“I look back at childhood as an adventure,” director David Lowery says. In his latest film, what he calls “a Pete’s Dragon for a new generation,” he’s aiming to recapture that sense of wonder for audiences who may not have ever seen the 1977 movie. Last week, Disney invited me to the studio’s El Capitan Theatre in the heart of Hollywood to check out an early presentation of the new remake, including a look at some new footage and a conversation with Lowery and star Bryce Dallas Howard.
The director showed us a few quick scenes from the film that gave us a wide sample of the kinds of things he does in the film, from establishing the character of Howard’s pragmatic forest ranger and her more precocious father (an old storyteller, played by Robert Redford with a twinkle in his eye); to a big truck chase sequence teased in the trailers; to joyous scenes of Pete (Oakes Fegley) and his dragon Elliot playing, soaring through the sky, and hanging out together in the woods. The visuals look outstanding — the dragon riding is miles ahead of what we’ve seen from Dany on Game of Thrones so far — and there’s also a soulful tone here that should be an interesting break from the bombast of typical summer movie fare.
Read on for six things we learned about the new movie that you should know before you see it.
Bryce Dallas Howard Wanted This Job Because It Wasn’t A Straight-Up Remake
Howard, coming off Jurassic World in which she also starred opposite some large CG lizard creatures, said she actively chased this role as soon as she found out Lowery’s take on the material.
“Before I read the script, I had heard it was not a straight-up remake, and that was [why I said yes]. Because I love [the original] Pete’s Dragon — I have the little board book for my kids and I read it to them constantly — and with me loving it, I didn’t want it to just be a copycat. We’ve seen a lot of those, some of them are great, some of them don’t work, but I felt like the story and the themes within the original film was what the charm of that movie was…I think what has centered that film and what has made that film last was the central idea of friendship with an imaginary friend when you have no family. And then, voila, it’s not such an imaginary friend. So when I heard it wasn’t a straight-up remake, I was like, ‘yes, I’d love to be a part of that.’ Also, I can’t help it — I’m a parent and I want there to be beautiful films out there that have innocence, are timeless, and have really beautiful values without being didactic.” The Setting Was Key For The Film’s Success
Lowery, who co-wrote the script with Toby Halbrooks, talked about how the idea of setting the movie in modern day never appealed to him. He’s always aiming for a timeless feel in his films, and it seemed like he found an excellent way to achieve that:
“The movie is set somewhere vaguely in the Pacific Northwest. We never quite say where it is, we never quite say when it is. Sometime vaguely in the past. If any of you have seen my other movies, you know I really love to do the whole ‘timeless’ thing, and this movie definitely plays into that.I feel when you have a movie that has a fantastical concept in it, you can accept it more easily if it has the veil of time being over it. To set something in the past, you’re a little more accepting of the idea that there might be magic there that you might have overlooked in your own past. I also find that the movies I return to and the ones I love the most — there are films about a specific time and place, if you want to see a historical epic, great, I’m glad they’re so specific — but there are other films that endure because they don’t root themselves in a specific time and they don’t say ‘this is a film about here and now.’ I didn’t want this film to feel contemporary, because I felt if it was contemporary, if someone pulls out an iPhone, all of a sudden you’re like, ‘Ok, that’s an iPhone 4. This was made in 2010.’ And then you put that against a dragon and you kind of get this weird disparity that doesn’t quite work. So by setting it in the past and not making a big deal out of it — we never put a title card that says this is what year it is. That was part of the look of the film, the production design that we did. You pull some cars from the early ‘80s, pull some cars from the ’70s, kind of make everything congeal into this cohesive whole that doesn’t have a literal date on it but feels just yesterday.”
The era wasn’t the only important factor — finding the perfect place to shoot their forest sequences was a big deal. Turns out New Zealand had exactly what the production was looking for. Lowery explained:
“I just like things to be real, that’s just me, I’m always going to gravitate toward that. So when we were planning this, I was like, ‘Look, if we’re going to have a CG dragon, let’s make everything else real and use as little green screen as possible.’ So we went to New Zealand because it’s set in a slightly elevated, more magical version of the Pacific Northwest, and New Zealand has plenty of magic, had the forest we needed, had the weather we needed, and Weta Digital was there, which was very convenient.”
They’d go as far as to drive two hours into secluded forest every day to truly capture “the best version of being out in the woods.” It certainly shows; the footage we saw had a quiet, ethereal feel to being outside, and it truly did feel like we were seeing a place that hadn’t ever been inhabited by humanity.
The Dragon Had To Be Furry
Lowery spoke about how important it was to treat Elliot as a legitimate character, one who can emote and isn’t just a CG beast lumbering through the woods. The dragon is one half of the film’s most important relationship, so he had to be handled carefully in the design stage, and avoiding scaly dragons like the ones on Game of Thrones was a big priority for the filmmakers:
“One of the things we wanted to do with this movie was really sell the idea of friendship between a child and a creature, which really comes down to your favorite pet as a child or the relationship you have with a dog or something like that. The really close bond you have with an animal. We really wanted to try to hit home the heart of that, but with a creature that’s twenty times the size of a normal household pet…Even though he is a dragon — a magical creature that can turn invisible — we really wanted to treat him like a character, and really let that character come through.The very first hook I had when I met the producers of this film, we didn’t even have a pitch yet, but I was like, ‘I want the dragon to be furry.’ And that’s because I love my cats and I was probably petting my cat and saying, ‘I wish this guy was twenty feet tall’ or something. (laughs) They really are based on my cats. They have their own Instagram account if anyone wants to follow them. They’re 2orangeguys on Instagram. I was like, ‘Look, if you put a Game of Thrones dragon in this, he’s going to be scaly, kind of cold, he’ll be cool, but I want this to be the kind of dragon you really want to give a hug to and that I want to give a hug to and snuggle up with.’ There’s no reason dragons can’t be furry. I went through the design process of figuring out what design choices would break the idea of being a dragon. There are certain things we found we can’t do. When we tried to do different things with the wings, it started to feel like a chimera, or other various mythical beasts. A sphinx, sometimes. But if you kept the wings, kept the tail, kept the ridges on the back, you can kind of have fun with the rest of the design and it still feels like a dragon. The fur was an integral part to the design for me. That made the character.” Lowery Used an Unorthodox Method to Confirm He Had The Perfect Pete
When it came to finding the right Pete, Lowery knew he wanted a child actor that didn’t have the polish of an actor you might find on stage or on a Disney Channel show. “I wanted someone who was a little unvarnished and not perfect, who didn’t have that sort of trained quality,” he said. “I often find that if a ten-year-old can cry on cue, that is an amazing skill that I am envious of, but usually that’s not what I’m looking for.” His casting director did a worldwide casting search, and when Oakes Fegley walked in the room, Lowery knew he’d found his star. But he cemented that decision in an unusual way: he asked Oakes to build something with the chairs in the room, and he just sat back and watched. If Lowery and Howard’s stories about the young actor are accurate, Oakes sounds like a totally relaxed, normal kid, not at all pretentious or corrupted by weird stage parents, so when he started stacking a trash can on top of some chairs and Lowery could see him working things out and adjusting little details, he knew for sure he’d found his Pete. “He had a sensitivity, but also a resilience where you believe he could survive in the conditions his character has survived in,” Lowery said. “He’s really tough and scrappy, but also so quiet and sensitive, the perfect balance.”
Lowery Was Heavily Influenced By Foreign Films
Movies that are about children can often talk down to them or even have disdain for them, but Lowery took a lot of inspiration from foreign films about how to make sure the movie treated kids with respect and talked to them as equals:
“There is a great legacy of films about children, whether they are films like E.T., The NeverEnding Story, The Black Stallion, or other films like Ponette, the French film about the girl who lost her parents is really important to me. The Red Balloon is a wonderful story capturing the imagination of childhood in a very specific way. I could list off all the foreign films that I love that do a good job of that, but I think it’s important to think of those movies because I know a lot of teachers who show The Red Balloon in their classes to kindergartners because it’s the kind of thing kids respond to. Same with Miyazaki stuff, which I think is important to show kids. Obviously there’s a ton of great entertainment for children, but I love things that let kids see the emotional side of themselves.” You Won’t See (or Hear) References To The Original Film
When asked whether we’d hear an homage to the music of the ’77 film, Lowery gave perhaps the most refreshing answer of the day:
“No. We do have a song in the movie and you’ll find out how it plays into the plot when you see it, but we don’t [have any homages to the first movie]. I really wanted to sort of avoid the winks and the nods, not because the original is not great, but because I wanted this to really exist in its own realm. The best thing is for audiences who love the original to see this and say, ‘This is a great new film about a boy named Pete, and Elliot.’ And if kids haven’t seen the original, this will be the first time they’ve seen it. And there won’t be that moment where all of the adults go, ‘Oh, yeah,’ and the kids look over and go, ‘What? I don’t get it. What is it?’ So we avoided that. We talked about it, we talked about having references, but ultimately felt it was the purer tactic. I’ve seen a lot of remakes that do that and it always takes me out of a movie because it’s a little wink.”
As someone who thinks references like that can be distracting and often obnoxious, I find it incredibly promising that Lowery has the confidence in his movie to try to have it stand on its own as much as possible. Even with seeing the extra footage we saw, it’s still tough to tell whether this movie is going to be a new classic, a whiffed remake attempt, or somewhere in between, but at least it won’t be a deep dive into nostalgia for another film. (Nostalgia for childhood? Yes. For another movie? No.)
In any case, Lowery’s enthusiasm is certainly evident, and regardless of how the film turns out, his heart is clearly in the right place here. His vision for the film sounds great, so I’m hoping he’s able to translate that vision to audiences in an enjoyable way. “I want you to get a sense of the scope and action and fun and adventure this movie has,” he beamed before showing off a new clip, “because ultimately it really is an adventure.” The adventure begins when Pete’s Dragon flies into theaters on August 12, 2016.
The director showed us a few quick scenes from the film that gave us a wide sample of the kinds of things he does in the film, from establishing the character of Howard’s pragmatic forest ranger and her more precocious father (an old storyteller, played by Robert Redford with a twinkle in his eye); to a big truck chase sequence teased in the trailers; to joyous scenes of Pete (Oakes Fegley) and his dragon Elliot playing, soaring through the sky, and hanging out together in the woods. The visuals look outstanding — the dragon riding is miles ahead of what we’ve seen from Dany on Game of Thrones so far — and there’s also a soulful tone here that should be an interesting break from the bombast of typical summer movie fare.
Read on for six things we learned about the new movie that you should know before you see it.
Bryce Dallas Howard Wanted This Job Because It Wasn’t A Straight-Up Remake
Howard, coming off Jurassic World in which she also starred opposite some large CG lizard creatures, said she actively chased this role as soon as she found out Lowery’s take on the material.
“Before I read the script, I had heard it was not a straight-up remake, and that was [why I said yes]. Because I love [the original] Pete’s Dragon — I have the little board book for my kids and I read it to them constantly — and with me loving it, I didn’t want it to just be a copycat. We’ve seen a lot of those, some of them are great, some of them don’t work, but I felt like the story and the themes within the original film was what the charm of that movie was…I think what has centered that film and what has made that film last was the central idea of friendship with an imaginary friend when you have no family. And then, voila, it’s not such an imaginary friend. So when I heard it wasn’t a straight-up remake, I was like, ‘yes, I’d love to be a part of that.’ Also, I can’t help it — I’m a parent and I want there to be beautiful films out there that have innocence, are timeless, and have really beautiful values without being didactic.” The Setting Was Key For The Film’s Success
Lowery, who co-wrote the script with Toby Halbrooks, talked about how the idea of setting the movie in modern day never appealed to him. He’s always aiming for a timeless feel in his films, and it seemed like he found an excellent way to achieve that:
“The movie is set somewhere vaguely in the Pacific Northwest. We never quite say where it is, we never quite say when it is. Sometime vaguely in the past. If any of you have seen my other movies, you know I really love to do the whole ‘timeless’ thing, and this movie definitely plays into that.I feel when you have a movie that has a fantastical concept in it, you can accept it more easily if it has the veil of time being over it. To set something in the past, you’re a little more accepting of the idea that there might be magic there that you might have overlooked in your own past. I also find that the movies I return to and the ones I love the most — there are films about a specific time and place, if you want to see a historical epic, great, I’m glad they’re so specific — but there are other films that endure because they don’t root themselves in a specific time and they don’t say ‘this is a film about here and now.’ I didn’t want this film to feel contemporary, because I felt if it was contemporary, if someone pulls out an iPhone, all of a sudden you’re like, ‘Ok, that’s an iPhone 4. This was made in 2010.’ And then you put that against a dragon and you kind of get this weird disparity that doesn’t quite work. So by setting it in the past and not making a big deal out of it — we never put a title card that says this is what year it is. That was part of the look of the film, the production design that we did. You pull some cars from the early ‘80s, pull some cars from the ’70s, kind of make everything congeal into this cohesive whole that doesn’t have a literal date on it but feels just yesterday.”
The era wasn’t the only important factor — finding the perfect place to shoot their forest sequences was a big deal. Turns out New Zealand had exactly what the production was looking for. Lowery explained:
“I just like things to be real, that’s just me, I’m always going to gravitate toward that. So when we were planning this, I was like, ‘Look, if we’re going to have a CG dragon, let’s make everything else real and use as little green screen as possible.’ So we went to New Zealand because it’s set in a slightly elevated, more magical version of the Pacific Northwest, and New Zealand has plenty of magic, had the forest we needed, had the weather we needed, and Weta Digital was there, which was very convenient.”
They’d go as far as to drive two hours into secluded forest every day to truly capture “the best version of being out in the woods.” It certainly shows; the footage we saw had a quiet, ethereal feel to being outside, and it truly did feel like we were seeing a place that hadn’t ever been inhabited by humanity.
The Dragon Had To Be Furry
Lowery spoke about how important it was to treat Elliot as a legitimate character, one who can emote and isn’t just a CG beast lumbering through the woods. The dragon is one half of the film’s most important relationship, so he had to be handled carefully in the design stage, and avoiding scaly dragons like the ones on Game of Thrones was a big priority for the filmmakers:
“One of the things we wanted to do with this movie was really sell the idea of friendship between a child and a creature, which really comes down to your favorite pet as a child or the relationship you have with a dog or something like that. The really close bond you have with an animal. We really wanted to try to hit home the heart of that, but with a creature that’s twenty times the size of a normal household pet…Even though he is a dragon — a magical creature that can turn invisible — we really wanted to treat him like a character, and really let that character come through.The very first hook I had when I met the producers of this film, we didn’t even have a pitch yet, but I was like, ‘I want the dragon to be furry.’ And that’s because I love my cats and I was probably petting my cat and saying, ‘I wish this guy was twenty feet tall’ or something. (laughs) They really are based on my cats. They have their own Instagram account if anyone wants to follow them. They’re 2orangeguys on Instagram. I was like, ‘Look, if you put a Game of Thrones dragon in this, he’s going to be scaly, kind of cold, he’ll be cool, but I want this to be the kind of dragon you really want to give a hug to and that I want to give a hug to and snuggle up with.’ There’s no reason dragons can’t be furry. I went through the design process of figuring out what design choices would break the idea of being a dragon. There are certain things we found we can’t do. When we tried to do different things with the wings, it started to feel like a chimera, or other various mythical beasts. A sphinx, sometimes. But if you kept the wings, kept the tail, kept the ridges on the back, you can kind of have fun with the rest of the design and it still feels like a dragon. The fur was an integral part to the design for me. That made the character.” Lowery Used an Unorthodox Method to Confirm He Had The Perfect Pete
When it came to finding the right Pete, Lowery knew he wanted a child actor that didn’t have the polish of an actor you might find on stage or on a Disney Channel show. “I wanted someone who was a little unvarnished and not perfect, who didn’t have that sort of trained quality,” he said. “I often find that if a ten-year-old can cry on cue, that is an amazing skill that I am envious of, but usually that’s not what I’m looking for.” His casting director did a worldwide casting search, and when Oakes Fegley walked in the room, Lowery knew he’d found his star. But he cemented that decision in an unusual way: he asked Oakes to build something with the chairs in the room, and he just sat back and watched. If Lowery and Howard’s stories about the young actor are accurate, Oakes sounds like a totally relaxed, normal kid, not at all pretentious or corrupted by weird stage parents, so when he started stacking a trash can on top of some chairs and Lowery could see him working things out and adjusting little details, he knew for sure he’d found his Pete. “He had a sensitivity, but also a resilience where you believe he could survive in the conditions his character has survived in,” Lowery said. “He’s really tough and scrappy, but also so quiet and sensitive, the perfect balance.”
Lowery Was Heavily Influenced By Foreign Films
Movies that are about children can often talk down to them or even have disdain for them, but Lowery took a lot of inspiration from foreign films about how to make sure the movie treated kids with respect and talked to them as equals:
“There is a great legacy of films about children, whether they are films like E.T., The NeverEnding Story, The Black Stallion, or other films like Ponette, the French film about the girl who lost her parents is really important to me. The Red Balloon is a wonderful story capturing the imagination of childhood in a very specific way. I could list off all the foreign films that I love that do a good job of that, but I think it’s important to think of those movies because I know a lot of teachers who show The Red Balloon in their classes to kindergartners because it’s the kind of thing kids respond to. Same with Miyazaki stuff, which I think is important to show kids. Obviously there’s a ton of great entertainment for children, but I love things that let kids see the emotional side of themselves.” You Won’t See (or Hear) References To The Original Film
When asked whether we’d hear an homage to the music of the ’77 film, Lowery gave perhaps the most refreshing answer of the day:
“No. We do have a song in the movie and you’ll find out how it plays into the plot when you see it, but we don’t [have any homages to the first movie]. I really wanted to sort of avoid the winks and the nods, not because the original is not great, but because I wanted this to really exist in its own realm. The best thing is for audiences who love the original to see this and say, ‘This is a great new film about a boy named Pete, and Elliot.’ And if kids haven’t seen the original, this will be the first time they’ve seen it. And there won’t be that moment where all of the adults go, ‘Oh, yeah,’ and the kids look over and go, ‘What? I don’t get it. What is it?’ So we avoided that. We talked about it, we talked about having references, but ultimately felt it was the purer tactic. I’ve seen a lot of remakes that do that and it always takes me out of a movie because it’s a little wink.”
As someone who thinks references like that can be distracting and often obnoxious, I find it incredibly promising that Lowery has the confidence in his movie to try to have it stand on its own as much as possible. Even with seeing the extra footage we saw, it’s still tough to tell whether this movie is going to be a new classic, a whiffed remake attempt, or somewhere in between, but at least it won’t be a deep dive into nostalgia for another film. (Nostalgia for childhood? Yes. For another movie? No.)
In any case, Lowery’s enthusiasm is certainly evident, and regardless of how the film turns out, his heart is clearly in the right place here. His vision for the film sounds great, so I’m hoping he’s able to translate that vision to audiences in an enjoyable way. “I want you to get a sense of the scope and action and fun and adventure this movie has,” he beamed before showing off a new clip, “because ultimately it really is an adventure.” The adventure begins when Pete’s Dragon flies into theaters on August 12, 2016.
- 6/14/2016
- by Ben Pearson
- GeekTyrant
It’s not often that a primetime network TV show devotes three minutes of airtime to a “Les Miserables” sendup featuring hyper-specific references to Inland Empire utility politics. But it helps when you have the right people to pull it off.
Such are the sheer, nothing-else-like-it delights of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” the newest jewel in the CW crown. At the show’s center is Rachel Bloom, who in addition to being the show’s star and co-creator (alongside “The Devil Wears Prada” scribe Aline Brosh McKenna) is also one of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s” biggest fans.
When we spoke to Bloom, the talk kept turning toward the cast and crew that helps color this crazy, lovable slice of the TV landscape. From the writing staff to the songwriting team headlined by executive music producer Adam Schlesinger, she spoke about how it takes a village to raise a child (that occasionally sings therapeutic boy band parodies).
It seems like a nice added bonus that the people you’ve cast in these central roles get to have their featured moments. If you want them to grow, you can give them their own songs.
A lot of other people on our show, they’re Broadway people — they’re singers by trade. With the roles of Josh and Greg, we weren’t even necessarily looking for people who could sing. We were looking for the best actors. In the breakdowns, we were putting things like, “sing, rap, play guitar — we’ll write to your strengths.” Not in our wildest dreams could we have realized the kind of Renaissance men that we cast in both Santino and Vince — I mean, God, Vince has like three black belts.
Pete is a comedy/improv/sketch guy and would not consider himself a singer, but he has a really good voice. And he’s really in touch with his body. Vella is the same way. She’s a fantastic actress. She went to Juilliard, and I think with her training and with her natural abilities, she has the command over her voice. And so that was a really pleasant surprise for us when we realized, “Oh, we don’t have to Auto-Tune these people.”
It’s great that they’re all different kinds of voice types on this show, because you have Vince with more of a pop sound, you have Santino with the classic sound, you have Donna with the big Broadway belt, you have Pete with this twang, and then you have Vella with this like rock and roll thing that we’re so excited to write more for her. She sang at our cast party, we had a karaoke machine and she sang TLC’s “Waterfalls…”
Oh my God.
And it was so good! And Adam [Schlesinger] and I were watching her, and I was like, “We gotta write a ’90s song for Vella” and he was like, “Absolutely.” It was kind of like she was auditioning for us — except she was drunk and didn’t realize she was — and we never cease to be amazed and surprised with the talents of the actors we have on the show. It’s not what you hear about working with TV actors sometimes, where they’re afraid to be brave or they’re snobby or they’ll only film from 1 to 4:30 and then they’ll be in their trailer. We have such grateful theater people.
And people like Pete still get non-singing moments like “Having a Few People Over,” which probably wouldn’t exist if you were working with a shorter runtime.
Precisely. I really like that now, in any given episode, a lot of the time the second song is another character. And it’s about the B-story. That makes me really happy. I think that some of the most impactful storylines we’ve done come from exploring things like Darryl and [White] Josh. It’s funny because now they’re everyone else’s favorite couple, and I’m kind of like “They were my favorite couple first!” I was on set for their first kiss. I got to sit on set, and I was like, “Done! They’re my favorite couple, they’re the ones I root for. Don’t give a fuck about anyone else.” Next season we’re going to deal with them more.
One of my favorite moments was when you brought back the grocery clerk at the end of the season.
This is actually pretty great. We were writing the song “I Have Friends” and I had a rough draft written and I was brainstorming with Aline, our other executive producer, Erin Ehrlich, and our co-executive producer Michael Hitchcock. “I Have Friends” is all about those fun specifics, like “a janitor that lives in an Rv behind the school.” And Hitchcock just busted out “grocery clerk with half an eyelid,” and I was like, “Done. Yes.” There was something so B-52’s about it and when I think of B-52’s I think of this kind of like nasal voice, which made me think of my friend Ben, who I did stuff at Ucb with and was also on an improv team with our writer’s assistant Elisabeth [Kiernan Averick]. Before he even auditioned or knew we were thinking of him, we just started writing the lines in his voice. We had such a great deleted scene from Episode 3 of him and Pete just going on an improv run. It was one of the funniest things to watch all season, and hopefully we’ll release it on a DVD extra.
When you’re shooting scenes, it’s easy to toss lines in. Is there a lyric or musical moment that came kind of at the last minute?
For “Sexy Getting Ready Song,” the lyric “whisper your dick hard” originally was something else. We were in the recording studio, and Jack, who produced the song, was directing me and he was just like “Okay, this next take, I want you to whisper someone’s dick hard,” and I was like, “Jack! That’s a lyric!”
CBS hasn’t gotten into the live musical game yet. But if they do, is there a particular show that you’d like for them to do?
Well, I’m pretty indie musical theatre. So if they did anything Sondheim, if they did a live version of “Assassins” or “Company”? God, if you’re gonna do a live show, doing “Rent” would be just fun.
Would you want to be Maureen?
Oh, yeah. Yes, I’d want to be Maureen. [laughs]
I mean, anything Kander and Ebb. “Chicago,” “Cabaret.” For any Jewish comedian who can sing, I mean “Funny Girl” is kind of the ultimate, right?
As a big musical theater fan, do you have a go-to underrated show that, if someone was really digging deeper, you would point them toward?
For comedy, “Gutenberg! the Musical.” That soundtrack is amazing. It’s just such a great example of comedy musical theater that should be mentioned more. And “Light in the Piazza” is just brilliant. I love “Whatever I Dream” from “A New Brain.” Michael John Lachiusa’s “The Wild Party,” which I actually directed in college, is one of the most underrated musical theater scores. The way the genre changes as the show gets darker, it’s absolutely brilliant.
There’s another musical he wrote called “Hello Again.” The song “Tom” from Hello Again is just one of the greatest songs ever written in musical theater. “Tom,” “Safe,” and “Mistress of the Senator,” every song on “Hello Again” is a winner and I feel like no one ever talks about it.
Obviously, you have a deep love of musical theater and now have people asking for the sheet music to use for audition songs in the future. That has to be an exciting feeling.
Oh, it’s so exciting. If you could be in on all the emails! I am bugging people constantly because I want the musical theater kids out there to have sheet music and karaoke tracks! So everything that the fans ask, chances are I’ve already asked about 6,000 times. It’s really exciting for me to interact with fans because fans of the show are people that I would want to be friends with. This is a show that I would watch.
[Editor’s Note: IndieWire’s Consider This campaign is an ongoing series meant to raise awareness for Emmy contenders our editorial staff and readership find compelling, fascinating and deserving. Running throughout awards season, Consider This contenders may be underdogs, frontrunners or somewhere in between. More importantly, they’re making damn good television we all should be watching, whether they’re nominated or not.]
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Such are the sheer, nothing-else-like-it delights of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” the newest jewel in the CW crown. At the show’s center is Rachel Bloom, who in addition to being the show’s star and co-creator (alongside “The Devil Wears Prada” scribe Aline Brosh McKenna) is also one of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s” biggest fans.
When we spoke to Bloom, the talk kept turning toward the cast and crew that helps color this crazy, lovable slice of the TV landscape. From the writing staff to the songwriting team headlined by executive music producer Adam Schlesinger, she spoke about how it takes a village to raise a child (that occasionally sings therapeutic boy band parodies).
It seems like a nice added bonus that the people you’ve cast in these central roles get to have their featured moments. If you want them to grow, you can give them their own songs.
A lot of other people on our show, they’re Broadway people — they’re singers by trade. With the roles of Josh and Greg, we weren’t even necessarily looking for people who could sing. We were looking for the best actors. In the breakdowns, we were putting things like, “sing, rap, play guitar — we’ll write to your strengths.” Not in our wildest dreams could we have realized the kind of Renaissance men that we cast in both Santino and Vince — I mean, God, Vince has like three black belts.
Pete is a comedy/improv/sketch guy and would not consider himself a singer, but he has a really good voice. And he’s really in touch with his body. Vella is the same way. She’s a fantastic actress. She went to Juilliard, and I think with her training and with her natural abilities, she has the command over her voice. And so that was a really pleasant surprise for us when we realized, “Oh, we don’t have to Auto-Tune these people.”
It’s great that they’re all different kinds of voice types on this show, because you have Vince with more of a pop sound, you have Santino with the classic sound, you have Donna with the big Broadway belt, you have Pete with this twang, and then you have Vella with this like rock and roll thing that we’re so excited to write more for her. She sang at our cast party, we had a karaoke machine and she sang TLC’s “Waterfalls…”
Oh my God.
And it was so good! And Adam [Schlesinger] and I were watching her, and I was like, “We gotta write a ’90s song for Vella” and he was like, “Absolutely.” It was kind of like she was auditioning for us — except she was drunk and didn’t realize she was — and we never cease to be amazed and surprised with the talents of the actors we have on the show. It’s not what you hear about working with TV actors sometimes, where they’re afraid to be brave or they’re snobby or they’ll only film from 1 to 4:30 and then they’ll be in their trailer. We have such grateful theater people.
And people like Pete still get non-singing moments like “Having a Few People Over,” which probably wouldn’t exist if you were working with a shorter runtime.
Precisely. I really like that now, in any given episode, a lot of the time the second song is another character. And it’s about the B-story. That makes me really happy. I think that some of the most impactful storylines we’ve done come from exploring things like Darryl and [White] Josh. It’s funny because now they’re everyone else’s favorite couple, and I’m kind of like “They were my favorite couple first!” I was on set for their first kiss. I got to sit on set, and I was like, “Done! They’re my favorite couple, they’re the ones I root for. Don’t give a fuck about anyone else.” Next season we’re going to deal with them more.
One of my favorite moments was when you brought back the grocery clerk at the end of the season.
This is actually pretty great. We were writing the song “I Have Friends” and I had a rough draft written and I was brainstorming with Aline, our other executive producer, Erin Ehrlich, and our co-executive producer Michael Hitchcock. “I Have Friends” is all about those fun specifics, like “a janitor that lives in an Rv behind the school.” And Hitchcock just busted out “grocery clerk with half an eyelid,” and I was like, “Done. Yes.” There was something so B-52’s about it and when I think of B-52’s I think of this kind of like nasal voice, which made me think of my friend Ben, who I did stuff at Ucb with and was also on an improv team with our writer’s assistant Elisabeth [Kiernan Averick]. Before he even auditioned or knew we were thinking of him, we just started writing the lines in his voice. We had such a great deleted scene from Episode 3 of him and Pete just going on an improv run. It was one of the funniest things to watch all season, and hopefully we’ll release it on a DVD extra.
When you’re shooting scenes, it’s easy to toss lines in. Is there a lyric or musical moment that came kind of at the last minute?
For “Sexy Getting Ready Song,” the lyric “whisper your dick hard” originally was something else. We were in the recording studio, and Jack, who produced the song, was directing me and he was just like “Okay, this next take, I want you to whisper someone’s dick hard,” and I was like, “Jack! That’s a lyric!”
CBS hasn’t gotten into the live musical game yet. But if they do, is there a particular show that you’d like for them to do?
Well, I’m pretty indie musical theatre. So if they did anything Sondheim, if they did a live version of “Assassins” or “Company”? God, if you’re gonna do a live show, doing “Rent” would be just fun.
Would you want to be Maureen?
Oh, yeah. Yes, I’d want to be Maureen. [laughs]
I mean, anything Kander and Ebb. “Chicago,” “Cabaret.” For any Jewish comedian who can sing, I mean “Funny Girl” is kind of the ultimate, right?
As a big musical theater fan, do you have a go-to underrated show that, if someone was really digging deeper, you would point them toward?
For comedy, “Gutenberg! the Musical.” That soundtrack is amazing. It’s just such a great example of comedy musical theater that should be mentioned more. And “Light in the Piazza” is just brilliant. I love “Whatever I Dream” from “A New Brain.” Michael John Lachiusa’s “The Wild Party,” which I actually directed in college, is one of the most underrated musical theater scores. The way the genre changes as the show gets darker, it’s absolutely brilliant.
There’s another musical he wrote called “Hello Again.” The song “Tom” from Hello Again is just one of the greatest songs ever written in musical theater. “Tom,” “Safe,” and “Mistress of the Senator,” every song on “Hello Again” is a winner and I feel like no one ever talks about it.
Obviously, you have a deep love of musical theater and now have people asking for the sheet music to use for audition songs in the future. That has to be an exciting feeling.
Oh, it’s so exciting. If you could be in on all the emails! I am bugging people constantly because I want the musical theater kids out there to have sheet music and karaoke tracks! So everything that the fans ask, chances are I’ve already asked about 6,000 times. It’s really exciting for me to interact with fans because fans of the show are people that I would want to be friends with. This is a show that I would watch.
[Editor’s Note: IndieWire’s Consider This campaign is an ongoing series meant to raise awareness for Emmy contenders our editorial staff and readership find compelling, fascinating and deserving. Running throughout awards season, Consider This contenders may be underdogs, frontrunners or somewhere in between. More importantly, they’re making damn good television we all should be watching, whether they’re nominated or not.]
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- 6/13/2016
- by Steve Greene
- Indiewire
Twin Peaks, Season 2, Episode 20, “The Path to the Black Lodge”
Written by Harley Peyton & Robert Engels
Directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal
Originally aired April 18, 1991 on ABC
With an episode full of various expressions of love, it does not feel like a coincidence that Earle’s real endgame is finally revealed at the same time, as he hopes to find the Black Lodge. Love seems like a concept that is the antithesis of the Lodge, though one it cannot exist without, so it makes sense for their paths to converge like two ends of a magnet.
Dale comes to the realization that all this time, Earle hasn’t been after him, but after the Lodge. “He has engaged us in subterfuge and red herring…a fish I don’t particularly care for,” Dale says. By delaying the police force long enough with all these distractions, Earle has been able to discover more...
Written by Harley Peyton & Robert Engels
Directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal
Originally aired April 18, 1991 on ABC
With an episode full of various expressions of love, it does not feel like a coincidence that Earle’s real endgame is finally revealed at the same time, as he hopes to find the Black Lodge. Love seems like a concept that is the antithesis of the Lodge, though one it cannot exist without, so it makes sense for their paths to converge like two ends of a magnet.
Dale comes to the realization that all this time, Earle hasn’t been after him, but after the Lodge. “He has engaged us in subterfuge and red herring…a fish I don’t particularly care for,” Dale says. By delaying the police force long enough with all these distractions, Earle has been able to discover more...
- 8/14/2015
- by Jake Pitre
- SoundOnSight
This recap contains spoilers from Mad Men‘s series finale, so make sure you watch before you read!
No, Don is not D.B. Cooper
No, Megan does not become a victim of the Manson family murderers.
But Peggy and Stan kiss and admit they love each other in Mad Men‘s series finale, and the final shot is one that makes you think (but not one that infuriates you with its open-endedness). Therefore, I’m good with the AMC drama’s much-heralded final episode (though I could’ve dealt with more face-to-face interactions and fewer phone calls).
Photos Fall TV...
No, Don is not D.B. Cooper
No, Megan does not become a victim of the Manson family murderers.
But Peggy and Stan kiss and admit they love each other in Mad Men‘s series finale, and the final shot is one that makes you think (but not one that infuriates you with its open-endedness). Therefore, I’m good with the AMC drama’s much-heralded final episode (though I could’ve dealt with more face-to-face interactions and fewer phone calls).
Photos Fall TV...
- 5/18/2015
- TVLine.com
Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner has already said there’ll be no spinoff once his AMC series ends, but just in case he has second thoughts, this week’s episode provided the perfect planted pilot: The Calvet Women.
Michael Ausiello will kill me for saying so, but Don’s estranged wife and her French mother and sister put more life into this week’s installment — which also wrapped up Mrs. Draper’s storyline nicely — than the rest of Sterling Cooper & Associates combined.
Excuse moi for saying so, but that’s not a good thing. I understand that not every hour...
Michael Ausiello will kill me for saying so, but Don’s estranged wife and her French mother and sister put more life into this week’s installment — which also wrapped up Mrs. Draper’s storyline nicely — than the rest of Sterling Cooper & Associates combined.
Excuse moi for saying so, but that’s not a good thing. I understand that not every hour...
- 4/13/2015
- TVLine.com
A review of the final "Mad Men" season premiere coming up just as soon as I try your veal... "That's not a coincidence! It's a sign!" -Ken "Of what?" -Don "The life not lived." -Ken A handsome man in a grey suit once asked, "But what is happiness? It's a moment before you need more happiness." And at a moment in time when that man and many of the people he worked with seem to have acquired a boatload of professional happiness — or, at least, money — a ghost danced in front of him and sang about how the best things in life are free. And as "Mad Men" returns from its last hiatus, having carried its characters out of the 1960s altogether, "Severance" is a reminder of how elusive happiness is for everyone, and how the life not lived seems at once far more appealing and impossible to actually explore.
- 4/6/2015
- by Alan Sepinwall
- Hitfix
Sweetheart, take a memo: Mad Men‘s Sterling Cooper & Partners will close its doors for the last time later this year, when the AMC drama comes to its long-heralded — and long-planned, series creator Matthew Weiner says — finale.
“I knew what was going to happen [in the finale] from when I pitched the show, and that was with the delusion that it would go on for a while. I had no idea we’d do 92 hours of it,” Weiner tells TVLine. “Between Seasons 4 and 5, I figured [the finale] out, and it stayed true to that.”
Photos Mad Men Final Season Pics: Don and Friends Lounge on...
“I knew what was going to happen [in the finale] from when I pitched the show, and that was with the delusion that it would go on for a while. I had no idea we’d do 92 hours of it,” Weiner tells TVLine. “Between Seasons 4 and 5, I figured [the finale] out, and it stayed true to that.”
Photos Mad Men Final Season Pics: Don and Friends Lounge on...
- 4/3/2015
- TVLine.com
Alexandria could indeed be the safe haven that it appears to be; however, Rick (Andrew Lincoln) continues to refuse to entertain that idea.
"Forget" was played out by the Bee Gees' "Spicks and Specks," and the song summed up Rick's attitude about Alexandria: "Where is the sun / That shone on my head? / The sun in my life / It is dead ... Where is the girl I loved / All along? / The girl that I loved / She's gone."
At this point, nothing really matters for Rick other than maintaining the status quo – that is, simply surviving – because the sun doesn't really flicker...
"Forget" was played out by the Bee Gees' "Spicks and Specks," and the song summed up Rick's attitude about Alexandria: "Where is the sun / That shone on my head? / The sun in my life / It is dead ... Where is the girl I loved / All along? / The girl that I loved / She's gone."
At this point, nothing really matters for Rick other than maintaining the status quo – that is, simply surviving – because the sun doesn't really flicker...
- 3/9/2015
- by Amanda Michelle Steiner, @amandamichl
- People.com - TV Watch
Alexandria could indeed be the safe haven that it appears to be; however, Rick (Andrew Lincoln) continues to refuse to entertain that idea. "Forget" was played out by the Bee Gees' "Spicks and Specks," and the song summed up Rick's attitude about Alexandria: "Where is the sun / That shone on my head / The sun in my life / It is dead ... Where is the girl I loved / All along? / The girl that I loved / She's gone." At this point, nothing really matters for Rick other than maintaining the status quo - that is, simply surviving - because the sun doesn't...
- 3/9/2015
- by Amanda Michelle Steiner, @amandamichl
- PEOPLE.com
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