I think I learned more about writing scores for Broadway by making mix tapes in the '90s than I did in college. You're learning about rise and fall and energy and tempo shifts. You're showing off your taste and your references. You're trying to be witty by - through placement of music you didn't write.

I have been working on this movie [Moana] since before Hamilton happened.

If you know the voice you're writing for it's such a shortcut. It's such a catalyst to creating the kind of energy you want.

I loved musicals. I loved being in the school play and being lucky enough to get parts in the school play. But they always took place in some other time and place.

I just remembered when I was an adolescent girl wanting to leave my island and find my calling.

I went to a school where everyone was smarter than me. And I'm not blowin' smoke, I, my, I was surrounded by genius, genius kids. What's interesting about growing up in a culture like that is you go, "All right, I gotta figure out what my thing is. Because I'm not smarter than these kids. I'm not funnier than half of them, so I better figure out what it is I wanna do and work really hard at that because intellectually I'm treading water to, to be here."

I probably shouldn't brag, but dag I amaze and astonish.