1991-present
Who Is Anthony Ramos?
Anthony Ramos is an American actor and singer who had his breakthrough role in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit Broadway musical Hamilton, in which he originated the dual role of John Laurens and Philip Hamilton in 2015. Ramos followed that performance with roles in Spike Lee’s television series She’s Gotta Have It and a supporting performance in the Bradley Cooper–directed film A Star is Born. Ramos has since been cast as lead in the film adaptation of Miranda’s musical In the Heights, as well as 2023’s Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. Ramos has also released several solo albums as a recording artist.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Anthony Paul Ramos Martinez
BORN: November 1, 1991
BIRTHPLACE: Brooklyn, New York
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Scorpio
Early Life
Anthony Paul Ramos Martinez was born on November 1, 1991, in Brooklyn, New York. Ramos, who is of Puerto Rican descent, grew up with his single mother, Mildred, and two siblings in a housing project in Bushwick, which was then a rough part of Brooklyn. The family often struggled financially. According to the book Hamilton: The Revolution, Ramos related to the line from a Hamilton song “My Shot” that said “See, I never thought I’d live past twenty,” because he said: “That’s how a lot of people in my neighborhood think. A lot of them didn’t live past 21.”
Ramos attended Halsey Junior High School, where he was active in sports and sang in a student group called The Halsey Trio, which performed songs by The Temptations and other Motown numbers at school assemblies. Ramos enjoyed performing recreationally from a young age, organizing brief improv scenes and singing songs privately for his family, though he never received vocal lessons as a child. He also recorded rap tracks on his personal computer using beats he downloaded using the file sharing software LimeWire.
Starting at age 10, Ramos played baseball and aspired to play on a NCAA Division III college team, and then become a professional coach. “I was planning my whole life around that vision,” Ramos said. While attending New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn, Ramos auditioned for a talent show and didn’t realize it was a musical until after receiving the lead role, according to Hamilton: The Revolution. He enjoyed it so much that he started shifting his focus from baseball to acting. “I just stopped showing up to games,” Ramos said of losing interest in baseball. “I had a moment on the field where I was like, ‘Yeah, this ain’t it.’ I didn’t belong there anymore.”
Early Career
After graduating high school in 2009, Ramos attended the American Musical Dramatic Academy (AMDA). Although his high school grades were poor and he couldn’t afford voice or acting lessons, Ramos got a scholarship after a high school teacher helped arrange an interview for him with the Jerry Seinfeld Scholarship Foundation. According to Hamilton: The Revolution, Ramos said during the interview: “All I need is one shot. All I need is someone to believe in me. And I won’t let you down. My grades are not a reflection of who I am.”
After graduating from AMDA’s musical theater program in 2011, Ramos attended auditions and landed occasional gigs but initially struggled as an actor, according to Hamilton: The Revolution. In 2012, he was cast in a supporting role in a Salt Lake City production of In the Heights, a musical by future Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda. However, he “bombed” an audition for the show’s national tour and wasn’t cast, according to The New York Times. He was “crushed” by the rejection, according to Hamilton: The Revolution.
Breakthrough on "Hamilton"
For the next few years, Ramos performed in regional productions and cruise-ship musicals, while also auditioning for parts on commercials, but he was having trouble generating much name recognition. By 2014, Ramos was performing in Hearts and Lights, a dance show with The Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. That show was canceled during previews, but according to Hamilton: The Revolution, a casting agent who watched Ramos audition for another show soon after suggested he try out for an off-Broadway production called Hamilton, Miranda’s hip-hop musical about the life of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton.
Ramos was cast in the dual role of revolutionary John Laurens and Hamilton’s eldest child Philip Hamilton. At age 24, Ramos was the youngest member of the original Hamilton cast, according to Hamilton: The Revolution. In that book, Miranda wrote that Anthony imbued both his characters with “an awareness of the randomness” of who survives and who doesn’t and said Ramos has “seen a lot of things that he wishes he hadn’t seen.” Hamilton premiered on Broadway on August 6, 2015, and became a phenomenal success. Ramos drew particular praise from President Barack Obama, who saw the show in July 2015 and told Ramos afterward, “You’re really gifted,” according to Hamilton: The Revolution.
Ramos appeared on the original Broadway cast recording of Hamilton, which was released as an album in September 2015, and earned Ramos and his castmates a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. Along with the rest of the original cast, Ramos also performed in a handful of June 2016 performances of Hamilton, which were turned into a film version of the musical that was released on the streaming service Disney+ in July 2020. For that film, Ramos received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie. Ramos left the Hamilton cast on November 20, 2016.
Movies and TV Shows
The year after leaving Hamilton, Ramos partnered once again with Miranda as a vocalist on “Almost Like Praying,” a song written by Miranda to help raise funds for Hurricane Maria relief efforts in Puerto Rico. Ramos appeared in his first major post-Hamilton role in the Netflix comedy-drama series She’s Gotta Have It, Spike Lee’s remake of his original 1986 film. Ramos played Mars Blackmon, a role Lee originated in the movie version. She’s Gotta Have It ran for two seasons from November 2017 to May 2019. Ramos also made several guest appearances in the 2017 revival of the NBC sitcom Will & Grace, portraying the assistant of Debra Messing’s character Grace.
In 2018, Ramos appeared in a supporting role in the Bradley Cooper–directed A Star is Born, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Ramos portrayed Ramon, the best friend of protagonist Ally Maine, played by Lady Gaga. Ramos mailed audition tapes to Cooper for the role and then flew out for a final audition with the full cast despite being scheduled to perform in a concert later that same day. Ramos said: “There was something inside of me that was like, ‘This movie could be the opportunity of a lifetime. It’s worth taking a chance.’” For the film, Ramos and the rest of the cast were nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.
Music Career
Even as his acting opportunities were growing, Ramos continued to pursue a career as a recording artist. His solo EP debut, The Freedom EP, was released in January 2018. It was inspired by shock and outrage following the 2016 election of President Donald Trump. Ramos said of writing it: “Am I going to sit there and have the mentality of ‘Whatever happens, happens?’ There was so much to write about, that to not do something almost felt like a crime.”
Ramos signed with Republic Records in June 2019 and released his debut full-length album The Good & The Bad that October. It debuted at No. 21 on the Billboard Heatseekers Albums chart. Ramos released his second album with Republic Records, Love and Lies, in June 2021. Rolling Stone wrote that Ramos was “setting his sights on full-on pop stardom” with the album, adding: “Even if Ramos is still finding his groove as a pop star, Love and Liesis a promising step in the right direction.”
Leading Man Roles
Ramos was cast in the lead role of In the Heights (2021), the Jon M. Chu–directed film adaptation of Miranda’s Broadway musical. Ramos portrayed Usnavi, the owner of a bodega in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. Miranda was inspired to cast Ramos after watching him play Usnavi as an understudy in a 2018 production of In the Heights at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. Chu wanted a lesser-known actor for the part, but Miranda urged Chu to meet with Ramos, and the director agreed to cast him after their meeting. Ramos almost had to turn down the part due to a conflicting film role, but Chu convinced the producers to reschedule the filming to accommodate Ramos.
Ramos called In the Heights “the most authentic, dope, New York, Latino moment in history” and said “this was the first musical I’ve ever seen where I was like, ‘I know all of those people.’” In the Heights was released in June 2021, simultaneously on theaters and the HBO Max (now Max) streaming service, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a box-office failure, but the film and Ramos’ performance earned positive reviews. Esther Zuckerman of Thrillist wrote that Ramos “instantly secures his future as a leading man” onscreen, and New York Post critic Johnny Oleksinski said Ramos had “proven himself a bona fide leading man.” Additionally, Ramos received a Golden Globe nomination.
Proving those critics’ words true, Ramos stars in big-budget blockbuster Transformers: Rise of the Beasts as ex-soldier Noah Diaz who’s trying to support his family in Brooklyn. The seventh installment in the popular Transformers film series, Rise of the Beasts releases on June 9, 2023. Ramos has also been cast as a supervillain known as The Hood in the upcoming Marvel television series Ironheart, which will premiere on Disney+ in 2024. Additionally, Ramos will appear in the upcoming film Twisters, a sequel to the hit 1996 movie Twister, which starred Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt.
Personal Life
Ramos was previously engaged to actor Jasmine Cephas Jones, who originated the dual roles of Peggy Schuyler and Maria Reynolds on Hamilton. Ramos and Cephas Jones met during Hamilton rehearsals, during which Miranda noted the actors “couldn’t keep their eyes off each other.” They began dating in February 2015 and got engaged on Christmas Eve in 2018. In November 2021, news broke that Ramos and Cephas Jones had ended their engagement and were no longer together.
Quotes
- I’ve fought for things in life. I learned how to grind and hustle, but I was never a kid who was ready to fight all the time, you know what I’m saying?
- The work ethic wasn’t always there, you know? I’d be lying to you if I said I was always a hard worker.
- I get in a studio, I’m hungry. You know I’m writing like I’m never going to be able to write a song again. You get a million dollars, you know that could go tomorrow.
- I had teachers tell me, “Grow your hair out, change the way you speak, so you can be more ethnically ambiguous.” And I was like, “Why do I need to be ethnically ambiguous? Why can’t I just be Puerto Rican?”
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Colin McEvoy joined the Biography.com staff in 2023, and before that had spent 16 years as a journalist, writer, and communications professional. He is the author of two true crime books: Love Me or Else and Fatal Jealousy. He is also an avid film buff, reader, and lover of great stories.
