ABC/Heidi Gutman(LOS ANGELES) — Lin-Manuel Miranda said he never dreamed he would be nominated for an Oscar. But his psychologist mother, Dr. Luz Towns-Miranda, predicted it.
“My mom always said, ‘When you get nominated…I’m your date,’” Miranda, 37, told ABC News’ Chris Connelly Monday at the annual Oscar nominees’ luncheon. “I think she said it to me when I was 13 years old.”
Now that Miranda has been nominated for the song “How Far I’ll Go,” featured in the animated film Moana, his mom will be by his side at the 89th Academy Awards.
“I’m very happy to keep my word to her,” said Miranda, who described himself as a “big Oscar dork” who used to memorize Billy Crystal’s opening Oscars monologues as a kid.
Miranda, a Tony, Emmy, and Grammy winner for Hamilton, said he retreated to the New York home of his mom and his dad, Luis A. Miranda Jr., in order to write “How Far I’ll Go,” sung by the movie’s heroine — a young girl on a Polynesian island who sets out on an adventure.
“I actually went to my parents’ house, locked myself there overnight and wrote the song,” he said. “I wanted to get in touch with that 16-year-old me who wanted a life in the movies, and in theater, and the distance between 200th street and that is so impossibly far.”
Miranda is currently filming the movie musical Mary Poppins Returns in London so he flew to Los Angeles to attend the Oscars luncheon with his mom before flying back to London to continue filming.
The 89th Academy Awards, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, will be broadcast Feb. 26 at 7 p.m. ET on ABC.
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