The Force Awakens: Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda and JJ Abrams Collaborated on

Through a collaboration with Star Wars: The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams, he put that knowledge to good use.

In A New Hope, the cantina scene – set in Chalmun’s cantina in the Tatooine city of Mos Eisley – is the setting of fights and new alliances in the original Star Wars.

On last night’s TONIGHT SHOW, director J.J. Abrams let the cat out of the bag that Hamilton creator and star, Lin-Manuel Miranda agreed to compose part of the score for the new STAR WARS film, following a chance meeting at the hit Broadway show. It started at Hamilton’s intermission, where Abrams was seeing the show with his son, when Miranda approached Abrams and joked that he’d be interested in writing the music for the movie’s cantina scene.

“So I end up e-mailing Lin Miranda and I say, ‘I know you were kidding, but if you actually want to write this music, I’m actually working on something.’ And he said, ‘I’ll drop everything!'” Abrams explained to Fallon that composer John Williams said he would “rather not write the music for that scene”. In fact, when word got out that Miranda co-wrote Star Wars music, it spawned a Twitter trend called #Force4Ham which paired Star Wars images with Hamilton lyrics.

Abrams and Miranda sent back and forth music files, which included Miranda singing and playing instruments. Abrams said he’d actually just collaborated with Miranda after seeing Hamilton with his son.