How Lin-Manuel Miranda Composed the Perfect Love Story

But his wooing skills left much to be desired. Though Nadal joined Miranda and his friends for drinks after the show, “It was a huge group so he didn’t talk to me the whole night,” she recalled. “I didn’t think he was interested in me.”

As he mentioned, he has no game. “If she’d just paid attention, she would have known from my darting, furtive glances,” he explained to the Times. Too shy to get her number, he tasked a friend with snagging it and worked up the nerve to ask her back to a second performance. And after spending that evening watching her easily socialize with his collection of rapper, artist and dancer friends once more, he found himself standing with Nadal on a street corner contemplating his next move. 

Cars whizzed past, sparking Nadal to remark that it felt like her favorite video game, Grand Theft Auto, a hobby that Miranda also enjoyed. Suddenly inspired, he recalled, “I very coolly said, ‘All right, you’re going to come over to my house tonight, and we’re going to play Grand Theft Auto and watch the Jay-Z movie and listen to Marc Anthony.'”