(Just kidding on that last one.
)Failing Uphits shelves March 27 and will be available as an audiobookvia Audibleon April 10.
Listen to an exclusive clip below, and read on for more from Odom.
Credit: Feiwel & Friends
But I took the meeting.
They had heard about the fact that I enjoy working with college kids.
So they said, What if you wrote a commencement address?
What if you wrote a book and we designed it like a commencement address?
And I said, Well, that I could do.
In the course of writing it, I really started thinking about graduation as a metaphor.
That was the first of many graduations: LeavingHamiltonwas a graduation in a lot of ways.
You graduate into your 30s.
I graduated into fatherhood recently.
It can bring up trepidation.
I just wanted to write something that would encourage people and inspire people during those moments.
Now, do I enjoy encouraging people?
Do I enjoy helping people like my mentors and teachers helped me?
As Burr, you asked Hamilton, How do you write like youre running out of time?
Is that refrain something that came back to you as you were working?Oh yeah.
[Laughs] I thought about [Lin-Manuel Miranda] a lot.
It was really my first experience being a writer since being a kid.
I was winning competitions, and the oratory got me involved in the arts.
I was being treated like a professional writer.
In the show we ask, Whydo you write like youre running out of time?
I knew very clearly that I was running out of time.
I had deadlines that I had to meet if I wanted this book to come out.
Here, youre faced with yourself and your own words.
There, I tell stories, and then I sing a song that relates to the story.
Some of this Ive found along the way, I found on the road.
What would you say is harder: performing an eight-show week or writing a book?Ha!
Writing a book is harder for sure.
Lin did the hardest thing.
The hardest thing aboutHamiltonwas the writing.
Day 1 of the rehearsal process, that was already done, so we already had something that worked.
There was an editing process.
Until opening night, it was always being fine-tuned and sharpened.
But yeah, writing.
The blank page and writing my own thing was way harder than speaking somebody elses words.
And that was hard enough, believe me.
You have a chapter aboutRentand its impact on your life.
It sounded like popular music popular music that was being made to work in the theatrical form.
Its a combination that, when it works, it can be tremendously impactful.
Because when you add a storytelling aspect to pop music, it just draws you in.
And Lin does it as well as anyones ever done it.
Jonathan Larson [the creator ofRent] did it really well too.Thats what drew me toRent.
…Theres probably as many different reasons people likeHamiltonas there are people.
But I will say its a well-made thing.
You find that it connects with little, little kids.
I expected teenagers; 3- and 4-year-olds I was not expecting, and 80- and 85-year-olds and senior citizens.
Its because of the storytelling.
Its so clear, its so understandable.
You wrote about thinking about quitting acting, and the self-examination around that.
Is there a job I can get as a suit in one of these places?
I know for sure that Im going to be able to pay my rent.
I was just really tired of not being able to count on that.
What about this scenario is going to change?
The truth is, none of it was going to change.
It really was [mentor Stuart K. Robinsons] advice that changed it all.
He said to me, Youre sitting at home, waiting for the phone to ring.
Did you call anyone?
Did you write anything?
It was at least half of my business that I was completely ignoring.
My life as a creative person I was completely ignoring, and that was what changed it.
You talk about that shifting perception and the effort you put in coming back to you twofold.
Then in the epilogue you address systemic and institutional racism.
I wrote my book from the bottom of my heart.
So I felt the need to mention that at the end.
Im really not trying to stand on some pulpit and tell people to pull themselves up by the bootstraps.
You know what I mean?
Theres still societal ills that we have to handle as a country, as a community.
Somebodys individual commitment to their own success does not absolve this country from the work it has to do.
More of myHamiltoncast mates were involved in it, and obviously its Lins first show.
The thing that I leftIn the Heightswith today is theres nothing more important than that.
I need to make more time to tell stories about where I come from.
Tell the stories about the people that I love.
I want to make more opportunity in my life to do that.
