Lin-Manuel Miranda fell in love with musicals during his school years

Lin-Manuel told The Times newspaper: "The thing about school plays is you cannot hire, fire or pay anyone involved. So your job is to make the thing as fun as f****** possible."

Asked if he sees himself as a standard bearer for musical theatre, Lin-Manuel replied: "When Steve Sondheim passed away I think I probably doubled the number of letters from young writers I responded to because I was like, 'S***, our encourager-in-chief isn't here any more.'"

Despite this, Lin-Manuel acknowledged that some of his own family members aren't musical fans.

He said: "I have a couple in my family. It's because they didn't grow up with it and they just don't understand the leap from speech to song.

"Other people associate it with a kind of earnestness that they wouldn't be caught dead liking. I would direct them to watch 'All That Jazz' by Bob Fosse - there are plenty of cynical musicals."

Lin-Manuel made his feature directorial debut with 'Tick, Tick... Boom!' in 2021.

The actor would love to helm another film one day, but he's reluctant to lead a big-budget production.

He said: "I'm watching my friend Tommy Kail direct the live-action 'Moana' and he's doing an incredible job but, man, he has a lot of meetings about effects and water. That's not interesting to me.

"I just want to work with actors and sing and dance in a room."