Lin-Manuel Miranda

Lin-Manuel Miranda says Andrew Garfield took a year to learn to sing and came out an amazing singer for the movie. A swimming-pool scene was in the shoot because Jonathan Larson would swim to get ideas and wrote a stream-of-consciousness song while doing laps. The production had three days in the actual pool Jonathan Larson swam in, in the village, with a stunt double and a special underwater photographer.

Lin-Manuel Miranda says he then found out Andrew Garfield is basically Michael Phelps, because Andrew Garfield's dad is a swim instructor. Andrew Garfield swam better than the stunt double. Lin-Manuel Miranda also says Martin Scorsese threw Andrew Garfield into the wild, and that Andrew G

Lin-Manuel Miranda says he saw Andrew Garfield in Angels in America, both parts, and treated the play as an endurance test. He did not know whether Andrew Garfield had a musical bone in his body, but the performance made him think Andrew Garfield could do anything.

Andrew Garfield and Lin-Manuel Miranda had exchanged an email or two, and Andrew Garfield was a fan of Hamilton. Lin-Manuel Miranda took him out to sushi, told him about the movie, and asked whether he could sing. Andrew Garfield asked when the movie was being made. Lin-Manuel Miranda said not for a year, and Andrew Garfield said that he could sing.

When Amy Poehler asks whether he has long arms, Andrew Garfield says he does not think that is any of her business. She says Lin-Manuel Miranda had mentioned particularly long swimmer's arms.

Lin-Manuel said that the song initially made him "burst into tears" and caused him to consider it much more critically than an ordinary pop song. He concluded that the song's wild introduction, featuring Mercury's "borderline insane" vocal gymnastics, masked David Bowie's powerfully emotional reprise at the conclusion of the song. That reprise appears to continually ascend a musical scale and clarifies that Under Pressure is about caring for people going through very difficult times on the "margins of society".