Twisters’ Anthony Ramos: ‘We were shooting in the middle of tornado season – I was like, “What is happening?”’

The ‘Transformers’ star, who rose to fame in the original ‘Hamilton’ cast, tells Louis Chilton why ‘In the Heights’ had ‘won’ despite struggling at the box office, and why making a film about tornados during an extreme weather event was ‘crazy’

Anthony Ramos: ‘At the end of the day, it’s a blockbuster movie. People come to see some s*** get torn up' (Warner Bros)

Anthony Ramos leans over to show me what’s on his phone screen: the bird’s eye Google Maps outline of Stoke-sub-Hamdon in Somerset. “Look at this s***,” he says, eagerly. It is, explains the star of Broadway’s Hamilton, his go-to place in the UK, somewhere he used to visit with his ex. There’s something more than a bit incongruous about imagining Ramos putting his feet up in a sleepy West Country village with a population of just 1,358. Just a year ago, he was the face of a $200m blockbuster (Transformers: Rise of the Beasts); now he’s back in another one, Twisters.

Sitting next to me in the suite of an upmarket London hotel, Ramos looks every bit the modern movie star. He wears a sharp black jacket, a chain around his neck and his hair arrestingly slicked; his distinctive freckles are perhaps the only part of him that disobey a perfect symmetry. It is hard, perhaps, to pin down exactly what Ramos’s place in the industry is going to be, what cinematic nook he will make his own. In another universe, Ramos’s part in the 2021 New York-set rap musical In the Heights would have been a star-making turn. As plucky, self-made sweetheart Usnavi, Ramos seemed to ooze charm. But a screen musical is a hard sell at the best of times, and a combination of Covid and a day-and-date streaming release saw In the Heights fail to, well, reach them.

“Even at that time, the only movies really crushing were Fast and Furious, or Marvel,” Ramos says. “But I’m really proud of In the Heights. Obviously on the box office side, it didn’t do what everyone had hoped for. But when people tell me they love that film, and have watched it [repeatedly], I’m like, no – we won. We won.”

Ramos is more than just a song-and-dance man – a good job, too, given the job openings there are few and far between. He first came to the attention of people outside the theatre scene when he was cast as Lady Gaga’s friend in A Star is Born (2018); a main role in Netflix’s She’s Gotta Have It reboot series saw him collaborate with Spike Lee. In 2023’s Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, he proved apt as a lead in a blockbuster that, despite making more than $439m (£338m), largely went undiscussed. In Twisters, a modern re-invention of the 1996 disaster hit, he settles for a sort of third wheel, ruddering the film behind cinema’s suave man-of-the-moment Glen Powell, and Normal People’s Daisy Edgar-Jones, hardy but doe-eyed.

Ramos’s character Javi is an old friend of Edgar-Jones’s savant-like meteorologist, who draws her out of her desk job and back into a life of storm-chasing death defiance. Ramos originally vied for the Powell role, that of maverick “tornado wrangler” Tyler Owens, but says that he quickly gravitated towards Javi – originally written as Mason. Director Lee Isaac Chung (who was nominated for a Best Director Oscar in 2021 for the family drama Minari), sat down with the actor and went through every scene in the script, looking for ways to expand and complicate his character. “Isaac was super collaborative and amenable,” Ramos says. “We combed through every scene – boom, boom, boom, boom.”

The on-location shooting, in Oklahoma in 100-degree summer heat, brought its own challenges. “We would drive like two hours out to shoot somewhere, and stay in a small hotel, probably the one hotel in that town. We were really out there, bro,” he says. “We were in the middle of tornado season too. So not only were we shooting a movie about tornadoes, but there were really tornadoes happening. It was crazy. Rain, hail – hail, bro! In the summer! I’m like, ‘What is happening?’”

Where possible, Chung and co went for practical effects over CGI. “Bro, we were getting blasted with jet engines and s***,” Ramos laughs. Twisters feels in many ways like a throwback – a disaster movie with modest stakes, credible scale, and the kind of sweeping original score that has tragically fallen by the Hollywood wayside. “I think Twisters does a good job of [tackling larger themes] without it feeling like a meteorology class,” he says. “At the end of the day, it’s a blockbuster movie. People come to see some s*** get torn up, you know?”

Weather-beaten: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Anthony Ramos and Glen Powell in ‘Twisters’ (Universal Pictures)

Ramos gives long answers – over the course of our half-hour interview, I get in only a handful of questions. They don’t necessarily meander, but sort of zip around a topic in concentric circles, like a runner doing laps while leashed to a pole. He has a way of talking that comes right out of his childhood in Brooklyn, New York, – everything is usually “dope”, or “fire”. It’s easy to see what made him such an appealing prospect for Lin-Manuel Miranda, whose record-breaking musical Hamilton was a hip-hop-inspired, racially revisionist spin on US revolutionary history. In Hamilton, Ramos played dual roles, Alexander Hamilton’s eldest son Philip and his close friend John Laurens; In the Heights cemented his status as the perfect avatar for Miranda’s dextrous immigrant-centric lyricism.

I don’t want to be in a position where I just take jobs for the sake of a paycheque or whatever. I’ve done that. I’ve been on the job the entire time just wishing that I wasn’t there

Several times over the course of our conversation, Ramos refers to himself in the third person. “What I’m focused on is, what’s the next body of work? What is Anthony the artist doing?” he asks. Ramos is a man who seems to insist upon a clear and long-term vision, whether that’s movies, Broadway, or his side project as a musician. “I’m not shooting anything right now,” he says. “I probably could, but I’m not – because I haven’t found that thing that feels like the step up. I don’t necessarily believe that it’s like, ‘oh if this role isn’t as big as the last one, then you’re not taking a step forward. It’s really about, ‘who’s the next person you’re working with? Who’s the next dope director?’ And just building this portfolio: He only works with the best directors. He only does the dopest s***.” Ramos begins rhapsodising about another forthcoming project: Bob the Builder.

In the Jennifer Lopez-produced animation, Ramos will voice the popular children’s TV mascot. He’s excited, he says, about “taking a property that people have known for so many years and being able to make this feel like this is Anthony Ramos’s project”.

Anthony Ramos and Melissa Barrera in ‘In The Heights’ (Warner Bros)

“But, yeah,” he goes on. “I don’t want to be in a position where I just take jobs for the sake of a paycheque or whatever. I’ve done that. I’ve been on the job the entire time just wishing that I wasn’t there.” I ask if he’ll name the film he’s referring to. He grins and shakes his head.

Outside of film, Ramos is also a burgeoning music artist: he has released two albums as a singer-songwriter, 2019’s The Good & The Bad and 2021’s Love and Lies. While his film career has well and truly taken flight, his music (a mix of R&B and soul, with Latin and reggaeton influences) is, to borrow an American phrase, a whole other ball game. He deploys a video game-based metaphor to explain these various passions: while he has been charging one “stat bar” – for skill level – another may be lagging behind. “Sometimes it is tough, when you’re doing the other thing, to show people like, no, my s*** is fire,” he says confidently. “But I think that it comes with time too, right?”

What music does do, he says, is allow him to open up – about his personal life, about his fame – in a way that he doesn’t elsewhere. Last year’s single “Villano” (the Spanish word for “villain”) takes aim at some of the media coverage surrounding his breakup with his fiance, Hamilton co-star Jasmine Cephas Jones. When he was spotted at a nightclub with another woman in 2021, the American tabloids pounced. “We were single/ We were drunk”, he sings on the track, in apparent retort.

Founding fathers: Lin-Manuel Miranda and Anthony Ramos in ‘Hamilton' (Disney)

“When you reach a level of success in anything, then you have to accept what comes with that,” he muses. “I don’t know if I did before but I do now fully… I think that when I’m wrong it’s OK to say, ‘Yo, I’m wrong.’ But when you’re right, it’s ok to be like, ‘No, you’re wrong.’ And I’m right about this s***. Some people like to make statements about things or go on social media and address fans in that way. I’ve never really been that kind of person. The way I express myself is through my music.”

Now, with a bit of distance – and a new relationship, with Spanish singer-songwriter Eva Ruiz – Ramos says he is feeling “healed”. “This new body of music is me on the other side of all of that,” he says. And how grateful I am for not being in that place any more, and thanking God that I’ve had grace – from God, and just from people in my life. It’s been a blessing.”

Maybe it’s the confidence, but Ramos certainly has the air of a man who’s been blessed. Whether that’s by God or simply by the camera, I don’t know. But he just seems like he’s ready to make it – through rain, shine, or maybe even a tornado.

‘Twisters’ is in cinemas from 17 July