--- title: Hamilton Broadway's Daveed Diggs Talks Thomas Jefferson description: The actor discusses history on the 273rd anniversary of the politician’s birth canonical: https://time.com/4287773/hamilton-daveed-diggs-jefferson/ author: ashley Ross article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-04-13T14:30:20.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T16:36:23.469Z article:section: History og:title: Daveed Diggs of 'Hamilton' Talks Thomas Jefferson's Troubling Legacy og:description: The actor discusses history on the 273rd anniversary of the politician’s birth og:url: https://time.com/4287773/hamilton-daveed-diggs-jefferson/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4c234a22202b487a/69888e80428a9e0c20cd226f/jefferson-diggs.jpg?branch=production&width=1158&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1158 og:image:height: 651 og:image:alt: Thomas Jefferson Daveed Diggs og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Daveed Diggs of 'Hamilton' Talks Thomas Jefferson's Troubling Legacy twitter:description: The actor discusses history on the 273rd anniversary of the politician’s birth twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4c234a22202b487a/69888e80428a9e0c20cd226f/jefferson-diggs.jpg?branch=production&width=1158&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # _Hamilton_’s Daveed Diggs Talks Thomas Jefferson's Troubling Legacy > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. by [ashley Ross](https://time.com/author/ashley-ross/) ## ashley Ross Apr 13, 2016 2:30 PM UTC  Daveed Diggs, who plays Thomas Jefferson on Broadway (L), and an illustration of Thomas Jefferson (R) Daveed Diggs, who plays Thomas Jefferson on Broadway (L), and an illustration of Thomas Jefferson (R) Walter McBride—WireImage / Getty Images (Diggs) and Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images (Jefferson) by [ashley Ross](https://time.com/author/ashley-ross/) ## ashley Ross Apr 13, 2016 2:30 PM UTC When Daveed Diggs walks down the street in New York City these days, he often gets recognized as someone very particular: Thomas Jefferson. The actor and rap artist plays the founding father—as well as the Marquis de Lafayette—in Broadway’s record-shattering [_Hamilton,_](http://time.com/4210440/jefferson-hamilton-excerpt/?iid=sr-link1) eight times a week. As a result, he says, fans often think of him as if he were [Jefferson](http://time.com/3770987/thomas-jefferson-almost-wasnt-president/?iid=sr-link2)’s modern-day persona. “I think people understand I’m not actually the real Thomas Jefferson,” he tells TIME, with a laugh, but Jefferson is still a complicated person with whom to be associated. Diggs grew up in California, son of a white, Jewish mother and an African-American father. Meanwhile, Jefferson was a Virginian elite who was one of the most important men in the shaping of the United States but who also owned slaves—who, most historians now agree, included some of his own children. (The song “[What’d I Miss](http://genius.com/7859995)” contains a brief reference to this history: the “Sally” whom Jefferson asks to open a letter for him would have been [Sally Hemings.](http://books.wwnorton.com/books/978-0-393-06477-3/)) “It’s tricky with Jefferson because there are so many things about him that I disagree with,” Diggs says. “I think if you embrace all of his contradictions, you can end up with a lot of things about him that are great—but you still have to remember that he was a slave owner.” [_Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter_](http://time.com/newsletter) Doing justice to both sides of Jefferson’s legacy, while also creating a contemporary character out of one of the most famous men in American history, was just one of the reasons why it was helpful to have historian Ron Chernow—whose biography of Alexander Hamilton is the show’s source material—on stand-by. “We had Ron in the room most of the time, which was incredible,” Diggs says. “We’d be like, ‘So, if I do this thing with the character does that ruin history or is it, like, a fair adaptation?’” But director Thomas Kail also told the cast, Diggs says, not to make their character interpretations into a book report. “We were to use what was useful in terms of telling this version of the story,” he says, “and the way that we made \[Jefferson\] function in the show is to make him incredibly charismatic.” **_Read more:_** [_What We’re Still Getting Wrong about Thomas Jefferson_](http://time.com/4286660/thomas-jefferson-book-annette-gordon-reed/) Diggs’ version of Jefferson is more than just charismatic—he’s flamboyant and funny and,[ as TIME’s review put it ](http://time.com/3995802/in-hamilton-a-founding-father-raps-his-way-into-broadway-history/)“a scheming dandy.” “History is about who tells it, and I feel like I’ve been given this opportunity to like, re-imagine and retell the story,” Diggs says. It’s not lost on him that he’s making the audience fall in love with a guy who, in his words, “is really pretty sh—ty.” Still, he says, the end result is worth it if it inspires viewers to think twice about what they learned in school: “I think it’s cool that the association of all of us in this particular production with these characters gives audiences a reason to learn more about them.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4287773/hamilton-daveed-diggs-jefferson/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4287773/hamilton-daveed-diggs-jefferson/"},"headline":"Hamilton’s Daveed Diggs Talks Thomas Jefferson's Troubling Legacy","datePublished":"2016-04-13T14:30:20.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T16:36:23.469Z","description":"The actor discusses history on the 273rd anniversary of the politician’s birth","url":"https://time.com/4287773/hamilton-daveed-diggs-jefferson/","keywords":["Holidays","Theater"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4c234a22202b487a/69888e80428a9e0c20cd226f/jefferson-diggs.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"ashley Ross","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/ashley-ross/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4c234a22202b487a/69888e80428a9e0c20cd226f/jefferson-diggs.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Thomas Jefferson Daveed Diggs","caption":"Thomas Jefferson Daveed Diggs","creditText":"Walter McBride—WireImage / Getty Images (Diggs) and Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images (Jefferson)","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4287773/hamilton-daveed-diggs-jefferson/","name":"Hamilton’s Daveed Diggs Talks Thomas Jefferson's Troubling Legacy"}}]}] ```