‘In The Heights’ Director Jon M. Chu On The Epiphany That Changed His Career: “I Wanted To Explore My Cultural Identity Crisis”
The visceral reaction was almost instant. In 2008, Jon M. Chu was working on his big directorial feature debut Step Up 2: The Streets, when his choreographer Luis Salgado invited him to New York to watch a Broadway musical he was in called In the Heights. “I’d never heard of Lin Manuel Miranda, but when I saw it, my jaw dropped on the floor,” Chu recalls, “This show spoke so deeply to me, a Chinese from the bay area, not Latino or from Washington Heights, and yet it felt so close to home, because I knew what it was like to be raised by not just your parents, but your aunties, uncles and neighbors.”