Speaker 1: M h. You're listening to Playback, a Variety I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio podcast. I'm your host, Variety Awards editor Chris Tapley.
Speaker 1: This week, I'm talking to Oscar nominated director Rob Marshall.
Speaker 1: His new film Mary Poppins returns as the hotly anticipated
Speaker 1: sequel to a Disney classic. We discussed the daunting task
Speaker 1: of rejuvenating the property more than a half century later,
Speaker 1: and a whole lot more so. Sit tight, this is playback.
Speaker 1: Glamorous man. Oh my authority be okay, I'm actually fine. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm good. I'm good. Thanks, Thanks, I'm good. Long day, huh.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's okay though, because it still feels
Speaker 1: kind of new, you know, we're still yeah, we're just
Speaker 1: at the beginning and so I mean we just had
Speaker 1: a fun press conference with the whole cast and our
Speaker 1: writers and so that was it was just great to
Speaker 1: see everybody. That's really nice. So you know that that's
Speaker 1: the that's that's sort of like the plus side of things.
Speaker 1: You know, you know you're doing this, but you get
Speaker 1: to see all those people again that you had, you know,
Speaker 1: get dragged from hotel room to hotel room. It is
Speaker 1: not going to be how you think you'll this is perfect, Okay, cool,
Speaker 1: all right, thank you, thank you, Chris, Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: We're up and running right, thank you. Here we are
Speaker 1: with Rob Marshall, the director of Mary Poppins Returns, also
Speaker 1: the writer. Yes, I wrote the first time, right that
Speaker 1: you've written the script. I've never been a member of
Speaker 1: the w g A or um and but this was
Speaker 1: something I felt I needed to be part of the
Speaker 1: writing process for. And so myself and John De Luca
Speaker 1: and David McGee all wrote the story and then David
Speaker 1: wrote the screenplay, which is so beautiful and so yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what, I have to say that when you
Speaker 1: do original musical, which I'd never done one for film before. Um,
Speaker 1: the only way I feel it can be done is
Speaker 1: if a director is involved, literally from the very beginning,
Speaker 1: because you're shaping the whole piece, all of it. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not just something that people go away and do.
Speaker 1: It has to be a real collaboration. Um. This is
Speaker 1: such a complicated film in many ways because we're it's
Speaker 1: this grand balancing act, as you know. So it was
Speaker 1: the to to actually be part of the writing process,
Speaker 1: which was a big part for me. Welcome to the
Speaker 1: writer's ranks. Thank you, Thank you for doing the show.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you to do with Thank you. I
Speaker 1: saw the movie a few weeks ago at the PGA
Speaker 1: screening actually on the lot. There was a nice one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: superb movie caught me by surprise a little bit. I
Speaker 1: don't really know what I was expecting, I guess, but
Speaker 1: I just it's delightful. It felt like as was kind
Speaker 1: of the rhetoric there, and and it's real. It feels
Speaker 1: like something we kind of need at the moment. I mean,
Speaker 1: did you feel that in the making of it? I did.
Speaker 1: I really felt. I mean, in a way the whole UM.
Speaker 1: What guided me the entire time, the whole time was
Speaker 1: this sense of what we were saying with this film.
Speaker 1: What I was saying with this film because UM, this
Speaker 1: idea that in a dark time there is a ray
Speaker 1: of light that can come and help you move through
Speaker 1: a darker time. UM was something that was very personal
Speaker 1: to me. UM. I felt like you know when you
Speaker 1: have UM a film. For instance, our film set in
Speaker 1: the thirties of the depression eary in London, and it
Speaker 1: felt very connected to me to today. I feel a
Speaker 1: lot of people are struggling in life to make ends
Speaker 1: me to you know, to bring up a family, and
Speaker 1: and and and I also felt that this idea of loss,
Speaker 1: which is what our films about too, you know, the
Speaker 1: loss of not only you're the wonder and joy that
Speaker 1: you have as a child. You know, um, that loss
Speaker 1: is also part of um you know, uh, something that
Speaker 1: happens as you grow older. You know, you as you
Speaker 1: get older, life comes in and you have to you know,
Speaker 1: you put away those things. And and so that loss
Speaker 1: compounded with this idea that there's a loss of the
Speaker 1: of the mother. For instance, in this film, it was
Speaker 1: about a family that needed to heal. And so you know,
Speaker 1: I've sort of found my way um through this with
Speaker 1: this in the entire time, thinking that you know, what
Speaker 1: I like to do is send a message of hope
Speaker 1: not only to the story, to this families, etcetera, etcetera,
Speaker 1: but also I really thought it's kind of what we
Speaker 1: need now. I mean, I certainly would like to go
Speaker 1: to the movies and be lifted out of my daily
Speaker 1: life into something that I find it is, you know,
Speaker 1: has some some I don't know, hope and joy and
Speaker 1: all of that, and and it's rare and some people
Speaker 1: think of it as trivial, but I actually think it's
Speaker 1: a very profound thing. Yeah, it's Uh. I was just
Speaker 1: having a conversation with some people out in the lobby. Uh,
Speaker 1: A lot of great films this year, but a lot
Speaker 1: of them just kind of make you feel like crap
Speaker 1: by design really, and it's just like the artistry is fantastic,
Speaker 1: but it's just kind of the era dits dictates the
Speaker 1: art in a lot of ways. Right, So, I mean
Speaker 1: you're and so beautifully said, because um, I will say
Speaker 1: everyone involved in this film, from Meryl Street to Emily
Speaker 1: bl Hunt, to Lin Manuel Miranda to Calling Forth, everybody
Speaker 1: wanted to be part of this so much, which was
Speaker 1: honestly a tribute to the fact that everybody wanted to
Speaker 1: send this message out into the world right now. And
Speaker 1: I feel that you're absolutely right. It's about the time
Speaker 1: that you're living what you know, what do we need?
Speaker 1: And and I just felt like, you know, that carried
Speaker 1: me through this very complicated three years of creating this film,
Speaker 1: and it's why ultimately for me, it's my most personal
Speaker 1: film because it it really resonates deeply with me. Um
Speaker 1: and it's a message that I sort of try and
Speaker 1: live every day, which is sort of sort of defined,
Speaker 1: you know, look at things from a sort of a
Speaker 1: positive place, look at things from a place of wonder
Speaker 1: and sort of you know, in a way innocence sort
Speaker 1: of how can you? How can you? How can you
Speaker 1: view life? And it's what Peel Travers did in all
Speaker 1: these books. You know, this wild, crazy, animatic character helps
Speaker 1: you know, children, um, sort of rediscover you know, uh,
Speaker 1: joy in life and and so you know, I know
Speaker 1: it's funny when you say it. It could sound somewhat trivial,
Speaker 1: but I find it very very, very important. That's elemental.
Speaker 1: I think it's elemental. It's like it helps you get
Speaker 1: up in the morning. Yeah, yeah, you said at that
Speaker 1: screen I was at. You said that Mary Poppins was
Speaker 1: the first movie you saw, and it's stuck with you
Speaker 1: those reasons. Well, you know what, I was too young
Speaker 1: probably to really absorb all that. What I do remember
Speaker 1: is sort of the big general feeling of music, magic, fantasy,
Speaker 1: you know, big movie screen performances, dance, all of that.
Speaker 1: I know that launched me into the world of musicals
Speaker 1: and into the world of choreography. You know, I started
Speaker 1: as a dancer. You know, Um, I know it opened
Speaker 1: my soul, whole mind to that and whole life to
Speaker 1: that that that whole you know, this the genre, and I,
Speaker 1: of course I've revisited the film over and over again
Speaker 1: over the years and and now you know, of course
Speaker 1: know it so deeply, and I feel it's actually very
Speaker 1: much inside me. But you know, I what a perfect film,
Speaker 1: and you know, I found out it's a lot of
Speaker 1: people's first film. It's the it's the it's the perfect
Speaker 1: film to to bring to you know, to open someone's mind,
Speaker 1: to a child's mind too. Yeah, for sure, I I
Speaker 1: mean certainly I remember that and bed knobs and Brunce
Speaker 1: yes exactly exactly, which is why we cast Angela. One
Speaker 1: of the reasons we cast Angela. No, she was in
Speaker 1: the movie by I mean, I looked and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: they announced this. It was not a surprise, but I
Speaker 1: didn't I missed that. I guess he comes late in
Speaker 1: the film. And it's a it's a it's a P. L.
Speaker 1: Travers character, the balloon lady, and she has to have
Speaker 1: a little bit of magic to her too, so and
Speaker 1: and and it's and it's not a it's not a
Speaker 1: big role. So in a moment you need to accept
Speaker 1: the fact there's there's some magic about her, and Angela
Speaker 1: just carries that with her because of not only she's
Speaker 1: a great actress, but you know, she's Mrs Potts, she's
Speaker 1: you know, she's she's she's elemental as well. She's elemental
Speaker 1: as well. You obviously need to and want to maintain
Speaker 1: a fidelity to the original aesthetic of the film, right.
Speaker 1: But within that, um, you know, what were your ideas
Speaker 1: to innovate and and break the mold a little bit
Speaker 1: or were you keeping a strong eye on not over
Speaker 1: reaching in that way. It's such a good question because
Speaker 1: I you know, that was the balancing act the entire time.
Speaker 1: But for me, the most important thing was to sort
Speaker 1: of forge new territory. Um. And that was that all
Speaker 1: came together when I chose to place it in the thirties,
Speaker 1: when the original books were written. Um, you feel the
Speaker 1: depression era in the books, you know, there's it's so
Speaker 1: interesting in the books they talked about seventeen Cherry Shelan
Speaker 1: being the shabbiest house on the street and that Mrs
Speaker 1: Banks had a choice between fixing up the house or
Speaker 1: having children, you know, so you get a sense of
Speaker 1: that inside the you know, inside the the actual books themselves.
Speaker 1: But my my goal was to really, um, look for
Speaker 1: a new story to tell. Um and and the question
Speaker 1: really was what happened to Michael and Jane. You know,
Speaker 1: um here it is twenty five years later from the
Speaker 1: original film nineteen ten is when it was set when
Speaker 1: Walt Disney said it then, and so you know where
Speaker 1: what happened? And and and and we had to look
Speaker 1: for a big reason for Mary Poppins to return, you know.
Speaker 1: And that was this whole idea of loss and the
Speaker 1: loss of you know, that is what I said before,
Speaker 1: and and and that and that really, um, that was
Speaker 1: that was the focus, because I wanted new music, an
Speaker 1: original score, original story. Mary Poppins, of course is the
Speaker 1: same character. She doesn't age, you know, but but it's
Speaker 1: played by a different woman, of course, and and you know,
Speaker 1: you have Michael and Jayne's character has grown up. But
Speaker 1: it's it's sort of like I was looking for a
Speaker 1: new new story. And because it's I think too easy
Speaker 1: to sort of just say, well, we're just gonna do
Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, who would I mean, it's
Speaker 1: such a perfect film, the original film, so um, it
Speaker 1: was really about how can we follow that but stay
Speaker 1: as you said in the feeling of the first film
Speaker 1: and with you know, I really wanted to risk back
Speaker 1: in pay homage to that. That was important to me
Speaker 1: because I used myself, honestly as a barometer. I thought
Speaker 1: to myself, Okay, what would I want to see? You know,
Speaker 1: if I came to see a sequel Mary Poppins, I
Speaker 1: would want to see an animation sequence with live action,
Speaker 1: you know, I'd want to see something like that, you know.
Speaker 1: So I used myself all the time as sort of
Speaker 1: like the big fan of the film, like I know
Speaker 1: everybody many people are UM, but how do you do
Speaker 1: that at the same time create something new that leaves
Speaker 1: me wondering, like what at what point did the needle spike?
Speaker 1: And you're like, let's not do that. Well, you know what.
Speaker 1: I remember we were looking at something UM early on
Speaker 1: where we were going to score something with some music
Speaker 1: from the first film UM. And there was a line
Speaker 1: I remember the first when Mary Poppins arrived that we
Speaker 1: had originally I think she says hello to Jack. She
Speaker 1: lands from the kite from this big storm and she
Speaker 1: lands and she says, um, how are you Jack? And
Speaker 1: he says super cala, fragilistic, expialidocious, and it just was
Speaker 1: too much. We had just you know, Mary Poppins had
Speaker 1: you know, hadn't even landed on their earth, and she
Speaker 1: and we're already referencing the winking and winking, and I
Speaker 1: just that's such a good that's such a great way
Speaker 1: to say it, winking, because it's so it was so
Speaker 1: easy to send it up or wink, and I thought, no,
Speaker 1: we have to be so so careful to really play
Speaker 1: the truth of this, to really feel connected to this family,
Speaker 1: to understand this is a real dilemma for these people.
Speaker 1: So you can then be invested in these characters, and
Speaker 1: then when they go on these adventures, you know, then
Speaker 1: it's then you can go with them. But then when
Speaker 1: we come back to reality, you're feeling, I don't know,
Speaker 1: somehow emotionally connected to this these people, uh regarding the
Speaker 1: aesthetic conversation and just you know, maintaining a vibe. I
Speaker 1: was actually curious if digital versus celluloid was a conversation
Speaker 1: because you went with the Alexa. Yes, exactly, Well, you
Speaker 1: know it was because I love shooting on film. You know,
Speaker 1: It's just that it's it's so much more expensive now,
Speaker 1: and it's so complicated to do. It's just slower. And
Speaker 1: I already knew what I had on my plate. I
Speaker 1: knew what I had on my plate was enormous. It
Speaker 1: felt like I was doing literally three movies at once,
Speaker 1: because you know, not only are you doing an original musical.
Speaker 1: You know you're working with children, You're working with a
Speaker 1: lot of visual effects. You're also working with animation. That
Speaker 1: whole sequence is fifteen minutes long. Um, and so the
Speaker 1: layers of all that, I thought, you know what, I
Speaker 1: have to be able to move as quickly as possible.
Speaker 1: So I spent some time with young Bbie or a cinematographer,
Speaker 1: and I, you know, I basically said, can we make
Speaker 1: this look as rich and as beautiful as possible? And
Speaker 1: he was certain we could. Um, it's hard, you know.
Speaker 1: The departure film was a hard one for me. My
Speaker 1: first film, Chicago was on film and it was you know,
Speaker 1: I love the texture of it, I love the feel
Speaker 1: of it. But I thought we'd really it everything we
Speaker 1: could to make it feel as rich and as sort
Speaker 1: of visceral as possibly. Happy with it, very happy, very
Speaker 1: thank you for asking. I'm very happy. You know you
Speaker 1: mentioned this, But a movie like this, you're involved in
Speaker 1: so many disciplines, right, You've got the choreography, which obviously
Speaker 1: is your trade anyway, animation, songwriting, on top of the
Speaker 1: usual you know, dealing with the production design and costumes
Speaker 1: and all of this. Uh, you know, obviously choreography is
Speaker 1: a big passion of yours. I'm just curious if any
Speaker 1: of these popped out is like your favorite thing to
Speaker 1: get your hands dirty with? You know? Well, I have
Speaker 1: to say the animation sequence, which because I've never attempted
Speaker 1: anything like that or worked with animators or anything like that,
Speaker 1: that was the most daunting, the most exciting, and the
Speaker 1: and the hardest work because and we started with it.
Speaker 1: That's the first thing we started filming because it's all
Speaker 1: hand drawn animation, so they needed time. So we actually
Speaker 1: I I edited that whole sequence, um, while I was
Speaker 1: still shooting, so we could get it to them so
Speaker 1: they could start working. Um. That means Sandy Powell was
Speaker 1: working hard. Early. Everybody was like, what we're doing that first?
Speaker 1: And I said, guys, you know what we need to
Speaker 1: for the animators. I mean, as it was, we had
Speaker 1: over fourteen months of post production and they used every
Speaker 1: second of that, because every single frame has hand drawn
Speaker 1: animation and so um. But that that, you know, we
Speaker 1: had animators in the room with us. We had choreographers
Speaker 1: in the room with us, dance arrangers of course, musical directors,
Speaker 1: the composer, lyricists, all that. Plus you are you know,
Speaker 1: choreographing as you said, John D. Luke and myself are
Speaker 1: literally choreographing animals, you know, penguins and flamingos. And we
Speaker 1: used referenced answers for all of that. So we would
Speaker 1: shoot it kind of three times. We would shoot it
Speaker 1: once with just um Emily alone, for instance, to say
Speaker 1: there was a section, and then would be and then
Speaker 1: we do just like, for instance, the reference penguins, and
Speaker 1: then we would actually shoot it with all of them
Speaker 1: so we could create the frame we were looking for,
Speaker 1: and so you would have all these layers. It was
Speaker 1: a very compregated sequence, but so great to work with
Speaker 1: these animators, and they had to learn how to work
Speaker 1: inside a live action movie. You know. They would say
Speaker 1: something like to me like, well, you know, now lin
Speaker 1: Manuel can just jump over there, and I said, well,
Speaker 1: he's a person, so it's going to take him a
Speaker 1: little more time than you're saying, just to whack over there,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, because they see things in
Speaker 1: animation speed. So that was fascinating and then, you know,
Speaker 1: but then I had to learn from them too. I mean,
Speaker 1: there was a moment where Lynn had a penguin on
Speaker 1: his cane and penguin is you know, is sort of
Speaker 1: perched on there, and they said, you know, it needs
Speaker 1: to be heavier than that. We need to show Lynn
Speaker 1: needs to show that there's a heavy penguin on his
Speaker 1: on his cane. And so I mean that's a little
Speaker 1: example of how we were working together to find this
Speaker 1: and of course to coordinate all of that together. There
Speaker 1: was visual effects involved in that to sort of put
Speaker 1: the two D animation into our movie into a live
Speaker 1: action film. So it was fascinating and work on it was.
Speaker 1: It was. It was. But you know, it's a fifteen
Speaker 1: minute sequence. It has three sort of big sections to it.
Speaker 1: But wow, I mean seeing that come to life, seeing
Speaker 1: the pencil sketches turn into some color into like, you know,
Speaker 1: fully realized, you know, a fully realized sequence. I mean
Speaker 1: that process was unbelieving. That's an amazing sequence. I think
Speaker 1: I feel like if I call Mark Platt one of
Speaker 1: your producers mentioned that some of the some people came
Speaker 1: out of retirement to work on that well, because what's
Speaker 1: interesting is that hand drawn animation is really becoming a
Speaker 1: lost art. Although I was hopeful in this film because
Speaker 1: we did bring a bunch of guys out of retirement
Speaker 1: who we needed the expertise. They were thrilled though, because
Speaker 1: it was this project, so they came. And but what
Speaker 1: was great was there were some twenty something's you're you know,
Speaker 1: that were really interested in learning the old school, old
Speaker 1: style classic animation and so hand drawn animation. So they
Speaker 1: much more interested in that then, you know, than the
Speaker 1: computer general way to work. And so they came on
Speaker 1: board to learn from these masters. It was incredible to
Speaker 1: walk in there and see them all working together. Did
Speaker 1: you happen to have anybody that had worked on the
Speaker 1: first film? And so, you know what, I did meet
Speaker 1: somebody though recently I can't remember his name, a lovely
Speaker 1: man who saw the film, but he's I think he's
Speaker 1: sort of even passed, you know, retirement at this point.
Speaker 1: But but we you know, we had we had some
Speaker 1: guys who have done the classic work, for instance, like
Speaker 1: Beauty and the Beasts, a Little Mermaid that era not
Speaker 1: but not quite the era of Mary Poppins. There's this
Speaker 1: guy I met, This is an aside. His name is
Speaker 1: Milton Kwand do you know what I'm talking about. He's
Speaker 1: he's a hundred and eight years old. I think he
Speaker 1: was a Disney animator way back in the day. And
Speaker 1: he was in the movie Speed. He was one of
Speaker 1: the passengers on the bus Your kid and I did
Speaker 1: this story where I caught up with all of those
Speaker 1: actors to do like an oral history of Speed. And
Speaker 1: he had all these watercolors he had drawn of like
Speaker 1: the bus and stuff. So it was just such an interesting,
Speaker 1: so cool. I know, they instead of speaking, you know,
Speaker 1: they're always drawing. We had this fantastic workshop where we
Speaker 1: just put everybody together, all these animators together, so we
Speaker 1: could create the sequence at the Disney studios and um,
Speaker 1: do you know that there's a there, there's a there's
Speaker 1: a great bungalow there that's from the original studio and
Speaker 1: it's called the Hyperion Bungalow. So we were there, which
Speaker 1: was felt very right. We were like, you know, like
Speaker 1: the original studio and uh. And the guys were incredible
Speaker 1: and the women, they were so I mean we would
Speaker 1: talk and they would just be their heads would be
Speaker 1: down and just sketching, sketching, sketching, and show me, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a sketch or a picture. Um, and then
Speaker 1: you know, how about this? And that's how they that's
Speaker 1: how they offered their ideas. It wasn't sort of speaking,
Speaker 1: it was by visual. It's right, much easier. Yeah, how
Speaker 1: about this? And so we started storyboarding that and putting
Speaker 1: it all around the room until we had the whole sequence. Cool.
Speaker 1: That was fun. I'm curious, what's been the like the
Speaker 1: cumulative snowball effect from you know, your Broadway days through
Speaker 1: like all these movie musicals that you've made, Chicago nine,
Speaker 1: Into the Woods and now this, Like what has been
Speaker 1: the snowball effect of what you've learned and applied going
Speaker 1: forward with each thing? You know what I mean? Such
Speaker 1: a great question, Chris, really, Um, you know it's funny.
Speaker 1: I always feel when I started film like I've never
Speaker 1: done anything before, you know, so, But then what kicks
Speaker 1: in is your gut, your your gut about things, and
Speaker 1: I learned early on just to trust that because you
Speaker 1: have more knowledge than you think you do. You know, Um,
Speaker 1: I think for this one I needed all that, the
Speaker 1: arsenal of all of that because it was a new
Speaker 1: musical which I've never done before, and I thought, I
Speaker 1: really need to know, you know, how to build this um,
Speaker 1: make sure that the music comes out of the story,
Speaker 1: that it feels seamless earned. A song should feel earned.
Speaker 1: You know. Musicals that don't work are musicals where they
Speaker 1: start singing and it doesn't feel earned. Somehow, it feels awkward,
Speaker 1: it feels embarrassing. You know, um, they shouldn't be singing.
Speaker 1: And so it was my goal to really create a
Speaker 1: fabric of a film where we could tell the story
Speaker 1: through song. But it felt like the rules of the
Speaker 1: of of of the filmmaking and and that's it seems.
Speaker 1: It should seem effortless when you see it to see, well,
Speaker 1: of course they have a song there. But knowing that
Speaker 1: we tried many different songs. We had four or five
Speaker 1: different songs for literally most of the material, like we
Speaker 1: tried I know, Lynn Manuel's first song. I think we
Speaker 1: had maybe four or five songs. Um Emily Blunt's first song.
Speaker 1: That was a big deal because it's the first time
Speaker 1: Mary Poppins sings in fifty four years. You know, we
Speaker 1: I think we had five different songs for sure. I
Speaker 1: mean it was that kind of work, um, But we
Speaker 1: all knew that the bar was so high, so that's
Speaker 1: why we were reaching. How did you like that process?
Speaker 1: Getting involved with original music and in working with the
Speaker 1: songwriters and all of that. I love that part, um.
Speaker 1: You know, it was great to be able to sit
Speaker 1: down and sort of craft a story with David McGee
Speaker 1: and John de Luca and then bring Mark and Scott
Speaker 1: and to help us flesh it out and find, you know,
Speaker 1: where it works. And it's such a give and take.
Speaker 1: You really have to park your egos at the door
Speaker 1: because you know, sometimes the best scene becomes a song,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, and then sometimes you know, a song
Speaker 1: doesn't work, so it becomes a scene. You know, it
Speaker 1: all has to flow. But what what wins is the
Speaker 1: is the film. You know, that's what you're you're serving
Speaker 1: that same thing, you're serving it the whole time. And
Speaker 1: I mentioned her briefly. How about that Sandy Powell? Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, she's something else. I mean I never worked
Speaker 1: with her before, and she'd never done a musical before,
Speaker 1: and he usually worked with Colleen out what is exactly exactly?
Speaker 1: So you're working with the two best I think, well,
Speaker 1: they're amazing. I will say I feel like, you know,
Speaker 1: completely spoiled, but they're extraordinary. And she was amazing. You know,
Speaker 1: she's British and I that was actually very helpful on this.
Speaker 1: She had her own take on that era, the thirties,
Speaker 1: I know, for instance Mary Poppins. That was very important
Speaker 1: because you know, we looked at a lot of period
Speaker 1: films and period photographs and and artwork. Um, it was
Speaker 1: very helpful. Actually there was one you know, there's a
Speaker 1: beautiful red coat that she wears and that was specifically
Speaker 1: designed so that because most of the sequence happens at night,
Speaker 1: so so she stands out in the in the nighttime.
Speaker 1: And I remember saying to Sandy that we're I really
Speaker 1: need to find something that moves, because there's a big
Speaker 1: dance nutwork it's called Triple Little Life Fantastic and she's
Speaker 1: you know, being lifted and spinning and turning. I said,
Speaker 1: it really needs to be a you know, a costume
Speaker 1: that moves. And so we went to Swing Time and
Speaker 1: looked at Ginger Rogers outfit and that was really helpful
Speaker 1: to see, you know, what we could what we could
Speaker 1: use from that, So how did they how did they
Speaker 1: work you know, skirts into that, and so all of
Speaker 1: that was great. She's an amazing artist. She came up
Speaker 1: with this wonderful idea of hand painting all the costumes
Speaker 1: and for the animation sequence so it would be integrated
Speaker 1: into um that the hand drawn world, which is so great.
Speaker 1: Like when you see, for instance, Emily has a full
Speaker 1: length skirt that's like a pink and white striped skirt
Speaker 1: that she first arrives in in in the animated world,
Speaker 1: and that's what she's wearing and and there's a series
Speaker 1: of tears to it, but there but there are are
Speaker 1: no tears. It's all painted as if there were to.
Speaker 1: It's a flat piece of material that's all hand painted.
Speaker 1: So it's it's it's pretty. It's pretty genius. We should
Speaker 1: mention your production designer to John Meyer. John Meyer, Um,
Speaker 1: you've won him, I think I say that, but you
Speaker 1: know you want him a few offscars already. H He's fantastic.
Speaker 1: And these sets like where did where did you shoot
Speaker 1: the bulk of this so that I was all shot
Speaker 1: in London, although but we did do um a lot
Speaker 1: of location at work. One of the things that John
Speaker 1: Meyer and I really wanted to try and and and
Speaker 1: and create was the sense of a real London, UM,
Speaker 1: not just sort of a fantasy London, but a real
Speaker 1: space a place, especially because we were in the Depression
Speaker 1: era and wanted to connect to that world. So you know,
Speaker 1: we were shooting a tower bridge, we were shooting at
Speaker 1: you know, Buckingham Palace and the real St. Paul's Cathedral.
Speaker 1: You know, that was so exciting to be in London.
Speaker 1: It felt in a way like a love letter to London. UM.
Speaker 1: And then in juxtaposition with that, you have these fantasies
Speaker 1: where you can do anything, you know, go anywhere. And
Speaker 1: so I mean he's such a visual master um and
Speaker 1: but he's so aware of my vision. He just really
Speaker 1: wants to kind of like get in my head and
Speaker 1: say what are you seeing? How do you see it?
Speaker 1: And he understands musicals and how they move Now after
Speaker 1: having done so anyway, I mean, I think I've done
Speaker 1: five movies with him. Um. Yeah, it's you know, I
Speaker 1: feel like, in a funny way, do you know what
Speaker 1: the Arthur Freed unit is from the MGM and today?
Speaker 1: So in MGM they had something called the Arthur Freed unit.
Speaker 1: He was a producer and they that's the that's the
Speaker 1: production coming, the produce you know, that produced all the
Speaker 1: great musical all of them. And so they had a
Speaker 1: machine kind of going. They would have the choreographers and
Speaker 1: the directors they would use like Stanley Done and Vincent
Speaker 1: and Elli, and then they would have, you know, the
Speaker 1: set designers and they all sort of had a language.
Speaker 1: And I have like this little mini Arthur Freed unit.
Speaker 1: I call it where you know, I work with designers
Speaker 1: that I've worked before, our cinematographer, you know that I
Speaker 1: worked DP that I worked before, UM musical people that
Speaker 1: I worked before. So everyone knows and can feed into
Speaker 1: this machine because we've now done a few musicals and
Speaker 1: it's it's been great to carry that on. When you
Speaker 1: were on location, I'm curious, did you have like a
Speaker 1: bunch of crowds turning out to see Mary Poppins in
Speaker 1: the streets. Yeah, they were very excited. I remember what
Speaker 1: we were pulling up to. We we shot at the
Speaker 1: Royal Exchange for our bank, you know, and that played
Speaker 1: the Fidelity Fiduciary bank on our film. And I remember
Speaker 1: we were driving up and I saw a woman in
Speaker 1: a Mary Poppins costume literally crossing this treet. I said, oh,
Speaker 1: here we go, there we go, here they come. But
Speaker 1: it means a lot to so many people, especially when
Speaker 1: you're in London. Yeah, exactly, Yeah, that was it was fun.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you what you think the future
Speaker 1: is for cinematic musicals, because you know, will it stay
Speaker 1: locked into the sort of classical conventions that are tried
Speaker 1: and true and that we all obviously keep coming back to,
Speaker 1: or do you think, well, you know, do you think
Speaker 1: there's innovation happening to really break form? Like what do
Speaker 1: you think about that future? It's such a good question
Speaker 1: to Chris Um. I feel it depends on the property,
Speaker 1: you know, Like with Chicago, for instance, I knew I
Speaker 1: needed a really strong concept to make that work, and I,
Speaker 1: you know, it's sort of chancy obviously, because here I
Speaker 1: was creating two realities. One was on stage of vaudeville
Speaker 1: stage and one was in the reality of the twenties
Speaker 1: in Chicago, and mixing those two back and forth throughout
Speaker 1: the film. But that's what that particular property called for,
Speaker 1: that piece called for that. I think the thing to
Speaker 1: do is make the piece that you're working on come
Speaker 1: to life and there are no rules. You just have
Speaker 1: to find what's at the essence of it. And you know,
Speaker 1: always think story, what is it? What is the story?
Speaker 1: How are you telling this story? People accept any way
Speaker 1: to tell a story as long as you're consistent with
Speaker 1: it and you really set the rules up at the beginning.
Speaker 1: I really feel that. And so and sometimes you know,
Speaker 1: a story sings and feels right, sometimes it just is
Speaker 1: not a musical, and you know you have to kind
Speaker 1: of go with your gut on something like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have two final things here. First, Sickly, do you
Speaker 1: have any plans or desire to head back to the
Speaker 1: stage and do something? Oh, Chris, that's that's interesting. You
Speaker 1: know I've I've toyed with it. In fact, I almost
Speaker 1: did in between um, you know, doing Uh Into the
Speaker 1: Woods and and and Mary Poppins Returns. I was almost did.
Speaker 1: But then, you know, what happens for me is that
Speaker 1: I feel, in an odd way when I'm doing a
Speaker 1: film musical, I feel like I'm in a way doing
Speaker 1: theater too. We because we approach it similarly. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a rehearsal process. You know, you're building it like that. Um.
Speaker 1: And then of course it moves into a whole another genre.
Speaker 1: But you know, somehow, I maybe because I come from theater,
Speaker 1: I still am so excited by what cinema can do. Um,
Speaker 1: even though it takes so much longer, so much longer.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, I've I still am so excited
Speaker 1: by it and the theater. It's where I came from,
Speaker 1: and I love that so much. But I still feel
Speaker 1: like this is the whole new landscape for me, you know,
Speaker 1: And you have something at the end of it. The
Speaker 1: theater is kind of drawing in the sand. That's true.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the magic of it. Right, you've seen it,
Speaker 1: did you see it? It's gone, you know, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: this stays forever. So that is that that's actually a
Speaker 1: special part of it too. And then finally, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: you're probably getting asked about this. I'm just curious if
Speaker 1: if it's real or if you're still if you're talking
Speaker 1: about it, But what's going on with the Little Mermaid?
Speaker 1: Is that something that's going to happen for you? Well,
Speaker 1: it's it's you know, it was. It was really lovely
Speaker 1: that Disney approached me about that. It's a big title
Speaker 1: for them, obviously, and so right now, myself and John
Speaker 1: de Luke are and sort of what I would call
Speaker 1: the exploratory process of looking at it and seeing if
Speaker 1: it could become a film, a live action film. It's
Speaker 1: so different, you know, and it's a lot of challenges
Speaker 1: to that film. Umater underwater it's incredible, and singing underwater,
Speaker 1: you know, staging underwater. We had a one, you know,
Speaker 1: we had a underwater sequence in this and that was
Speaker 1: that was complicated with children and flying and all kinds
Speaker 1: of things. We actually with that sequence, which I could
Speaker 1: never I would never be able to do this on
Speaker 1: something a little mermaid. But we they sang it. Emily
Speaker 1: sang it twice as fast, so we sped up the
Speaker 1: tape sounding literally like many mouths and so and so
Speaker 1: that when we played it back at speed, there's a
Speaker 1: sort of a sense that this is for the whole number.
Speaker 1: There's a little bit of a sense of float, floating
Speaker 1: and kind of a little bit of a other worldliness
Speaker 1: to it. But interesting, Honestly, I could never do an
Speaker 1: entire movie like that. We can probably have a whole
Speaker 1: conversation about the sound elements here too, but we gotta
Speaker 1: wrap it up. Thank you. Chris, but movies, Mary Poppins returns.
Speaker 1: It is Jordan's release date December nineteen. Go see it.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you'll be hearing about it. Great holiday movie
Speaker 1: for the family, and great work with it. Man, I
Speaker 1: really like Thank you, Chris, I really appreciate it. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. Thank you for this wonderful interview. Of course,