Speaker 3: From CurtCo Media there's no place like Hollywood.
Jenny Curtis: Welcome to another very special episode of Hollywood Unscripted: Stuck
Jenny Curtis: at Home. I'm Jenny Curtis and today I am incredibly
Jenny Curtis: excited to be virtually sitting down with visionary director Julie Taymor.
Jenny Curtis: Julie creates thrilling explorations across a wide variety of mediums.
Jenny Curtis: She's the force behind the groundbreaking Broadway adaptation of The
Jenny Curtis: Lion King which debuted in 1997 and has achieved the
Jenny Curtis: largest worldwide box office gross ever across any entertainment form.
Jenny Curtis: It's amazing. Her films include Across The Universe, Frida, the
Jenny Curtis: Shakespeare films Titus and The Tempest and now the Gloria
Jenny Curtis: Steinem biopic The Glorias. Welcome Julie. Thank you so much
Jenny Curtis: for joining me today. Happy to be here. Thank you.
Jenny Curtis: Our specials of our show are called Hollywood Unscripted: Stuck
Jenny Curtis: at Home, because we're all obviously stuck at home and
Jenny Curtis: as an artist who thrives on connection, What has the
Jenny Curtis: pandemic been like for you?
Julie Taymor: I left New York City in March and haven't been
Julie Taymor: back and I've been in the country and being in
Julie Taymor: the country allows me to be isolated with Elliott. My
Julie Taymor: other half was the composer who I lived with for
Julie Taymor: thirty five years and we take enormously long walks with
Julie Taymor: our dog and have fresh air and he just finished
Julie Taymor: the glorious soundtrack last night and I'm working on two
Julie Taymor: other scripts both for film and one for film and
Julie Taymor: theater so that I can do you know I don't
Julie Taymor: have to be in rehearsal or on set. So a
Julie Taymor: lot of it is doing press for the glorious and
Julie Taymor: working on future projects.
Speaker 6: The Glorias is based on the Gloria Steinem autobiography My
Speaker 6: Life on the road. Can you take us through the
Speaker 6: genesis of the project. I know it took some time
Speaker 6: to get off the ground.
Speaker 7: I was given the book by one of my best
Speaker 7: friends when I was in to loom in Mexico on
Speaker 7: the beach. So she just said oh you have to
Speaker 7: read this now OK. And I got the book I
Speaker 7: knew Gloria Steinem but not well and I was just
Speaker 7: totally taken with her writing the stories. I had no
Speaker 7: idea what her early life was like. There are things
Speaker 7: in her life that are similar to mine go on
Speaker 7: 20 years younger so I could identify with what she
Speaker 7: went through. But she is going through my mother is
Speaker 7: very political. She was chairwoman and ran for state representative
Speaker 7: and started programs in Massachusetts to get women involved in
Speaker 7: politics and she wrote a book called Running against the wind.
Speaker 7: So I've dedicated Scooby Doo cheese ninety nine point nine.
Speaker 7: She's seen the film five times and loves it says
Speaker 7: is my best film.
Speaker 8: So there were things about it that I was familiar
Speaker 8: with but I didn't think it was cinematic. Her book
Speaker 8: I thought it was all over the map in a
Speaker 8: good way a road book and I thought well you
Speaker 8: know what I can't get it out of my mind
Speaker 8: and it's probably because her early life with her father
Speaker 8: and her mother that felt cinematic that felt like these
Speaker 8: relationships the emotional through line of that. And then the
Speaker 8: whole idea that travel is the best education. I love
Speaker 8: that notion of her journeys of a life on the road.
Speaker 8: So I thought about it. I asked Gloria if I
Speaker 8: could have the rights and she thought I was out
Speaker 8: of my mind because it's so not a movie. It's
Speaker 8: you know it doesn't have any dramatic through line it's
Speaker 8: journeys all over the place. It's taxi rides it's canvassing
Speaker 8: for this senator or starting a magazine. But no linear story.
Speaker 8: And I said Well let me just go to it.
Speaker 8: Let me try. So I had the rights and then
Speaker 8: I tried to think of how to do this.
Speaker 9: And I came up with the notion first of all
Speaker 9: that there would be for Gloria's at least a six
Speaker 9: year old or 12 year old Elise to kind of
Speaker 9: place 20 to 40. Julianne Moore plays 40 to 80
Speaker 9: and that instead of having it move along you know
Speaker 9: from young to old 80 years of this woman's life
Speaker 9: I would have them all gathered together on this bus
Speaker 9: that I call a bus out of time. And the
Speaker 9: Greyhound bus in America is such an archetypal image of
Speaker 9: journey of travel across the country. So this was the
Speaker 9: structure upon which I hung all these disparate stories these
Speaker 9: disparate events of her life somehow getting on that bus
Speaker 9: it's black and white and moving through the landscapes even
Speaker 9: abstract landscapes keeps the through line going that it's forever
Speaker 9: travelling to the next march on Washington. How many did
Speaker 9: you go to to the next conference in a city
Speaker 9: on women's rights to the next speech she might be
Speaker 9: giving to a university to the next talking circle and
Speaker 9: a women's group in San Francisco. So this bus was
Speaker 9: the glue. It was the in musical terms the leitmotif.
Speaker 10: I like to call it the bus out of time
Speaker 10: I have it written down as the bus of life.
Speaker 10: Yours is better when you landed upon that idea. How
Speaker 10: did you find it. Is it like a light bulb
Speaker 10: where suddenly everything clicks or did it develop slowly.
Speaker 9: Well I do this in theater and film as a designer.
Speaker 9: You're trained to do this and as a director I
Speaker 9: also do it with actors and I'll give the Lion
Speaker 9: King as an example because have you ever seen it
Speaker 9: on Broadway. Did you ever see the light. OK. So
Speaker 9: a lot of people out there have and when I
Speaker 9: was working on that and knowing that I didn't want
Speaker 9: to put up a carbon copy of the movie I
Speaker 9: thought about what is the main idea graph. It's like
Speaker 9: in Chinese brush paintings or Japanese brush paintings they have
Speaker 9: three strokes to represent an entire bamboo forest just it's
Speaker 9: an abstraction that culling down to an essential concept or image.
Speaker 9: And in the Lion King It's the circle. It's obvious
Speaker 9: the circle of life is the first song the sun
Speaker 9: rises which is round with forces head mask has this
Speaker 9: circular bamboo framing around it the wheels of the gazelle
Speaker 9: will move in circles the way that pride rocks circles
Speaker 9: up out the set designer. He took that idea of
Speaker 9: the circle and that's how the mountain comes out of
Speaker 9: the hole in the ground. So that's easy. Midsummer Night's
Speaker 9: Dream in my film and theater piece. It was the
Speaker 9: bed the sheets they kept becoming various things in the
Speaker 9: play because that's where we dream the glorious. It became
Speaker 9: the bus the bus on a road a highway with
Speaker 9: the yellow slash lines.
Speaker 11: That's the recurring image.
Speaker 9: And so it's symbolic but it's also real at the
Speaker 9: same time the motion the movement that sometimes there's one
Speaker 9: Gloria by herself sometimes two or four and sometimes there's
Speaker 9: a whole bus filled with women who hate.
Speaker 5: Gloria Steinem I want to say that this film is
Speaker 5: so desperately needed right now but in truth it's desperately
Speaker 5: needed always and that's kind of the point of the
Speaker 5: movie and the point that Gloria is always making that
Speaker 5: the challenges she tackles persist and come back to them
Speaker 5: over and over and over again. But what does it
Speaker 5: mean to have this film coming out at this time
Speaker 5: of turmoil.
Speaker 8: When we started the movie which was before the election
Speaker 8: four years ago it was going to be a celebration
Speaker 8: of the first female president. Of course even shot Election
Speaker 8: Night at Samantha Powers apartment with Madeleine Albright Gloria Steinem
Speaker 8: and 40 female ambassadors. But it was such depressing footage
Speaker 8: that I didn't use it was just awful. The room sagged.
Speaker 8: Now right before this election I mean we had our
Speaker 8: premiere at Sundance. That was thrilling a thousand people got
Speaker 8: to see it CHEERING standing ovations all of that were
Speaker 8: desperately sad that it's not in movie theaters but we
Speaker 8: had a choice to postpone the wide opening or stream
Speaker 8: and we chose streaming because it's necessary before the election
Speaker 8: at least a month before we said that people before
Speaker 8: they vote. And also to inspire people to register and vote.
Speaker 8: We had planned to be on a Greyhound bus travelling
Speaker 8: through the swing states. Now Gloria and myself and a
Speaker 8: lot of the actors and other women presenting the film
Speaker 8: to groups and having talking circles and really talking about
Speaker 8: what choice means like a big part of the film
Speaker 8: and feels more relevant since the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Speaker 8: We know that Roe v. Wade is on the chopping block.
Speaker 8: If the Supreme Court is more conservative and young men
Speaker 8: and women really have to know how hard that law
Speaker 8: was fought for choice as you see in the movie
Speaker 8: in that scene between Dolores Huerta and Gloria at the
Speaker 8: Women's Conference doors where there was totally a right to
Speaker 8: life for an anti abortion she's Catholic she had 10
Speaker 8: kids but she comes to a point where she realizes
Speaker 8: that if the government isn't responsible to helping these women
Speaker 8: who have birth after birth who's going to take care
Speaker 8: of them who's taking care of the woman and the
Speaker 8: child and if the government is forcing women who do
Speaker 8: not want to give birth at that time there has
Speaker 8: to be a law where a woman carries a baby
Speaker 8: for nine months OK. The father of the baby takes
Speaker 8: care of the baby for the next nine months. That
Speaker 8: has to be some equality there. A woman shouldn't be
Speaker 8: punished if she doesn't want to stop her life at
Speaker 8: that moment because other people are governing her body and
Speaker 8: her choice. That's just one aspect it's the Equal Rights Amendment.
Speaker 8: We haven't passed that yet. We have to realize that
Speaker 8: more than the presidency the Supreme Court has ultimate rule
Speaker 8: over the future of people's lives. But I would say
Speaker 8: I'm really concerned about young people who really have a
Speaker 8: future and they haven't voted yet a No vote is
Speaker 8: a vote that's just it. And they have to realize
Speaker 8: because you don't think Biden is all that Hoxie tortilla
Speaker 8: or whatever vote against Trump everything Obama put in it
Speaker 8: is now gone. We've gone backwards as far as racial equality.
Speaker 8: Female equality and a proper future for this country the
Speaker 8: United States. Well now it's not it's the divided states
Speaker 8: and that's the way he's playing it. So yeah I
Speaker 8: think unfortunately the movie is more important now than it
Speaker 8: would have been if we were just out there celebrating
Speaker 8: Hillary Clinton. It's historical but it's fun. Did you find
Speaker 8: it entertaining. I mean I hope it is.
Speaker 5: Oh I loved it. Yeah. By the end I was
Speaker 5: full sobbing.
Speaker 8: So I've been surprised at all the men I know
Speaker 8: who are more emotionally move than women I know because
Speaker 8: this is about women working together. This is important to me.
Speaker 8: Women supporting women on television on ethics. All these stations
Speaker 8: there's way too many feuds as we call them there's
Speaker 8: too much cat fights there's too much drama made out
Speaker 8: of women competing with each other for attention jobs men.
Speaker 8: This is not about that. Phyllis Schlafly is in our
Speaker 8: movie but is the real woman. We have documentary footage.
Speaker 8: I didn't want to make it about that because the
Speaker 8: best part of Gloria Steinem and all those great women
Speaker 8: is that they love being together back to the love
Speaker 8: story they love what they were trying to do they succeeded.
Speaker 8: They had fun. They have humor. And that's a big
Speaker 8: part of it.
Speaker 5: At the time of this recording we are less than
Speaker 5: a week after Ruth Bader Ginsburg passing and there is
Speaker 5: a universal mourning but I think this is so powerful
Speaker 5: because it reminds not only all women but young people
Speaker 5: especially that there are still amazing women to look up
Speaker 5: to and follow their lead. But like you said they
Speaker 5: have to be paying attention. How do you think this
Speaker 5: film will get to the younger audience and do you
Speaker 5: think it will inspire them to change or act.
Speaker 8: Well it gets to it by people like you. Programs
Speaker 8: like this you know we don't have gobs of money
Speaker 8: we're not a big Hollywood film. So it's not going
Speaker 8: to be through that kind of marketing it's going to
Speaker 8: be through social media and our full out trailer came
Speaker 8: out yesterday. So we had a teaser for a couple
Speaker 8: weeks and now there's a trailer and hopefully you see
Speaker 8: actors that you love. You know whether it's Julianne Moore
Speaker 8: and Alicia Vikander Janelle Monae Bette Midler Lorraine to song
Speaker 8: you know they're fantastic actors. I'm so proud of them
Speaker 8: in this film. But it's an entertaining film and you
Speaker 8: can see that from the trailer. I hope so. I
Speaker 8: don't find a whole lot out there to see I
Speaker 8: like to watch television streaming but I don't see a
Speaker 8: whole lot of stuff that's gripping me right now except
Speaker 8: documentaries frankly. And so as a drama I want to
Speaker 8: be moved and I want to be inspired. You talk
Speaker 8: about Ruth Bader Ginsburg without people like the women in
Speaker 8: my movie. And it's not just Gloria it's what's called
Speaker 8: Gloria's without them making their voices loud for all the
Speaker 8: voiceless people. Ruth wouldn't have heard the call I shouldn't
Speaker 8: say Ruth I should really say Justice Ginsburg for respect.
Speaker 8: But she heard it and then the laws were changed
Speaker 8: so the power is in the voice that's out there
Speaker 8: marching writing calling and we have to be so careful
Speaker 8: that it's not perverted by Trump and his team to
Speaker 8: say oh it's angry and socialistic and violent.
Speaker 12: The violence is not coming from the peaceful Black Lives
Speaker 12: Matter movement. Not at all.
Speaker 11: So don't get suckered in to becoming violent because it
Speaker 11: will be used. It's what happened with the Black Panthers.
Speaker 11: They couldn't last as soon as they had the guns.
Speaker 11: William Barr the period of that time the Justice Department
Speaker 11: closed it down. And that will happen now. I mean
Speaker 11: when Trump said I didn't want to scare people about
Speaker 11: Kobe 19 I didn't want to cause a panic. I
Speaker 11: has no problem trying to cause a panic by saying
Speaker 11: they're going to come up and come into your neighborhoods
Speaker 11: and take your. He has no problem causing a panic.
Speaker 11: So I don't hear people saying that but that is
Speaker 11: his method of using terror to try and sway people
Speaker 11: to vote for him and using hatred is the playbook
Speaker 11: of all the dictators. And people are falling for it.
Speaker 13: So we really do need young people in particular to
Speaker 13: get out there and vote and to really make their
Speaker 13: voices heard.
Speaker 14: A moment of your time.
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Speaker 16: Rock climbing is that you can only focus on what's right.
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Speaker 5: And jump into the production side of the film. This
Speaker 5: was co-written by Sarah rule an amazing playwright. But she
Speaker 5: hasn't had much experience in film. So how did that
Speaker 5: collaboration come to be.
Speaker 11: Well I wanted someone who was good at emotional scenes
Speaker 11: and dialogue scenes. I had already started and I already
Speaker 11: had the concept of the bus out of time and
Speaker 11: knew that the sort of real flights of fancy I
Speaker 11: would read in there later because those are cinematic and
Speaker 11: that isn't really her bailiwick. But she read the book
Speaker 11: deeply like I did.
Speaker 8: We looked at all the documentary footage together and we
Speaker 8: pulled out the scenes that we thought were really worth
Speaker 8: elaborating on and writing. So it was a back and forth.
Speaker 8: And then at a certain point I needed to make
Speaker 8: it more cinematic. So I took over the last part
Speaker 8: and really put in my visual ideas and my crazy
Speaker 8: ideas into the script.
Speaker 5: What was the collaboration like with the real Gloria in
Speaker 5: this process.
Speaker 8: Well as she'll say if you ask. She just is
Speaker 8: like I trust you. Go ahead. She loved the idea
Speaker 8: of before Gloria. She said to me I don't understand.
Speaker 8: How did you come up with that idea. How did
Speaker 8: you know. And I said no. How did I know what.
Speaker 8: And she said that I often see my younger self
Speaker 8: or other self on a street corner or across the
Speaker 8: room and I think well what would they think if
Speaker 8: they knew what I know now. What would they have done.
Speaker 8: Well I feel empathy for them because later in other
Speaker 8: books she wrote something like that how she sees her
Speaker 8: other selves. I never read that book. So this was
Speaker 8: a wavelength that must have been on together. And she
Speaker 8: was always there when I would call her up. You
Speaker 8: know like the barbershop scene. That's not in any book.
Speaker 8: She told us that story because she always wanted to
Speaker 8: be a dancer. So she talked about how when she
Speaker 8: was twelve and her mother was really mentally unbalanced she
Speaker 8: had tap dance shoes I mean chiefs tap dancing anything
Speaker 8: she had the shoes and a mother couldn't stand the
Speaker 8: sound so she'd do it outside and a little girl
Speaker 8: came and invited her to a barbershop and gave her
Speaker 8: tap shoes and it's where you first see Gloria crossing
Speaker 8: the racial boundaries where she immediately very easily became friends
Speaker 8: with this young little girl. And Gloria was there to
Speaker 8: tell me stories that weren't in the books. And she
Speaker 8: also helped get Bette Midler. You know she thought it
Speaker 8: was a great idea to have bet she wrote the
Speaker 8: letter to janelle. She was an executive producer from a
Speaker 8: distance but she helped in those major points. And she
Speaker 8: also helped get the money for the film because we
Speaker 8: couldn't get it from Hollywood so she went to a
Speaker 8: not for profit organization who had the money and loved
Speaker 8: her and knew that if there was any money ever
Speaker 8: made from the sales of this film the recoupment would
Speaker 8: go to women's causes. Now that will not probably happen
Speaker 8: because we're streaming sadly but it's more important for them
Speaker 8: and for us that people are moved by the movie
Speaker 8: that they're really inspired so that's OK. And the other
Speaker 8: thing is she met with Julianne and Alisha in my
Speaker 8: apartment and answered their questions and they listen to her
Speaker 8: speech patterns and she was accessible.
Speaker 5: So Helen Mirren once talked about how you use all
Speaker 5: kind of elements to encourage a performance. And so I'm
Speaker 5: really wondering what did you use with Elise and Julianne
Speaker 5: to create Gloria with them and how did they connect
Speaker 5: over it.
Speaker 8: They're both formidable actresses who did their research listened to
Speaker 8: the tapes saw the documentaries we talked about the moments
Speaker 8: I think that most surreal moments where I had to
Speaker 8: coerce them basically I mean I had to explain to
Speaker 8: them that no this isn't real because these are actors
Speaker 8: who really are grounded and they like reality. And that
Speaker 8: sequence where we go into a tornado and the women
Speaker 8: or the three witches and all of that. I kept
Speaker 8: saying No I understand this isn't reality. This is an
Speaker 8: inner thought that I'm putting out there dimensionally. And that's
Speaker 8: one of these things that's very hard for anybody to
Speaker 8: know until they see it at the end because they
Speaker 8: don't see the tornado. They don't know when they're on
Speaker 8: a wire being a witch being thrown around in the
Speaker 8: studio that it's actually going to look okay or a
Speaker 8: Julianne Moore for instance had to run on a conveyor
Speaker 8: belt on a running machine. She had no image of
Speaker 8: the highways and the multiple Gloria's. So that's hard when
Speaker 8: you're a director and some of the work is actually
Speaker 8: not understood until the final product. They have to trust
Speaker 8: me so I can show them pictures and I can
Speaker 8: show them ideas but they need to feel grounded. It's
Speaker 8: giving them confidence that I know what I'm doing.
Speaker 5: Did they work together.
Speaker 17: No. They met with Gloria all at the same time
Speaker 17: but except for the scenes where they were on the
Speaker 17: bus together they never had scenes together and they had
Speaker 17: their own dialect coaches. So they really were concentrating on
Speaker 17: their part of being Gloria and I felt no reason
Speaker 17: to have them try to be similar. The unifying person
Speaker 17: is Gloria. That's the thing that connects them. So Alicia
Speaker 17: is different just like her younger self is different. Our
Speaker 17: six year old self is different. You have to see
Speaker 17: that you're not full blown Gloria Steinem with the streaks
Speaker 17: in the glasses and this magazine when you're six or
Speaker 17: when you're 22. That's why I love the scene where
Speaker 17: Alicia sits next to her on the bus later on
Speaker 17: and says Didn't you ever want to have children. And
Speaker 17: the older Gloria says no. And the young one says
Speaker 17: Oh yes I did. You know you may not remember
Speaker 17: but there was a point where maybe she didn't want
Speaker 17: and she just thought she'd have them because even the
Speaker 17: 12 year old says I'm going to have a house
Speaker 17: and three kids and a golden retriever and a ping
Speaker 17: pong table in my basement because that's what at that
Speaker 17: age in her life women were supposed to expect and
Speaker 17: nothing more. It's good enough. So I didn't feel the
Speaker 17: need that they should match each other and there was
Speaker 17: enough matching because the two women can look like the
Speaker 17: younger Gloria and the older Gloria. And then of course
Speaker 17: the hair.
Speaker 6: OK so if you were on the Julie's bus out
Speaker 6: of time.
Speaker 10: Oh God. What's the conversation you would be having with yourself.
Speaker 18: Well I've never thought of that such a good question.
Speaker 18: Which age.
Speaker 10: So there's the 20s Julie and the 40s Julie and
Speaker 10: then the now.
Speaker 19: JULIE Well I know what the eight year old Julie
Speaker 19: would say. I want to be a ice ballerina. Seventeen
Speaker 19: year old was interested in anthropology and travel. That's not
Speaker 19: dissimilar from doing what I'm doing now you know which
Speaker 19: is people. I'm an anthropologist mythology folklore shamanism those are
Speaker 19: things that I studied back then and I'm still reflecting.
Speaker 19: That's why Rafiq he became a woman. I look back
Speaker 19: at my 22 year old self in Indonesia and am
Speaker 19: astounded at certain bravery certain kinds of things I did
Speaker 19: certain foolhardy things as well like walking on the rim
Speaker 19: of a volcano that was erupting in Bali. I know
Speaker 19: I wouldn't do that now because I fell and had
Speaker 19: an accident. So I had blinders on for a lot
Speaker 19: of my career. I didn't see misogyny. I didn't see
Speaker 19: sexism if I let those things enter my view. I
Speaker 19: wouldn't have been able to get anything done. Now I
Speaker 19: am much more aware of that. So I have to
Speaker 19: remind myself now of what I did when I was younger.
Speaker 19: I don't feel wiser now. I feel a little bit
Speaker 19: more savvy and maybe cautious. So I have to remember
Speaker 19: the time I spent four years travelling in Indonesia and
Speaker 19: a theatre company I did all kinds of things I
Speaker 19: could never do. Now I have to remind myself how
Speaker 19: I did it. It's like when things are dark and
Speaker 19: difficult Spider-Man era was really the lowest point I go
Speaker 19: That's nothing. I was an Indonesian a volcano that was erupting.
Speaker 19: I was there where there was a tsunami where my
Speaker 19: theatre company was staying. I was there when I was
Speaker 19: the only white woman for four years and felt like
Speaker 19: an outsider but still did these things so for me
Speaker 19: I look back at my younger self and she tells
Speaker 19: me this ain't anything don't worry about it.
Speaker 20: It also helps me to have perspective on the United
Speaker 20: States because I've travelled and lived so much outside of
Speaker 20: this country and I feel that America is just too
Speaker 20: full of itself and that what's happening is it's getting
Speaker 20: a big slap in the face because the rest of
Speaker 20: the world is going what happened. You had the greatest
Speaker 20: democracy in the world and you're letting it go you know.
Speaker 5: So we're on the bus and we're looking back at
Speaker 5: your career. I want to briefly talk about Lion King
Speaker 5: because I know you've been talking about it for decades
Speaker 5: but it is such a major part of your legacy.
Speaker 5: You created a form of theatre that brought people to
Speaker 5: theatre who didn't care about theatre which is just amazing
Speaker 5: and mind blowing and you've launched so many more productions
Speaker 5: of it. And what is the Lion King to you.
Speaker 5: I guess it's the question.
Speaker 20: Well yes it's 25 years old now. Ninety million people
Speaker 20: have seen it on every continent but Antarctica. So the
Speaker 20: penguins they're not interested. But everybody else I've done versions
Speaker 20: in Mandarin in Shanghai and Portuguese in Brazil in Spanish
Speaker 20: in Spain and Mexico in all these languages we've done
Speaker 20: companies in the local language and changed the humor accordingly.
Speaker 8: It's also just another statistic. The most successful entertainment in
Speaker 8: the history of all entertainment not just theatre but including
Speaker 8: film television. So as a woman that's pretty awesome. You
Speaker 8: know people don't really know that but that's the truth
Speaker 8: more than Star Wars. We as women hate touting our
Speaker 8: whore tooting or whatever you say but we gotta get
Speaker 8: over that a bit because it does help other women
Speaker 8: to know that not only did I create something that
Speaker 8: was entertaining but that it was extremely successful.
Speaker 20: But I will say what it did is two major
Speaker 20: things for me which is it's given me freedom to
Speaker 20: do the projects that I want to do because I
Speaker 20: really have to be passionate about every project I have
Speaker 20: to it takes too much of my everything. Everything you
Speaker 20: know I don't have children I have Elliot who's my
Speaker 20: other half for 35 years happily unmarried and he's my
Speaker 20: main collaborator he's the composer. He won the Academy Award
Speaker 20: for Frida. He did most of the arrangements for across
Speaker 20: the universe and the score he's done all my theatre
Speaker 20: work except for Spider-Man and The Lion King we done
Speaker 20: opera and everything so I have tremendous freedom because Lion
Speaker 20: King is financially successful. But what is more important to
Speaker 20: me is the spiritual nature of that piece that it
Speaker 20: transcends cultural limitations and boundaries. I can go to Japan
Speaker 20: and because it's a coming of age story an archetypal
Speaker 20: story that every culture has which is the coming of
Speaker 20: age of a young man. Mostly though I did make
Speaker 20: not part. Much more important in the Broadway show as
Speaker 20: opposed to the movies. I think that this is the
Speaker 20: connecting thing between us as humans and that's what art
Speaker 20: is about. It's to say people often India are going
Speaker 20: to see the glorious and feel as passionate about this
Speaker 20: American woman who is inspired by India and what she
Speaker 20: learned in India as we would be. And so it's
Speaker 20: this trans cultural aspect of the musical that I'm so
Speaker 20: proud of. And I know this is weird because it
Speaker 20: is Disney but it deals with death and when little
Speaker 20: kids come it's what do you call it. It's almost
Speaker 20: a exorcism of pain when the little boy turns to
Speaker 20: his father similar to move closer and says Will you
Speaker 20: always be there for me. The father knows what he's
Speaker 20: asking and he says to the young Simba look at
Speaker 20: the stars the great kings of the past looked down
Speaker 20: upon us from those stars they live in you. They
Speaker 20: live in me they're watching over everything we see that's
Speaker 20: one of my favorite songs that metal and wrote with
Speaker 20: the South African chorus without being a specific religion. It's
Speaker 20: a very religious spiritual in the best way song which
Speaker 20: is I may not be here physically but I am
Speaker 20: here with you spiritually and for a fact. I have
Speaker 20: had people tell me stories like one that really moved
Speaker 20: me was about a family from somewhere in the United
Speaker 20: States who had bought tickets the first year way in
Speaker 20: advance because I couldn't get tickets to the Broadway production
Speaker 20: and the little girl had died in the family that year.
Speaker 20: And so when they were supposed to come to New
Speaker 20: York they didn't want to come. Everybody said you've got
Speaker 20: to bring the little boy you've got to go anyway.
Speaker 20: So this is what was told to me they're sitting
Speaker 20: there with their young son still in mourning and watching
Speaker 20: this scene that I just described and a little boy
Speaker 20: turned to his parents and he said is with us
Speaker 20: isn't she. Exactly. I see your face now. If I
Speaker 20: was able in any way as an artist to help
Speaker 20: that child through mourning through what death is then I've
Speaker 20: done my job as an artist because we were the
Speaker 20: first shamans. That's what a shaman is. It's a cross
Speaker 20: between director and entertainer and a psychiatrist and a leader
Speaker 20: of the community. And that is the origins of theater.
Speaker 18: Theater is to take you through the droughts the blizzards
Speaker 18: the fires of California the hurricanes of the South the
Speaker 18: misery of our political system and the entertainment is there
Speaker 18: to get you to get out your fears to release
Speaker 18: you of the tension and to share that in an
Speaker 18: environment with other people. The same thing happened with Greta
Speaker 18: when I was in Australia a woman told me she
Speaker 18: had cancer and then when she saw how Frida dealt
Speaker 18: with pain it changed her whole attitude towards what she
Speaker 18: could do and how she could live through the pain.
Speaker 18: So these are the important things for me as an artist.
Speaker 18: It's how we can really help our communities and our
Speaker 18: fellow human beings through entertainment but also through thought and
Speaker 18: stories that get us out of ourselves.
Speaker 21: Hi I'm Robert Raz host of cars that matter you
Speaker 21: might be wondering what makes a car madder and I
Speaker 21: have a feeling you already know the answer. Some cars
Speaker 21: have changed history some you can hear a mile away
Speaker 21: some have lines that make your heart skip a beat
Speaker 21: if a car is ever made you look twice then
Speaker 21: I think you know the ones that matter. Joining me
Speaker 21: as I speak with designers collectors and market experts about
Speaker 21: the passions of drivers and the passions we drive cars
Speaker 21: that matter wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 10: And your first feature film was Titus which was a
Speaker 10: choice for your first film what an undertaking because the
Speaker 10: scale was huge and the cast was amazing. What was
Speaker 10: that experience to have that be your first foray into
Speaker 10: this medium.
Speaker 11: Well I had directed the play off Broadway before the
Speaker 11: Lion King and I had already felt that it was
Speaker 11: the most daunting Shakespearean play the most violent thing I've
Speaker 11: ever seen in my life.
Speaker 8: Horrifying and scary and very. Of our times right after
Speaker 8: the success of The Lion King. I remember Spielberg offering
Speaker 8: me the cat in the hat. And I thought to
Speaker 8: myself well if the cat is black maybe but more
Speaker 8: to the point I felt I don't want people to
Speaker 8: think of me as a family children's theater. You know
Speaker 8: I just didn't want to be put into any kind
Speaker 8: of box whatsoever. I knew that Titus was an extraordinary
Speaker 8: maligned Shakespeare play people about bringing all over the top.
Speaker 8: I said this is the violence of today whether it's
Speaker 8: honor killings remember the Menendez brothers or Columbine. You know
Speaker 8: the surge of violence in America that wasn't just inner
Speaker 8: city but was young middle class people. Oh my God.
Speaker 8: How did that happen. Now we just take it for
Speaker 8: granted because school shootings this is just a hideous part
Speaker 8: of everyday life in America. But in 98 I think
Speaker 8: we opened Christmas Day nineteen ninety nine right before the
Speaker 8: millennium turn. I thought I'm going to ask Anthony Hopkins
Speaker 8: and we're going to make this my first feature sort
Speaker 8: of the opposite of the line although people say the
Speaker 8: ranking is based on Hamlet but whatever. And I loved
Speaker 8: it I wanted to work with very great actors and
Speaker 8: rich language. And we shot on location in Italy.
Speaker 5: I read that during the shoot and maybe to this
Speaker 5: day you and Anthony Hopkins didn't necessarily agree on Titus
Speaker 5: as mindset.
Speaker 8: No it wasn't an easy ride for either one of
Speaker 8: us together. But as I like to call it was
Speaker 8: like two stones when they rub against each other fire happens.
Speaker 8: So I think that this is very well known and
Speaker 8: Tony has said this that he didn't want to act
Speaker 8: after Titus you know it was sort of the pinnacle
Speaker 8: and the end of his career. Of course that didn't
Speaker 8: stick at all. But that play is so awful. I
Speaker 8: mean you have to go to a very dark place.
Speaker 20: The young boys who played the rapist that were very
Speaker 20: racist parts to Aaron Blackmore Aaron the Moors part is
Speaker 20: very much based on certain things from Iago the kind
Speaker 20: of malevolent manipulation and concoctions. But the only two black
Speaker 20: roles in the Shakespeare canon or Othello and Aaron Moore
Speaker 20: and Aaron played by Harry Lennox is one of the
Speaker 20: greatest parts with the greatest language. Now for Hopkins to
Speaker 20: go to the place where Titus is ready to bake
Speaker 20: his enemies children into pies and feed them to his
Speaker 20: mother is a very dark place for him to go
Speaker 20: to a place where he has to experience his hand
Speaker 20: getting chopped off is hard. And he went there and
Speaker 20: he went to the madness and it was happening to
Speaker 20: him as it was going on. So we didn't have
Speaker 20: a disagreement. It was in front of my eyes. You
Speaker 20: know it was scary. And yet I would see the
Speaker 20: rushes every night and go Oh my God this is unbelievable.
Speaker 20: So I knew that it was going to be great
Speaker 20: to see. It is one of his greatest performances ever.
Speaker 20: People haven't seen TITUS It's just extraordinary.
Speaker 5: Van you did Frida and it was spearheaded by Salma Hayek.
Speaker 5: How did she connect with you. How did you come
Speaker 5: onto the project and what was that experience like.
Speaker 8: Well I got a call from Mark Gil at Miramax
Speaker 8: in New York City saying Salma Hayek is on her
Speaker 8: way to the airport. But if you will meet her
Speaker 8: she would love to talk to you about directing potentially
Speaker 8: the film of Frida Kahlo life. And I said sure.
Speaker 8: So Salma Hayek age 34 stunning still stunning. But she
Speaker 8: comes into my apartment and you know I'm just thinking
Speaker 8: oh God if I were a lesbian this would be
Speaker 8: should I probably get even say that now the same way.
Speaker 8: But she just was overwhelming physically and then she sat
Speaker 8: down on my couch and for two hours told me
Speaker 8: about Frida Kahlo with knowledge and depth and intelligence and
Speaker 8: exuberance and I just sat there because I liked Diego
Speaker 8: Rivera's paintings I wasn't sure about Frida Kahlo but I'd
Speaker 8: spent a lot of time in Mexico with Elliot. We
Speaker 8: created a piece called Quan study in. And so I
Speaker 8: knew Mexican artists I knew Mexican culture. I loved it.
Speaker 8: And she made me feel that if she can entertain
Speaker 8: me for two hours I surely can do a film
Speaker 8: and be her midwife help her get her baby up
Speaker 8: there and then I fell in love with it. Once
Speaker 8: I delve deeply into the material and into her paintings
Speaker 8: and the autobiography that is in those paintings and I
Speaker 8: love the actors that I was able to cast I
Speaker 8: love them. Alfred Molina Valeria Galeano it was just a
Speaker 8: tremendous cast. GEOFFREY RUSH All of it. Diego Luna. Nobody
Speaker 8: knew who he was then but did she say hello
Speaker 8: ugly when she has her first love affair at age
Speaker 8: 15 with him.
Speaker 5: It was great. It was really great. Sama has since
Speaker 5: said it was a very hard process because of Harvey Weinstein.
Speaker 5: I'm not asking any details about that but I'm really curious.
Speaker 5: Looking back at your work if that affects your memory
Speaker 5: of the piece or your feeling toward the piece or
Speaker 5: does the piece stand alone away from the experience except
Speaker 5: for when Harvey would show up or in post-production where
Speaker 5: he tried to manipulate everything it was a tremendous experience.
Speaker 8: He wasn't in Mexico all the time but when he
Speaker 8: came it was difficult for her and I would have
Speaker 8: to coax him I'd have to do that. Female flattery
Speaker 8: playing around things that you learn so that he doesn't
Speaker 8: feel like he's not coming up with every idea. I
Speaker 8: was way too old for him to be interested in me.
Speaker 8: That didn't happen with me with Salma. Yes he was
Speaker 8: extremely disgusting and rude. I don't know all the details
Speaker 8: of that. I know that he wanted very much to
Speaker 8: have lots of sex scenes in the movie. He wasn't
Speaker 8: interested in her limping as if he didn't even know
Speaker 8: that absolutely the most important event in her life was
Speaker 8: the bus accident. He was like Why is she limping
Speaker 8: when he saw that first week of dailies and it
Speaker 8: just shocking frankly. But I managed because I had such
Speaker 8: a good team and Salma was a great producer. She
Speaker 8: protected the process and we had fun. It was great
Speaker 8: Rodrigo Prieto who shot Gloria's shot Frida and I loved
Speaker 8: working with my Mexican team. It was just great. It
Speaker 8: was during post that he was unbearable because he just
Speaker 8: kept wanting to get rid of politics or get rid
Speaker 8: of the Father and he thinks that he makes a
Speaker 8: film better. But honestly that's just ridiculous. Shorter isn't better
Speaker 8: shorter shorter and he didn't understand really what it was
Speaker 8: about that movie that people really loved.
Speaker 10: He did later one of my all time favorite movies
Speaker 10: is across the universe to tell you how much I
Speaker 10: love that film and I actually had the gift of
Speaker 10: having Jim Sturges on the show a couple of months
Speaker 10: ago and he was talking about the rehearsal process with
Speaker 10: you because it was his first film. It was OK
Speaker 10: because it was a theater rehearsal process where you got
Speaker 10: to workshop the piece.
Speaker 13: Oh it was so great. I went to London to
Speaker 13: look for Jude the part and ended up finding Jude
Speaker 13: and Max because Jo Anderson auditioned and said I'm not Jude.
Speaker 13: Can I audition for Max. I said Well this is weird.
Speaker 13: Can you do an American accent. He said Yeah I can.
Speaker 13: And he just took the energy. He just was Max.
Speaker 13: He wasn't you. So those two had never been to
Speaker 13: America came over and tore up New York City. And
Speaker 13: then we had Evan Rachel Wood who had just turned
Speaker 13: 18 I think was known for the movie 13 and
Speaker 13: was a complete David Bowie fanatic and I told her
Speaker 13: I'm going to try and see if I can get
Speaker 13: David Bowie for Mr. Kite. We did. We went for
Speaker 13: Eddie Izzard but she would wear his t shirt and
Speaker 13: then the other lead characters two of them were singers
Speaker 13: Dana Fuchs and Martin Luther. They were singers who I
Speaker 13: auditioned and could really act. And then T.V. Carpio who
Speaker 13: is a fabulous actor singer. So we had a small
Speaker 13: band six musicians. We were in a classic Broadway rehearsal
Speaker 13: room a couple of rooms. We played around with Danny
Speaker 13: as loved the choreographer whose birthday it is today. Happy
Speaker 13: birthday Danny and call him up after this. And we
Speaker 13: had about 15 phenomenal dancers who worked on all the
Speaker 13: different concepts. Then there's a thousand dancers in the film
Speaker 13: but you know you had to work them out ahead
Speaker 13: of time and then that core group would then teach
Speaker 13: everybody else.
Speaker 17: It was so much fun. Elliot worked on the arrangements
Speaker 17: and then T Bone Burnett joined in and we had
Speaker 17: to record in advance the tracks. Although 90 percent of
Speaker 17: the movie is sunrise and way before Labor's Rob. In
Speaker 17: fact they acted like they were the first but frankly
Speaker 17: they did less live than we did. But you had
Speaker 17: to have it be live. We wanted it but even
Speaker 17: if it's love you have an earbud in there just
Speaker 17: in case there's too many airplanes. Some of the locations
Speaker 17: you just can't get good enough sound but it was
Speaker 17: so much fun. And you know eventually yes I would
Speaker 17: love to do it as theater we'll see.
Speaker 10: I saw that Evan Rachel would shut up to her
Speaker 10: first day on set and it was if I fell
Speaker 10: and she wasn't aware that she would be singing live.
Speaker 17: That's exactly right. She thought that because we had pre-recorded
Speaker 17: that she would be lipstick and I said don't worry
Speaker 17: Evan it's always there in case there's a problem like
Speaker 17: Joe didn't like singing live because you really didn't think
Speaker 17: he was a singer at all. Fact is he's a
Speaker 17: fabulous singer. He sang live and all the rehearsals. But
Speaker 17: we were really able to mix it if I fell
Speaker 17: in love with you. It's not only brilliant but it
Speaker 17: was her first take and why I say it was brilliant.
Speaker 17: We were going to make a cut from that first
Speaker 17: location in a kind of broken down building to the
Speaker 17: party much earlier and we'd set up a circular track
Speaker 17: around her. So it's no editing. It's one shot where
Speaker 17: the camera moves around her and her singing was so
Speaker 17: brilliant and her acting that I said Don't you know
Speaker 17: we just kept moving so much more of the song
Speaker 17: is sung in one shot and it's the fear and
Speaker 17: fragility which is perfect for that moment when she's looking
Speaker 17: at Jude and she's not sure that she can handle
Speaker 17: falling in love with.
Speaker 5: It's so real that I didn't read any other takes
Speaker 5: just like the Gloria's it's kind of this piece that's
Speaker 5: always relevant because the cyclical nature we're back in these
Speaker 5: riots and these young people being awakened to activism and
Speaker 5: she has this line I should be radical you should
Speaker 5: be radical we should all don't be radical it just
Speaker 5: rings so true.
Speaker 8: Now when he tries to say as many people are
Speaker 8: saying now you know are you kidding you won't get
Speaker 8: anywhere it won't change anything. And she gets really angry
Speaker 8: member in the Laundromat where she says listen I would
Speaker 8: lie down in front of a tank if it would
Speaker 8: bring Max home. You don't think it's worth trying. That's
Speaker 8: the moment that they fall apart. She's not going off
Speaker 8: to war but the responsibility of everybody to have the
Speaker 8: government listen. The Vietnam War because young men were drafted.
Speaker 8: They became more involved because it was affecting them personally.
Speaker 8: You know if we had a draft now people would
Speaker 8: be much more out there in the streets as Gloria
Speaker 8: said at the Women's March she said sometimes pressing send
Speaker 8: is not enough your voice and your activism is critical.
Speaker 8: And I'm so proud of the people who have gone
Speaker 8: out on the streets in this very scary time put
Speaker 8: on their masks and marched for the Black Lives Matter movement.
Speaker 8: This is incredibly impressive moving critical and they should be
Speaker 8: marching for women's rights and racial rights and all of
Speaker 8: those rights now if they're not marching then they're making
Speaker 8: phone calls and saying listen guys we've got to vote
Speaker 8: because this is going to be the rest of this
Speaker 8: generation's future and the next generation I want to wrap
Speaker 8: up on my favorite question to ask what does it
Speaker 8: mean to you to have a life in very telling.
Speaker 8: Well it is my life. Your life is to use
Speaker 8: whatever talents I have or imagination I have to make
Speaker 8: other people's lives fulfilled to entertain and to move them.
Speaker 8: That's kind of what as I said when I talked
Speaker 8: about The Lion King. What gives me the most joy
Speaker 8: is people's reactions. I know women. Lot of women will
Speaker 8: identify and love this. But when I've had some of
Speaker 8: the men around me right at the beginning like the
Speaker 8: sound designer in post when Michael told me how he
Speaker 8: just was weeping through the whole movie I was so touched.
Speaker 20: And that's happened more than once because think about it.
Speaker 20: Men don't see movies about women in the workplace just women.
Speaker 20: Most movies about women or girls is about I want
Speaker 20: this boyfriend my husband's beating me I wish I could
Speaker 20: marry him. It's a romance. You know this boss is
Speaker 20: stepping over the line. Whatever it is their lives are
Speaker 20: geared towards their male partners. I made a choice like
Speaker 20: Gloria did in her book that this is about women
Speaker 20: moving together in this movement and that the men are
Speaker 20: secondary characters not that they're not important to Gloria's real
Speaker 20: life of course they are. But you can only focus
Speaker 20: on one aspect. And so when the men say that
Speaker 20: I feel so gratified because the idea that this would
Speaker 20: be a chick flick or this would be something just
Speaker 20: for women although women are half the population is so ridiculous.
Speaker 8: This is about people. If you're a feminist you can
Speaker 8: be male doesn't mean you're a woman. And feminists are
Speaker 8: not anti male. They're about equality pure and simple. Is
Speaker 8: that you respect both genders equally. And I love this
Speaker 8: reaction and I love their surprise because it's new to
Speaker 8: them to see women working like that and loving like
Speaker 8: that loving each other supporting each other.
Speaker 10: Julie I cannot thank you enough for taking time out
Speaker 10: of your day to come talk to me.
Speaker 4: This has meant the world to me because I am
Speaker 4: such a fan. Jenny thank you it's been terrific. Have
Speaker 4: a good one. Bye bye. Hollywood unscripted was created by
Speaker 4: Kurt Commedia. This special episode of the stuck at home
Speaker 4: series was hosted and produced by me Jenny Curtis. With guest.
Speaker 4: Julie Taymor co-produced and edited by Jay Whiting. The executive
Speaker 4: producer of Hollywood unscripted as Stuart Halprin. The Hollywood unscripted
Speaker 4: theme song is by Celeste and Eric dick. Make sure
Speaker 4: to subscribe so you don't miss any special episodes of
Speaker 4: Hollywood unscripted stuck at home and we want to hear
Speaker 4: from you. Leave us a rating and a review. Tell
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Speaker 22: Stay safe and healthy and thanks for listening. Kurt Carr media. Media.
Speaker 23: For your mind.