloveSupreme for the drama of it all. It's handled with such care, which is what it deserves."
The cast also served up some incredible trivia for fans:
When a follower asked what Kail used for his curls, Lin admitted, "I have no idea what he uses now but in the early aughts he was using SHAVING CREAM (!) We were broke."
Another heartwarming nugget of information came courtesy of the group's best rapper, Ambudkar, who launched into an incredible freestyle about his path to sobriety near the end of the movie. It turns out that Andrew "Jelly Donut" Bancroft's dad had a part to play in that stellar performance. Ambudkar recently revealed, "I felt brave enough to talk about my sobriety on stage that night because @jellyd father was in the audience. Before he passed away he gave me his 40-year sobriety coin. It is my most prized possession."
Ambudkar tweeted: "Fun Fact: before every single show I’ve ever done I rap Andre3000s verse from 'Rosa Parks'...and now we ALL do it! #WeAreFreestyleLoveSupreme"
He later also revealed, "The first time I saw @AnthVeneziale perform he was the best and funniest improvisational performer I had ever seen. And he still is. I’ve stolen all my funniest stuff from him."
There are plenty more hilarious and inspiring gems in this documentary, so if you haven't watched it yet, make sure you catch 'We Are Freestyle Love SUpreme' on Hulu now.