Director J.J. Abrams revealed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last night that there is a cantina sequence in the new Star Wars movie, but the music played there won’t be written by John Williams. Instead, the music was written by Abrams with Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of the hit Broadway show Hamilton.
Abrams explained that he met Miranda backstage during the intermission of a performance of Hamilton. Miranda told the director that he actually would want to write cantina band music, so Abrams should contact him.
It turns out that Abrams was planning on a cantina scene, but Williams didn’t want to write the music for it. So, he emailed Miranda about it and dropped everything to collaborate.
After the interview aired, Miranda confirmed on Twitter that everything Abrams said is true. He wrote that he worked on the music between shows over the past two months.
Coincidentally, Miranda is also working with Disney on Moana, co-writing the music for that animated film.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens on Dec. 18.