Speaker 1: Off the Record is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to Off the Record, the show that
Speaker 1: goes beyond the songs and into the hearts and minds
Speaker 1: of rocks greatest legends. I'm your host, Jordan Runtug. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for listening. Over the last few months you've
Speaker 1: joined me. Is I've explored different eras in the life
Speaker 1: of David Bowie and talked with key figures from these
Speaker 1: many periods. But now we're gonna do something a little different.
Speaker 1: From the moment I started this project, I've had friends
Speaker 1: and loved ones say, what are you gonna do on Labyrinth?
Speaker 1: You have to do something on Labyrinth. The passion for
Speaker 1: this movie is immense, and I get it. I was
Speaker 1: born a year after the film was released. I guess
Speaker 1: that would make me a millennial. Try not to hold
Speaker 1: it against me. A lot of my friends are the
Speaker 1: same age, and for us, Labyrinthe was our introduction to
Speaker 1: the man and the mystery that is David Bowie. The style,
Speaker 1: the swagger, the sass, the pants. First impressions are powerful,
Speaker 1: especially a first impression like this. To this day, there's
Speaker 1: a part of me that truly believes that David Bowie
Speaker 1: really is jarref the Goblin King. Like so many, Labyrinth
Speaker 1: was a favorite movie growing up. It was only years
Speaker 1: later that I discovered it was considered something of a
Speaker 1: disaster for director Jim Henson, the legendary Lord of the Muppets.
Speaker 1: It earned just half of its twenty five million dollar
Speaker 1: budget in the States and garnered mixed reviews, many from
Speaker 1: those who felt it was too mature for children and
Speaker 1: too fantastical for adults. It was just before Henson's death
Speaker 1: in the film began to enjoy new life on home video.
Speaker 1: Since then, it's become a cult classic, beloved by generations
Speaker 1: of kids thanks to the innovative designs and of course
Speaker 1: David's unforgettable performance and unforgettable hair. So with this in mind,
Speaker 1: I'd like to welcome you to the start of Labyrinth Week,
Speaker 1: a celebration of this oft overlooked Bowie treasure. Over the
Speaker 1: next few days, I'll share interviews with several people who
Speaker 1: helped bring Labyrinth to life, and today we're starting with
Speaker 1: the perfect person, conceptual designer Brian Froud, the man who
Speaker 1: imagined the world of Labyrinthe. Brian is a legendary illustrator
Speaker 1: and painter who works in the realm, commonly referred to
Speaker 1: as fantasy. Those you'll see he personally objects to the word.
Speaker 1: His paintings breathed life into ancient folklore and oral history,
Speaker 1: depicting the spiritual side of the natural world through fairies
Speaker 1: and mythological figures. The rich imagery attracted the attention of
Speaker 1: Jim Henson, and in nineteen seventy seven they began work
Speaker 1: on a different cinematic saga, The Dark Crystal. The film
Speaker 1: took them five years to complete and left them both exhausted.
Speaker 1: As soon as it was done, they dove headlong into Labyrinthe.
Speaker 1: It began with Brian's drawings of goblins and monsters and
Speaker 1: surreal landscapes. His visions formed the basis for the film's script,
Speaker 1: written by Monty Python veteran Terry Jones. Brian helped oversee
Speaker 1: the construction of elaborate character puppets, another multi year process.
Speaker 1: The auction was something of a family affair. Also at
Speaker 1: the workshop was his wife, Wendy, a legendary sculptor and
Speaker 1: puppet maker, perhaps best known for fabricating Yoda for the
Speaker 1: Star Wars series, and they were also joined on the
Speaker 1: set by their son Toby as in Baby Toby abducted
Speaker 1: by Jared. The Goblin. King Brian put his heart, soul, imagination,
Speaker 1: and firstborn into this film, so it seemed only right
Speaker 1: that we kick off Labyrinth Week with him. I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoy our conversation. To start, there was a wonderful
Speaker 1: quote you gave where you said, everything you need to
Speaker 1: know is in a tree, and it seemed like a
Speaker 1: great place to start. I wanted to ask you more
Speaker 1: about that and the role that that nature plays in
Speaker 1: your work. It all seems to sort of flow from there. Yes.
Speaker 1: I remember when I was working in England and I
Speaker 1: was creating my paintings, which well, I guess sort of organic,
Speaker 1: and I was really inspired by an artist called Arthur
Speaker 1: Rackham who worked at the turn of the century and
Speaker 1: illustrated some definitive books of the Grim Brothers and you know,
Speaker 1: the Ring Cycle and various things like that, and um,
Speaker 1: the thing that inspired me the most was that his
Speaker 1: his trees were always twisted and strange and full of life,
Speaker 1: and they would have faces in it. And then the
Speaker 1: creatures he would draw were like a tree, like the
Speaker 1: branches you know that they were that the lines were
Speaker 1: very flowing. I was working in London at the time,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to move to the country because I
Speaker 1: wanted to develop my art. I knew I needed to
Speaker 1: move to the countryside, which I did, and was immediately
Speaker 1: struck by what I was looking at, which were rocks
Speaker 1: and trees and hills, and I felt like, as an artist,
Speaker 1: I could see what they look like on the outside,
Speaker 1: but I was always intrigued about what they looked like
Speaker 1: on the inside. And as I articulated that, I started
Speaker 1: to draw more and more gnomes and fairies, which got
Speaker 1: classified as fantasy arts, which I always get a bit
Speaker 1: annoyed at, and I'd say, I don't do fantasy, I
Speaker 1: do reality. This is the this is the real spiritual
Speaker 1: nature of the world. When I first came to America,
Speaker 1: I was a guest of honor the World Fantasy Convention.
Speaker 1: I was convinced there wasn't a single trick in America
Speaker 1: because that you know, inspirational energy was not showing up
Speaker 1: in the arts, you know, in the fantasy art. And
Speaker 1: I was both shocked and delighted to discover that America
Speaker 1: has wonderful treas I mean most please. And then I
Speaker 1: was a bit annoyed that they asters was a why
Speaker 1: aren't they looking at your own trees? They were too
Speaker 1: busy looking at each other's work. It's very American. Yeah,
Speaker 1: rather than being inspired were there's something was right on
Speaker 1: their doorsteps. So there's something about branches. The flow of
Speaker 1: a branch and the fact it's organic is the way
Speaker 1: I like to draw. You know, a line needs to
Speaker 1: be expressive, and it has to be expressive of whatever
Speaker 1: it is, the character or soul or something like that.
Speaker 1: But it's always going to be sort of different each time.
Speaker 1: But it's rather besides, so you know, there's no one
Speaker 1: way of drawing. Um, well, what I tried to draw
Speaker 1: his spirit? Really? I mean I tried to draw the
Speaker 1: the invisible purposes. I don't know why enough I got
Speaker 1: down that route or drying to draw fareas. I have
Speaker 1: a family member who is deeply involved in in spiritual work,
Speaker 1: and I told her I was speaking to you, and
Speaker 1: she was so thrilled, and I found myself asking her
Speaker 1: this question. And I'd like to ask you, now, what
Speaker 1: is a fairy? Because it does seem to encompass a
Speaker 1: fairly wide swath of characters, But are they psychical impressions?
Speaker 1: Are they creatures or how would you define a fairy?
Speaker 1: Tough questions? First, Really, I think that, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: a fascinating it's a fascinating thing, um, you know, because
Speaker 1: everybody wants proof or they want evidence, and they want
Speaker 1: it to be real. And then if you say what
Speaker 1: you see in your head, they go, see, uh, it
Speaker 1: doesn't exist, does it? But it? But it does seem
Speaker 1: to me that fairies or spirits are often spirits of place.
Speaker 1: They're a spirit of a hill or a specific location.
Speaker 1: And that's why I think when they show up and
Speaker 1: when you see them or people's experience of them off
Speaker 1: of the very similar the shapes and forms are responding
Speaker 1: to the energy of the place, and so it is
Speaker 1: the spirit of that place. And when they sort of
Speaker 1: show up, I'm doing the inverted customers with my fingers. Here.
Speaker 1: Is that it seems to me it's simultaneously like in
Speaker 1: your head but also projected seemingly outside. Certainly, I don't
Speaker 1: see fairies very often, but if I do, you absolutely
Speaker 1: know you've seen it. But it's not going to be
Speaker 1: necessarily very clear if it makes any sense. I mean,
Speaker 1: I remember being on tour in America and I was
Speaker 1: somewhere I don't remember exactly where. I was somewhere on
Speaker 1: the West coast, and I was walking around and I
Speaker 1: was thinking, I don't know, I just feel to be
Speaker 1: experiencing about the best, the best way of saying it,
Speaker 1: rather than seeing, but experiencing lepricorn and I thought, I
Speaker 1: love that. I'm going a bit do lally. Why am
Speaker 1: I thinking about lepricorns? And then I suddenly saw a
Speaker 1: sign and it said on this side, well fever sheds.
Speaker 1: And it was when ships were coming in and there
Speaker 1: were a lot of Irish immigrants coming in and they
Speaker 1: had fevers. They put them in isolation in these sheds,
Speaker 1: and I thought, gosh, I think they brought lepricorns with them.
Speaker 1: I think that's spontaneous visual expressions of you know, of energy,
Speaker 1: of spiritual energy. I suppose yeah. Did you feel that
Speaker 1: that you saw things differently or saw things that most
Speaker 1: people don't see from an early age? I guess the
Speaker 1: question is did you choose fairies or did they choose you? Um,
Speaker 1: and then they absolutely chose me. I can't say that
Speaker 1: I saw them, but it was my first glimpse of
Speaker 1: Arthur Rackham's are when I was at art school, and
Speaker 1: I was training to be a painter, and I was
Speaker 1: getting really bored with it. I just thought, you could
Speaker 1: paint a rubbish picture, but if you could explain it
Speaker 1: in grand words, it was called good art. And I thought,
Speaker 1: this is absolutely, you know, patently not true. And I
Speaker 1: really sort of believed that the picture should be self
Speaker 1: evident and it should tell its own story. So I
Speaker 1: thought I'd changed courses and go and study graphic design
Speaker 1: because it graphic designs seemed to be much more direct,
Speaker 1: with an image of having a meaning and you could
Speaker 1: understand it. And as I was waiting for my interview
Speaker 1: in the library, I came across our for rack and
Speaker 1: book Midsummer Night Dream and in it were you know
Speaker 1: these pictures, wonderful pictures of in the scratchy inclines trees
Speaker 1: with faces in it. I thought, ah, I didn't see
Speaker 1: it that way when I was young, but that's how
Speaker 1: I felt when I was climbing up trees. I felt
Speaker 1: there was the spirit of it. And that's how I
Speaker 1: got drawn into wanting to draw fairies. And as I
Speaker 1: when I went on the course graphic design course, it
Speaker 1: was really boring. It was absolutely pretti. Were you boring,
Speaker 1: and so I sort of chained myself to to illustrate.
Speaker 1: You know, I got very interested in Gradgrind's fairy tales
Speaker 1: and did my own drawings, and as I were drawing
Speaker 1: fairy tales, I got I became more and more interested
Speaker 1: in the possible psychic reality of real fairies and started
Speaker 1: to also try and paint being sort of made of
Speaker 1: light and that were elusive and Neyone difficult, were really
Speaker 1: impossible debate. I don't know what I was thinking of that,
Speaker 1: and I've always wanted my pictures, you know, from then
Speaker 1: on doing and somehow incorporate some sense of spirit. Something
Speaker 1: that you do so well that is so incredible to
Speaker 1: me is that there there is such a sense of
Speaker 1: realism in your work, and that makes it so much
Speaker 1: more evocative. What is key to getting through to people
Speaker 1: in that way and to putting that sense of realism?
Speaker 1: Is there something that really is integral you have to
Speaker 1: nail just right in order to make it have that
Speaker 1: sense of realism. I think it's desired to allow people
Speaker 1: to believe, and so say one of my paintings that
Speaker 1: can be lay complex, that's always what I would call
Speaker 1: a touchstone. And so that that would be something that
Speaker 1: was really realistic, something that people would know understands it
Speaker 1: might be a human figure. And that allows the viewer
Speaker 1: to trust me as the artist, because when I start
Speaker 1: to take them on the journey and I start to
Speaker 1: go down the deep ends and things have become stranger
Speaker 1: and stranger, then they are believing that as well. So
Speaker 1: I have over the years painted very abstract paintings of
Speaker 1: just pure light, and I could just do that, but
Speaker 1: I think there would be, unfortunately a possibility people would
Speaker 1: just dismiss it as being the madness. And what I
Speaker 1: wanted to do is to is to bring people on
Speaker 1: the journey to there, and so UM my complex paintings
Speaker 1: they are more akin to maps. Um and so these
Speaker 1: maps allow you to go on the journey into fairyland.
Speaker 1: They are take you in safely. But in folklore or
Speaker 1: going into fairy is quite dangerous. You can get lost,
Speaker 1: you can get trapped, you can be in there for
Speaker 1: our years and come back and you find time has changed,
Speaker 1: or everybody you knew has to hide. It's very dangerous
Speaker 1: place to be. You can lapse into madness. So you
Speaker 1: need a safe way out. And so my paintings are
Speaker 1: hopefully precisely that maps into fairy. It's so funny to
Speaker 1: me how these days ferry work is sort of placed
Speaker 1: in the realm of you know, children's nursery or something
Speaker 1: like that, whereas as you said, historically, through the ages
Speaker 1: and with oral histories, it is a very dark, very adult,
Speaker 1: very sort of dangerous place. Yes, it seems to me.
Speaker 1: When I started, fairy was definitely still relegated to the nursery.
Speaker 1: It was it's thought to be a childish occupation, whereas
Speaker 1: precisely it was part of the everybody's lives because you
Speaker 1: needed to placate the fairies and you had to leave
Speaker 1: like little gifts or you have sort of of milk
Speaker 1: or or presents for them. Otherwise they stole your children,
Speaker 1: took them away, or they done them into change things,
Speaker 1: and they sickened and died. Your cattle died. You could
Speaker 1: die because you know, you have had a stroke and
Speaker 1: that was elf shots. You know, there would be these
Speaker 1: magical invisible elf shots that cause heart attacks. So you
Speaker 1: had to have a proper relationship with the spiritual beings
Speaker 1: that surrounded you in the world. The fairies weren't, you know,
Speaker 1: pretty little things, you know, in little pink dresses and
Speaker 1: literary wings. They were dangerous and strange creatures. So I've
Speaker 1: been trying to re engage with that aspect of witness
Speaker 1: for years. You mentioned fairies sort of abducting children. That
Speaker 1: leads us right into really the plot of Labyrinth, just
Speaker 1: just to begin there. How did your first cross paths
Speaker 1: with Jim Henson. I had moved down to the country
Speaker 1: on the edge of Dartmoor, and I'd been painting pictures
Speaker 1: for book covers and for books, and I really wanted
Speaker 1: to paint more fairy creatures and controls and that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. And I really wanted to paint pictures that
Speaker 1: didn't have a strange blank bit of the top where
Speaker 1: you put in the title of the book. I wanted
Speaker 1: to fill in all the space with with stuff. And
Speaker 1: I had some work in a couple of major books
Speaker 1: about illustration at the time, and I was on the
Speaker 1: front of one of them, and actually Ada Lee, who
Speaker 1: worked with me on a the Fairy Book but also
Speaker 1: won the Oscar for his wonderful designs for Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings, and he was on the back. And actually
Speaker 1: it was the first picture I painted when I moved
Speaker 1: to the country, and it was a patrol with a
Speaker 1: waterfall coming off the end of his nose and there
Speaker 1: was a rainbow. And Jim Henson saw that and he
Speaker 1: was the back of his mind. He was thinking about
Speaker 1: doing a major film using puppets, and he thought, well,
Speaker 1: maybe this chat might be the person to do it.
Speaker 1: So they got in contact with me, and I went
Speaker 1: to see Jim and he said, well, what do you think.
Speaker 1: I was terrified. I don't know. I mean, I just
Speaker 1: really thought the puppets had such a potential to be expressive,
Speaker 1: and to be expressive of strange world and a deep
Speaker 1: world that could tell a story. And so he said,
Speaker 1: we'll come to New York, and I went to New
Speaker 1: York and we started on it there. But Jim didn't
Speaker 1: know at the time that I could do sculpts, other
Speaker 1: sculpting little things, and so I was into the deep
Speaker 1: end because I didn't know quite how to tell people
Speaker 1: what to do, and so I actually made things a
Speaker 1: lot just to explain to them what I was thinking.
Speaker 1: And that was five years of my life, every day
Speaker 1: working on The Dark Crystal. When we'd finished that, we
Speaker 1: there was a showing of the film in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: I was there with my wife, Wendy and Jim and
Speaker 1: we were driving away from that in a limousine and
Speaker 1: we say five years of our lives. We were just
Speaker 1: exhausted and I thought, We're never Nassa. I've had enough
Speaker 1: of all this stuff. And Jim said, should we do
Speaker 1: another one? And we said, oh, well why not. This
Speaker 1: is in the back of the limit. Yeah, And so
Speaker 1: it said, well, what what was it going to be about?
Speaker 1: And I said, I don't know. And he said his
Speaker 1: daughter and Lisa, who was a majoring in mythology, you know,
Speaker 1: been talking to him and he said, well, maybe it
Speaker 1: should be about Indian mythology, because there's there's all sorts
Speaker 1: of you know, strange chariots and horses and gods going
Speaker 1: across the sky. And he said, well, do you know
Speaker 1: anything about that? And I said no, I have the
Speaker 1: face he started to see. And so he sort of
Speaker 1: thought of a bit more and I said, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I know about goblets. Oh, he said that sounds interesting.
Speaker 1: I said, well, the goblins traditionally steal babies. Because what
Speaker 1: Jim had said this time, he said, I just don't
Speaker 1: want puppets. I want to put some human beings in it.
Speaker 1: And I just had this vision of a baby surrounded
Speaker 1: by puppets, the strange, the Nari Goblin puppets, and I
Speaker 1: thought that will really work and said Jim was on
Speaker 1: board of that, and he said, well, well, what's what else?
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of desperation. I sort of said,
Speaker 1: well what about a labyrinth? I said, look, a lab
Speaker 1: of thinking that a labyrinth is not only a place
Speaker 1: that you can wander around in, it's also a metaphor
Speaker 1: for life's journey. And that's where we left it. We
Speaker 1: said that's great, and I came back to England and
Speaker 1: I started to paint various pictures. First of all, it
Speaker 1: was the baby with the goblins around it, and then
Speaker 1: I did other things of possible creatures that we would
Speaker 1: might meet in the in the labyrinth, and then we
Speaker 1: started to develop the story to go with it. What
Speaker 1: was your working relationship like with Terry Jones, who worked
Speaker 1: on the script. Were there meetings between you two or
Speaker 1: did he purely go off your series of images? Raven
Speaker 1: was about three years to do, and we were doing
Speaker 1: that in England because Jim was working on the Muppet Show,
Speaker 1: which they were recording here in England at El Street.
Speaker 1: That way he could be doing that and keeping an
Speaker 1: eye on us in the workshop as we were starting
Speaker 1: to build and make these characters and develop the story,
Speaker 1: and we were getting fairly close to film, and Jim said,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I think that needs tweaking the script.
Speaker 1: So he, like I was, was a Python fan, and
Speaker 1: we knew that Terry Jones was his story and as
Speaker 1: well that, you know, his sense of history and visual
Speaker 1: stuff was great. So instead and I think I'll ask
Speaker 1: him to just tweak it. So he came in to
Speaker 1: the workshop and just looked around and I had on
Speaker 1: my desk my sketch books, and he started just a
Speaker 1: to the sketch books and he kept going, oh, that's great,
Speaker 1: I love that, and he just picked out some things
Speaker 1: that were like the wild things or knockers and various things.
Speaker 1: And he went away and stead of just tweeting and
Speaker 1: then like shining up the script, he just wrote a
Speaker 1: whole lot of new stuff that we had a whole
Speaker 1: lot of new characters suddenly, and luckily we were now
Speaker 1: a well trained team about making things and so it
Speaker 1: didn't phase us. We just sort of started to build
Speaker 1: the new characters for it, and then on what Terry
Speaker 1: had spotted is really because I'm English. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of my references for the characters I was drawing really
Speaker 1: was Alice in Wonderland, and he sort of drew some
Speaker 1: of that aspect out of that with the new characters.
Speaker 1: Jim loved all that, but he hadn't really spotted how
Speaker 1: part of like my dad, I suppose of my englishness
Speaker 1: I was in the drawings and Terry Jones heads and
Speaker 1: Terry Jones was an absolute delight the work with. It's
Speaker 1: funny you mentioned that I think of the guards that
Speaker 1: with each other two heads, and it's a very right
Speaker 1: Alison Wonderland is. I love the sort of the logic
Speaker 1: humor of that, the very Lewis Carrol like just wordplay
Speaker 1: that completely plays off the incredible visuals right. Well, the
Speaker 1: design of those characters came from what can I do
Speaker 1: as a designer, design what puppets do the best, because
Speaker 1: puppets don't really do a lot, but you've got to
Speaker 1: imply they do, and you've got to give them some
Speaker 1: really good stuff to do so you believe they can
Speaker 1: do a lot more. And so one of the basic
Speaker 1: things of the puppet is just popping up the top
Speaker 1: of the playboard, you know that horizontal line, and they
Speaker 1: stick their heads over the top, and I thought, well,
Speaker 1: that's what it is. I just make this oblong and
Speaker 1: we'll just have a head. And I thought, well, that's
Speaker 1: not enough. And then I suddenly thought about playing cards,
Speaker 1: and playing cards have heads at the top, and the
Speaker 1: card has heads at the bottom because you can use
Speaker 1: their cards anyway, you lay them down anyway around. So
Speaker 1: suddenly I thought, we've got a character here, and it's
Speaker 1: going to be relatively easy to make. It's going to
Speaker 1: be strange. But it was that. Then it suddenly became
Speaker 1: a reference to the cards in Alice in Wonderland, and
Speaker 1: then Terry wrote all this very funny dialogue for them,
Speaker 1: and that brought them to life. Was it a struggle
Speaker 1: translating your illustrations into three dimension? I mean there must
Speaker 1: have been a lot of trial and error for not
Speaker 1: only developing something in the three dimension, but also something
Speaker 1: that would then be manipulated to give performances, something like Ludo,
Speaker 1: but all that stuff. Yes, that was why it's like
Speaker 1: five years for Dark Crystal and three for Labyrinths. That
Speaker 1: I couldn't just do the designs and walk away and
Speaker 1: my designs can be fairly loose because it's no good
Speaker 1: tinning it down too soon. You have to go through
Speaker 1: those stages of signing out how you're going to bring
Speaker 1: it to life and how you're going to mechanically make
Speaker 1: that happen. And so often there's quite a lot of
Speaker 1: prototype work where you just like couple something together to
Speaker 1: start with. Then you find out what your problems are
Speaker 1: and and now I'm redesigning as that's happening. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to build on the strength of how things are made.
Speaker 1: So it's only really near the end when we're you know,
Speaker 1: we've done the skulls and we're putting it together. You
Speaker 1: can still be making changes and I'm still coming to
Speaker 1: the final conclusion of how what the color is exactly
Speaker 1: going to be like? You know, what's the finish going
Speaker 1: to be like? Because it's part of my job is
Speaker 1: to guide that, is to keep the spirit of that
Speaker 1: going because it needs to show up at the end,
Speaker 1: it needs to show up on the screen and be alive. Um.
Speaker 1: And that is teamwork. That's a lot of people with
Speaker 1: all their skills bringing it together, and it's you know,
Speaker 1: you've got a huge amount of people working things, and
Speaker 1: part of what I need to do is corral that
Speaker 1: to make it, keep it, keep it going in the
Speaker 1: right direction, because rather than spinning off out of control
Speaker 1: and it feels like it's the wrong thing. Something like
Speaker 1: Ludo is one of you know, Handson's triumphs, as they
Speaker 1: were used to building big creatures, and when we were
Speaker 1: building that, they had the expertise to do it. But
Speaker 1: Jim would come in and look at it, and all
Speaker 1: his comments were not about the way it was looking,
Speaker 1: but how does it feel for the performers, And how
Speaker 1: can we make the person on the inside and the
Speaker 1: other people helping move it, how can we make their
Speaker 1: life easier that we don't hurt them, we don't damage them,
Speaker 1: and also how that they can be more expressive to
Speaker 1: the character. So you know, we spent a long time
Speaker 1: building or rebuilding until we finally got to the the
Speaker 1: end result. And when you did, when you saw, like
Speaker 1: all the things that we build, when they came to life,
Speaker 1: yet just sometimes just in the studio before we even
Speaker 1: got them on the set, it was just it would
Speaker 1: just take your breath away because there was magic happening
Speaker 1: in front of your eyes. It must have been emotional
Speaker 1: to see this, this character that existed only in your
Speaker 1: imagination suddenly be, as you said, alive in front of you. Yes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I know that it had been a long journey
Speaker 1: for Jim because I know he got excited about the
Speaker 1: possibility of what you could do with puppets. And I
Speaker 1: know one of the first things Jim got me to
Speaker 1: see when I was first went to America, he did
Speaker 1: these characters on Saturday Night Live. That's right, And he said,
Speaker 1: the thing that made them different they had glass eyes
Speaker 1: in it, and so that and the as these little
Speaker 1: glittery eyes and it just get and he says, it
Speaker 1: just gives us this uncanny look. And that was sort
Speaker 1: of the beginning of everything. And so you can see
Speaker 1: that journey from those puppets to Labyrinth, when you've got
Speaker 1: Ludo or you've got the goblins. And we worked hard
Speaker 1: on getting all the eyes for everything right. Jim believed
Speaker 1: in the potential of well, the potential of telling a
Speaker 1: story with deep emotion, and it was quite extraordinary because
Speaker 1: we knew that with the Muppet shows that people and
Speaker 1: pup its inter react seamlessly. You know. That was that
Speaker 1: that was the Puppet Show with guests on and so
Speaker 1: we knew we had no problem well having Jennifer Connelly
Speaker 1: the girl, or a baby, or David Bowie, you know,
Speaker 1: interacting with well in inanimate objects made out of rubber
Speaker 1: and fur and bits and pieces that I mean, you
Speaker 1: would just absolutely believe it. I know you you must
Speaker 1: love all your children equally. But is there a puppet
Speaker 1: or a character that really stands out as a above
Speaker 1: the others, as a personal favorite for you from that film?
Speaker 1: Oh lord, so many. I'm sure there are so many
Speaker 1: of them. Milk the milk bottles. No, it wasn't even
Speaker 1: me to doing that. I mean that was it was
Speaker 1: really interesting to be filming in England with English crew.
Speaker 1: You know that there are the gates to the Goblin
Speaker 1: City and some of the English who just put two
Speaker 1: little milk bottles down by the step. And that's very
Speaker 1: English because that in the days that milkman delivered milk
Speaker 1: to your door, and we just put in that, you know.
Speaker 1: But Jim was always um. He loved all those little
Speaker 1: details and always put all sorts of little the details.
Speaker 1: And Jim always had a thing about chicken spec remember
Speaker 1: him saying, we're gonna put some chickens in so we
Speaker 1: got this though. They hired this chicken wrangler come in
Speaker 1: with their chickens, but he and then he and then
Speaker 1: that night he sort of said to us, he said,
Speaker 1: you know, they might might be a wrangler, said, but
Speaker 1: chickens do nothing a wrangler chicken. Oh, these but it's
Speaker 1: but it's all those things that you need on the
Speaker 1: set to like to bring everything to life, and chickens
Speaker 1: do how FACTI or maybe they distract I don't know.
Speaker 1: So we went to the old expression don't don't work
Speaker 1: with with kids or animals, and Jim did exactly. Now
Speaker 1: it's precisely that. Yeah, yeah, speaking of kids, told me,
Speaker 1: is your son? Whose idea was it to cast your
Speaker 1: son as the baby in the film? Well, we obviously
Speaker 1: always needed a baby at some point, And then I said,
Speaker 1: the first picture I painted was of the baby surrounded
Speaker 1: by goblins. By the time we were ready to film,
Speaker 1: we suddenly realized we needed a baby, and low and behold,
Speaker 1: I seemed to have one of my own who was
Speaker 1: actually precisely at the right age, and so it seemed
Speaker 1: the easiest thing to do was the heart who actually
Speaker 1: looked remarkably like By painting the baby in the painting,
Speaker 1: which is quite extraordinary. And also that the fact that
Speaker 1: because he was ours, he was just really used to
Speaker 1: being um surrounded by strange you know creatures loved Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean because I mean there are some moments that
Speaker 1: you see in the film where he's crying, which he's unfortunate,
Speaker 1: and it was never because he was frightened of the
Speaker 1: goblins at all. It's just that they would start the
Speaker 1: playback the music really loud, and we kept say can
Speaker 1: you not like, could you just like just tweak it slightly,
Speaker 1: but they would just father startle him. When when when
Speaker 1: you know, David Bowie would start singing, how was how
Speaker 1: was David with Toby? It must have been surreal not
Speaker 1: only just to see David Bowie with a child, but
Speaker 1: have it to be your son. What what was? What
Speaker 1: was there? Hesitate to call the relationship? But how was
Speaker 1: it was David with with Toby? Well? Um, when I
Speaker 1: was really never never there because I was always in
Speaker 1: the workshop and the workshop was in Hampstead in London
Speaker 1: and we were filming out at else because I was
Speaker 1: just always too busy because we're always trying to get
Speaker 1: you know, the next puppets ready or the next scene
Speaker 1: or I'd be on the next set to check on
Speaker 1: all that. But it meant that my wife, Wendy, who's
Speaker 1: the baby's mother, was there, you know, all the time.
Speaker 1: Daby was great. I mean he was a very really lovely,
Speaker 1: lovely man, so it was easy. I mean, Wendy was
Speaker 1: always there to make sure that Tubby was safe. That's
Speaker 1: the interesting is that once we knew that we were
Speaker 1: going to have a live baby, also knew that we
Speaker 1: would need probably a puppet, baby would need something some
Speaker 1: other things. And that's where how when I designed the
Speaker 1: strike the outfit for the baby, that it needed to
Speaker 1: be really distinctive that you could see it from a
Speaker 1: distance and he would be able to see the baby
Speaker 1: wherever it was in the general mayhem of the sets
Speaker 1: and the uh the goblins, and also liked the strike
Speaker 1: did refer to Alice in Wonderland, to her stockings, that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. And also um the fact that we
Speaker 1: could duplicate who had had a puppet, which we didn't really,
Speaker 1: but we had like a fake baby that the day
Speaker 1: the could throw up in the air. It's always a
Speaker 1: shock when I see the film and my baby up
Speaker 1: in the average starts and I know Howbie, you know,
Speaker 1: over the years has gone to have gone to various
Speaker 1: like conventions and things that they have, like labyrinth conventions
Speaker 1: where they do throw a stuff baby around which he
Speaker 1: finds a pitch shocking. Do you recall meeting David's for
Speaker 1: the first time? What were you what were your first
Speaker 1: impressions of them? Yes, I do. I mean it was
Speaker 1: very interesting times because he had an assistant who was
Speaker 1: very protected on him, and so she didn't really like
Speaker 1: too many people getting anywhere nearer in with us, unfortunate,
Speaker 1: but himself was just absolute delight. And so we were
Speaker 1: just a few days away from him starting and we
Speaker 1: were still trying to sort out like his wig and
Speaker 1: various things. And I remember having a meeting with him
Speaker 1: in his dressing room which had nothing in it yet,
Speaker 1: because he just really arrived. And we had made for
Speaker 1: him as a gift a little bone flute, little tiny
Speaker 1: thing and it played, so it's a very ancient thing,
Speaker 1: and so I knew and I know the sound of
Speaker 1: it is a very ancient found and we gave it
Speaker 1: to him in his dressing room and he just took
Speaker 1: it and he just the most extraordinary thing. He leapt
Speaker 1: up onto the table top, you know, with the mirror
Speaker 1: behind it, with all the lights around it, and he
Speaker 1: hunkered down and he played a tune on it and
Speaker 1: it was the most spooky thing. It was like it
Speaker 1: was like he was Puck or some He was definitely
Speaker 1: very fairly like and what you really wanted to do
Speaker 1: was like go to the course of the room, get away,
Speaker 1: because it was just so powerful and so exhilarating, and
Speaker 1: he just sort of got the spirit of the Goblin King.
Speaker 1: To shame that there was nowhere in the in the
Speaker 1: characterization in the film to have anything like that, but
Speaker 1: he was kind of extraordinary. Another thing about him was
Speaker 1: that he had He was very funny, you know, he
Speaker 1: was he was very lighthearted and connected. But so my
Speaker 1: dealings with him were at a distance. I've been making
Speaker 1: costumes and things in the workshop and um, you know,
Speaker 1: the things were taken to him and he would be
Speaker 1: wearing it, but I never Wendy sat that. My wife,
Speaker 1: Wendy would saw him like every day when dealing with Toby,
Speaker 1: but I never it. He saw him again after that. Wow,
Speaker 1: that is that is quite an impression. That is unbelievable.
Speaker 1: It seems like, well, once there's enough it seems like
Speaker 1: from that just that the energy coming off of him,
Speaker 1: as you said, sounds extraordinary. Yes. Wow. How did the
Speaker 1: style of Jarred evolve from you know, his costume and
Speaker 1: his hair and everything in his makeup. How evolved were
Speaker 1: you with developing that his look? Actually, some of the
Speaker 1: designers for him hardly exist. There is a funny sketchy
Speaker 1: bit that really became his major look, and it's about
Speaker 1: maybe two inches tall in a sketch book. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was just sort of scribbles, but we were developing it,
Speaker 1: and I did lots of designs for that, because well,
Speaker 1: he is as a character is really segments and fragments
Speaker 1: of a teenage girl's imagination. And so the first one
Speaker 1: which Jim really what he wanted was pop star, you know,
Speaker 1: as somebody that would bring to the part all those
Speaker 1: things you know, a famous person would naturally have. Buie
Speaker 1: was absolutely perfect because in his characterizations on stage and
Speaker 1: and his our various incarnations of different characters, you know,
Speaker 1: Ziggy Sadust is all sorts of different people. That's the
Speaker 1: way he is as a creative artist. So he brought
Speaker 1: back to it, you know, because I did have some
Speaker 1: costumes where maybe it would be in a being in
Speaker 1: a suit or whatever. I always saw the Goblin King
Speaker 1: as somebody mercurial or changing, and so the next thing
Speaker 1: was that actually I felt that he came out of
Speaker 1: sort of literature, so sort of romantic literary figures. So
Speaker 1: there's very much there's very much Heath Clear in there.
Speaker 1: There's Rochester from Jane Eyre and Mr Darcy from Pride
Speaker 1: and Petjudice, as well as things like meta Stophiles, which
Speaker 1: is it's all very theatrical, which absolutely David understood. My
Speaker 1: design for the wig was a couple of little scripples,
Speaker 1: didn't know quite what it was, and we started the
Speaker 1: ship and we thought, well, maybe it should be like
Speaker 1: a wolf, you know, that we would started to go
Speaker 1: down the route that he could have some sort of
Speaker 1: wolf like characteristics, but it miss made him sort of
Speaker 1: look old and gray. Once they've got the general shape
Speaker 1: of the wind, David just sort of took charge and basically,
Speaker 1: because this is his territory, he's used to a glam rock,
Speaker 1: you know, it's that it meant to it's meant to
Speaker 1: be this little glam rock look, you know, and the
Speaker 1: fact that it's like a Tina Turner look, as well.
Speaker 1: He totally got you know, so we meant we could
Speaker 1: just like tweak it a bit and make it more
Speaker 1: raggedy and all that. You know, he got his own
Speaker 1: person to do the strange makeup I stuff and he
Speaker 1: literally could step into it. And so when we were
Speaker 1: then developing you know, other aspects, which was for the
Speaker 1: leather jacket look because that is also I wanted that
Speaker 1: sort of dangerous, you know, the wild one Marlon Young,
Speaker 1: Marlon Brando look um. But we also wanted it to
Speaker 1: be very much part of the Goblin world. Where so
Speaker 1: that also relates to there's a some mercenary soldiers in
Speaker 1: the fift hundreds of the land next who were quite flamboyant.
Speaker 1: So some of that costuming refers to that. Was like
Speaker 1: the tight pants and the boots and and this leather
Speaker 1: jacket that all has it's alarmor on it, but the
Speaker 1: armor is all tweaked. We got you know, strange worms boring.
Speaker 1: It's boring their way through the armor, which is sort
Speaker 1: of comes from like combs of death and all sorts
Speaker 1: of I really wanted to be really a rich amalgam
Speaker 1: of influences that would turn up in the costumes. We
Speaker 1: were finishing the film and we were coming to the
Speaker 1: last scene with David and it was the end of
Speaker 1: the film and we were sort of relaxing a bit.
Speaker 1: I think we can go home soon. Basically, we suddenly
Speaker 1: realized we suddenly realized, oh, well, shouldn't he have another
Speaker 1: costume at this stage? And we went, oh, maybe he should.
Speaker 1: And we sort of actually played up all night and
Speaker 1: sort of built that thing for him, which is rather
Speaker 1: kabooki Japanese kabooti. Look, you know, not because I wanted
Speaker 1: to him to be like a ghost like as I
Speaker 1: was thinking of the kabuki theater. Ghosts are really strange
Speaker 1: things and stuff. We sort of quickly built it with
Speaker 1: a sort of whispy fur and the bone color everything.
Speaker 1: How familiar were you with with his music? Kabuki was
Speaker 1: a big influence on his own style in the in
Speaker 1: the Ziggi and Aladdin saying years how deeply were you
Speaker 1: aware of his musical work? Um, well, I've always been,
Speaker 1: always been a fan, and you know, I have liked it,
Speaker 1: and I know that he was very interested in that.
Speaker 1: He trained in mind and it shows up in all
Speaker 1: the costumes, and I knew that he would respond to it.
Speaker 1: The unfortunate thing was that not actually really been able
Speaker 1: to talk to him about it, because you know, everybody
Speaker 1: my my infamous you know purs pants, so their course,
Speaker 1: these literally like towers as um were there for a reason,
Speaker 1: I mean because partly also not only it's part of
Speaker 1: that look that you're Heathcliff and all that those um
Speaker 1: that period, whether trousers were fairly tight and the boots
Speaker 1: you know, and the tailcoats and all that we were
Speaker 1: going for that, but also a ballet dancer, I mean
Speaker 1: it really is that would be another influence all that.
Speaker 1: But what I really wanted to giving was a big
Speaker 1: metal cog piece which I hadn't quite got round to design,
Speaker 1: and I didn't know quite how do it? Tell anybody
Speaker 1: this is where what I wanted to do. But in
Speaker 1: the end I didn't get the chance. I'm sure he
Speaker 1: wouldn't want it. He seemed quite quite happy to um,
Speaker 1: you know, go with with this sort of expressive theatrical look.
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems so wonderful that that he was
Speaker 1: so willing to haven't said, to humor about himself, and
Speaker 1: to really commit so deeply to to something like this,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like it seems like really
Speaker 1: wonderful that that he he seems so willing to play,
Speaker 1: I guess is the best way I think to put
Speaker 1: to put it, to be so willing to try new things,
Speaker 1: which I guess shows up in his own musical work anywhere. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: also that what I wanted to do was actually that
Speaker 1: that's an interesting thing about the idea to play, because
Speaker 1: that just reminds me that something is that I designed
Speaker 1: for him, which is that swagger stick, that little whip
Speaker 1: thing which has the crystal ball on the end. But
Speaker 1: I thought, if I give him that, it also gives
Speaker 1: him as a performer something he understands, which is a
Speaker 1: microphone in his hand. And it works. You know. It
Speaker 1: helped him, I think, enormously when he was performing with
Speaker 1: all the goblins, to have that in his hands. It
Speaker 1: refers to the whole gamut of theatrical expressions of romantic literature.
Speaker 1: That's what we were trying to do, and he was
Speaker 1: great at it. I mean, there was one odd thing happened.
Speaker 1: We were also building more costumes for him, and we
Speaker 1: worked one weekend with lots of them, and they were
Speaker 1: presented to him and he would turn them down. Actually,
Speaker 1: it is only when he turned down it, which was
Speaker 1: a big robe thing. But suddenly in the newspapers it
Speaker 1: says Bowie rejects costumes, and we thought, what's that about.
Speaker 1: It was very odd and was thought, that's like that.
Speaker 1: He said, you know, this is just us making a
Speaker 1: movie here, and then I realized what was going on,
Speaker 1: because well, he making the film was part of us
Speaker 1: sort of come back. He had been out of the
Speaker 1: public eye for a while and this was publicity. He
Speaker 1: had leaked the story himself because what he was doing
Speaker 1: actually probably that every weekend, I think it was when
Speaker 1: we were working on the costume, he was actually out
Speaker 1: on the streets filming with Nick jagger Um and they
Speaker 1: had this I forgot the name of the song now,
Speaker 1: but they had a hit song dancing in the streets. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that's what he was up to, and so it
Speaker 1: was very clever move. But all the other costumes and
Speaker 1: he was so happy to wear. Answer. I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you, and this is probably a strange question, did
Speaker 1: you have any keepsakes from the set? Like I think
Speaker 1: I read that you've got a mystic coat from the
Speaker 1: set of The Dark Crystal and the costumes made me
Speaker 1: think of it. Do you have anything from from Labyrinth? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've got I've got something that was so so. Two
Speaker 1: years ago I was going to a convention and I
Speaker 1: had what I had in my case. It went through
Speaker 1: the ghana and a supervisor said this O, and it
Speaker 1: went over there and I had this. Lady started going
Speaker 1: through the the bag and she couldn't find anything, and
Speaker 1: she said can't You said that can't, said it's in
Speaker 1: there for look, but she said, can't find What do
Speaker 1: you think you've got? I said, I don't know. I said, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking. Oh metal probably said it off because the
Speaker 1: civilvisor kept saying, is he is he a public notary?
Speaker 1: Going a date of a dangerous public notary? He was it?
Speaker 1: And when I searched it out, it was I have
Speaker 1: David Bowie's necklace. You know, it's this plow light thing
Speaker 1: we designed for him, and I that was what it was,
Speaker 1: and that was the scanner was picking it up, and
Speaker 1: she looked at it, he said, and when she was really,
Speaker 1: so this is cool David Bowie a while and he
Speaker 1: and I said, why do you think it's public notary?
Speaker 1: She said, oh, thinks it's one of those you know
Speaker 1: where they sort of leave the laver and they stamp
Speaker 1: you know, that field on it. And he said he
Speaker 1: don't know that they make a plastic nowadays, it wouldn't
Speaker 1: be metal. Well that was that was That was really
Speaker 1: all I got. Wow, that's really special. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: you speak of going to these conventions and what is
Speaker 1: it about the film that makes it held so dear
Speaker 1: by so many? What do you think it is that
Speaker 1: resonates after all these years. Well, I mean, to be honest,
Speaker 1: I think we were slightly disappointed when we finished. I mean,
Speaker 1: this sounds bad, but it is that there was a
Speaker 1: purity to Dark Crystal because it was all puppets and
Speaker 1: now we thought, well, I don't know, we got people
Speaker 1: in there? Are we are we retreating somewhere to have
Speaker 1: people in it, and you know it seems a bit
Speaker 1: lighter and everything. But we well, we were missing it.
Speaker 1: What we what we missed? And that's what the power
Speaker 1: of it is that the story speaks to generations of
Speaker 1: generations of young girls. Then they keep coming through, you know,
Speaker 1: keep getting new ones at them, and so somehow it
Speaker 1: relates to their predicament, to their to their way they are.
Speaker 1: Because that was the idea that you know, she's just
Speaker 1: going through that stage in her life where she's having
Speaker 1: to leave behind the young girl aspects of herself and
Speaker 1: be and start to become a woman. That's what it
Speaker 1: was about. And I think we'd completely missed that aspect
Speaker 1: of it or and when you see it again you go, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: now I get it. I don't know, but it's absolutely
Speaker 1: people keep do love it, and and then it rises
Speaker 1: in people's heartsome and more and more. Yeah, has your
Speaker 1: relationship to the film changed at all? Do you do
Speaker 1: you recognize the person who who created those characters. It's
Speaker 1: sometimes it's hard to do that. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: that Dark Crystal for years. It took a long time
Speaker 1: before I could um disassociate the music from um emotions
Speaker 1: because in the film, the music is about the emotions
Speaker 1: of the story. But working on it, all you remember
Speaker 1: with the music brings back to you is how you're
Speaker 1: dirty and dusty and tarking. It's unfair how stressful it
Speaker 1: is to try and get the things made on time,
Speaker 1: get them right, all those sort of things. You know.
Speaker 1: So some of that aspect happens in Labyrinth, but I
Speaker 1: think it's helps enormously to have lyrical songs in it,
Speaker 1: to have Bowie's voice helping tell the story as well.
Speaker 1: But it is a story that people will do respond
Speaker 1: to it. I mean, I know we had a royal
Speaker 1: premiere for it and it was Prince Charles and Diana
Speaker 1: came to that one. And I remember years later I
Speaker 1: met Prince Charles and it was well the opening of
Speaker 1: the Museum of Moving Image in London, and I met
Speaker 1: him and well, I've been invited along to hear him
Speaker 1: open it. And then they said, quickly go around the back.
Speaker 1: He's going to go around. They went around the back
Speaker 1: and he's coming around and he came past the Henson's
Speaker 1: lot and they was asking them, you know, what would
Speaker 1: they do, and they were all like secretaries. And he
Speaker 1: got to me and said well what did you do?
Speaker 1: And I said, well nothing, I said, they fired me.
Speaker 1: He said no. I said, well, actually, sir, you know
Speaker 1: we have met. We met the opening of Labyrinth and said,
Speaker 1: laverynth Yes, a very very good film, very funny, he said,
Speaker 1: the bold of Eternal Stench because all that sort of
Speaker 1: fasting noises and he said yes, he was laughing. In fact,
Speaker 1: I was the only one loved it because everybody was
Speaker 1: very embarrassed about all that. But he loved it. I
Speaker 1: mean he doesn't. He talked knowledge with about it and
Speaker 1: he was a great He's a great fad He's loved
Speaker 1: all the Goons stuff and Peter Seller. I think it's
Speaker 1: that lineage, you know, and so I think via the
Speaker 1: Pythons and Terry Jones as well. So I think it
Speaker 1: definitely he related to all that. How about Toby, how
Speaker 1: does he feel about it these days? Oh? I mean,
Speaker 1: I think he's absolutely delighted to have been in a
Speaker 1: part of it. I mean, obviously he doesn't remember too
Speaker 1: much about what it was like to be on set
Speaker 1: because he was at the year in the bit, you
Speaker 1: know that. But it's given being part of our family
Speaker 1: and being part of the making of things like you know,
Speaker 1: the puppets and goblins. That's in his blood now, you know.
Speaker 1: That's what he loves to do, filmmaking and creatures. And
Speaker 1: he was involved in the In the Dark Crystal series
Speaker 1: on Netflix that from a few years back. He was, yeah, supervising. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was great because it's a great to work with
Speaker 1: him and when we make a great team, you mean,
Speaker 1: I have no patience and he's very patience. He said, well,
Speaker 1: what my father meant to say, It keeps me calm.
Speaker 1: And he's like, you know, five solutions to things, because
Speaker 1: it's everything is about trying to figure things, you know,
Speaker 1: how to do things. I mean. The best time of
Speaker 1: working on the new series was well, there was one
Speaker 1: time where we were building all these knives and swords
Speaker 1: and things that growing out the back of the Skexies
Speaker 1: and we were working on it was about I say
Speaker 1: to Night and I said to Toby, this this is
Speaker 1: a big film series and they said yes. I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a Netflix it's big. And then he said yes.
Speaker 1: I said, well I'll come. It's only you and me working,
Speaker 1: which is you know, so that sometimes you just got
Speaker 1: to do it yourself, you know literally and then you know,
Speaker 1: in the morning and trying to get something on set
Speaker 1: and where we were there whatever, you know, six in
Speaker 1: the morning, on our hands and knees literally on that
Speaker 1: you hadn't need, in front of the costume, bluing things
Speaker 1: to it, you know, and aging it so it could
Speaker 1: be on set at nine. And that was just was
Speaker 1: actually fun, you know, to be with my own son
Speaker 1: hands on, getting your hands dirty and indeed often bleeding
Speaker 1: on it. I mean, i'd say I've said now the
Speaker 1: pest costume as one you bled off because with me
Speaker 1: offen a guy have strange sharp bit, some various things
Speaker 1: that can be a bit dangerous, and I know I've
Speaker 1: led on a few of the stuff, but that's that's
Speaker 1: that's part of the magic of of these things which
Speaker 1: are inanimates. You know that's made out of staff, but
Speaker 1: you try to imbue them with spirit. And so it's
Speaker 1: great to be working on things that are three dimensioned
Speaker 1: because they like me working on one of my paintings,
Speaker 1: which I try to imbue with spirit. And if if
Speaker 1: people can feel it's there, then the work is successful.
Speaker 1: Your work has meant so much to me and so
Speaker 1: many of my loved ones. I it's such an honor
Speaker 1: to speak to my My last question, I don't want
Speaker 1: to take up too much more of your time, But
Speaker 1: my last question, what can we learn from from fairies?
Speaker 1: What can they teach us? Oh U that there are
Speaker 1: no rules, no no no rules and fairy U. But
Speaker 1: what fairies do? They insist you do the right thing.
Speaker 1: So if you're in Seri stories, you've got to do
Speaker 1: the right thing and in you know, in a dialogue
Speaker 1: with fairies, you've got to do the right thing, but
Speaker 1: they're not going to tell you what that is. And
Speaker 1: also it keeps changing, so you've got to do it
Speaker 1: always the right thing at the right time. And that's tough.
Speaker 1: So it means it's a much as a spiritual philosophy.
Speaker 1: It's it's tough, but it's I think it's much more
Speaker 1: open and caring and loving and connective. Off the Record
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