← The Big Picture
The Big Picture
‘Wicked’ Is a Sensation. But Is It Good? Plus: The Top Five 21st Century Musicals.
02:05:27
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- [00:00]
Juliet Littman
What's happening?
- [00:01]
Todd McShay
It's Todd McShay and I'm back with.
- [00:03]
Sean Fennessy
A new home and a new show at the Ringer and Spotify.
- [00:06]
Todd McShay
The McShay Show.
- [00:07]
Juliet Littman
It's a video and audio podcast coming.
- [00:09]
Sean Fennessy
To you year round with all my NFL draft information, big boards, mock drafts and player movement. Plus, I'll be chatting with some of.
- [00:17]
Todd McShay
My best friends in football, including some of your favorite football analysts during the week.
- [00:22]
Juliet Littman
We'll have episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
- [00:24]
Sean Fennessy
That will include discussions about my player rankings, who's rising, who's falling, and who your NFL team should be keeping an eye on. Plus, we'll be reacting each week to the College Football Playoff polls and giving you previews and picks for each Saturday slate. In addition, I'll have episodes on Saturday nights with my immediate reaction to the full day in college football every week.
- [00:47]
Juliet Littman
So if you love the college game.
- [00:49]
Sean Fennessy
The NFL, the draft, or all of it like me, make sure to like, follow, subscribe and get ready for the McShay show on the Ringer, Spotify and wherever you watch or listen to podcasts. This episode is presented by bank of America Money Decisions. Do they really have to be either or with bank of America? Turns out they can be yes. And as in yes to setting up your own home theater and booking a cinema inspired vacation next summer. Our digital tools help you create the future you want and help you keep enjoying today too. Do more with the bank that asks what would you like the power to do? Explore tips and more@bankofamerica.com yes and this.
- [01:31]
Juliet Littman
Episode is brought to you by. Vitamin Water Food Entertainment Sports Teams New.
- [01:36]
Sean Fennessy
York City is one of those places that oozes choice. It's got something for every taste, so it's fitting that Vitamin Water was born there. It's a product of its environment.
- [01:46]
Juliet Littman
Colorful, flavorful, anything but boring. Vitamin Water injects a daily dose of.
- [01:52]
Todd McShay
Vibrancy into a watered down life.
- [01:54]
Sean Fennessy
So grab some Vitamin Water today, NYC style.
- [01:57]
Juliet Littman
Vitamin Water is a registered trademark of Glassau.
- [02:06]
Sean Fennessy
I'm Sean Fennessy and this is the Big Picture, a conversation show about Wicked. Later in this episode, I have a conversation with Malcolm Washington, the writer director behind the Piano Lesson, the latest August Wilson adaptation that is now available on Netflix. Malcolm is one of the most thoughtful and engaging guests we've had in a while. We talked about coming from a Hollywood family. He is the son of Denzel, what he hoped to attempt when given the chance to make this film, and how he turned Wilson's stage play into such a bold cinematic Experience. Malcolm. Incredibly cool guy. Stick around for that chat. But first, joining me to talk about the biggest movie in the world is a Wicked super fan, the host of Bachelor Party, the ringer's head of production, frankly, my professional partner in crime for more than a decade and I think first time big picture guest, Juliet Littman. Is that right, Juliet?
- [02:56]
Juliet Littman
I believe it is. Actually, no, it's not. I came on in the summer of 2020 to talk about the Disney adaptation of Hamilton.
- [03:04]
Todd McShay
Yes.
- [03:05]
Juliet Littman
So I'm back.
- [03:06]
Sean Fennessy
Perfect timing. I love it. The circle is squared. Juliet. Most people probably wouldn't know it if they only listened to our podcasts, but you and I really have been the frickin frack of the ringer for a very long time. We have had adjoining desks, adjoining offices.
- [03:22]
Juliet Littman
I miss those days.
- [03:23]
Sean Fennessy
In tandem on many, many things here. And yet we never pod. What's up with that?
- [03:27]
Juliet Littman
I know, I don't know. You haven't invited me on in four plus years. So you have like nine pods.
- [03:33]
Sean Fennessy
What do you mean?
- [03:35]
Juliet Littman
I'm delighted to be here. I'm really excited to talk about this because I am so deep in Wicked and Wicked lore that I've genuinely been really curious about what normal people think if you're not deep into musical theater. So I'm just very, very honored and excited to be here. So thanks for having me.
- [03:54]
Sean Fennessy
How wonderful to be identified as Normal on my own show for a change. That honestly just felt great. I felt so alive hearing you call me normal. Let's talk about Wicked. So Wicked has been one of the most anticipated movies of the year. It of course, was dominant at the box office this weekend, made over $110 million in the United States. It's directed by John M. Chu, a filmmaker that you have a lot of love for, who has been a guest on this podcast before. Screenplays by Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox. Winnie Holzman, one of the writers on the stage musical that was also written by Stephen Schwartz and it's adapted from a novel called Wicked by Gregory Maguire. I think this is one of the most beloved theatrical properties of the 21st century. Would you agree?
- [04:36]
Juliet Littman
I definitely would. It has been on Broadway for 21 years. They made a lot of hay out of the 20th anniversary last year. And there is just so much Wicked content out there. Like if you just go on YouTube, you can find sort of like every blonde or like seemingly blonde musical theater actress doing a version of at least one Wicked song. Someone who could be blonde is singing Wicked on YouTube at all times. And also People who aren't blonde. It's just. It is. It is a very large tent and it's a fixture. Like it is sort of. It is the fixture of Broadway at this point, I would say I want.
- [05:16]
Sean Fennessy
To talk to you about how that happened before we get into the movie itself, because I, as I've said a couple of times on the show, have never seen the musical. I've never seen it performed. I've listened to the soundtrack a few times, but only since I had a child. I haven't read Jeffrey Maguire's book.
- [05:32]
Juliet Littman
Me neither.
- [05:33]
Sean Fennessy
I don't intend to. It appears he's written dozens of books now in the vein of this film, and maybe even a dozen just in the Wicked series. It's not because I'm allergic to it. In fact, the wizard of Oz, I've said many times on the pod, is one of the signature films of my life. It's certainly up there with Star wars and Jaws and a couple of others as the movie I've seen the most in my life. I had it on multiple times off of a taped VHS recording from the age of probably four through my teens. And it was on in my house all the time. A transformative, emotional, personal experience like it is for so many other people. And yet, for whatever reason, probably because of the timing of the musical and where I was in my life, I missed it. What is your relationship to the wizard of Oz before Wicked?
- [06:16]
Juliet Littman
Like, non existent. Like, I like it and I love songs. What?
- [06:21]
Sean Fennessy
That's fascinating.
- [06:22]
Juliet Littman
Yeah. Like, I know more about some of the characters from the wizard of Oz as like an extension of Wicked or like, kind of like going backward. Like, I. Like I've. Judy Garland, to me, is like the inspiration for the Valley of the Dolls more than anything else. Like, she, like. I really also, like, find, like, Minnelli family lore very interesting. But, like, I don't have a big relationship to the wizard of Oz and I actually have been thinking a lot about that because it's been such a big part of the press tour and like a quiet way. And so I haven't really. I was just like, I should rewatch this. It's been so long. But yeah, like, I feel like I know more about the wizard of Oz because I got into Wicked than the other way around.
- [07:04]
Sean Fennessy
That is just absolutely remarkable, genuinely. And maybe that informs a lot of this conversation that we're going to have about our reactions to this movie because obviously I hold a very special place in my heart for the wizard of Oz and not knowing really any of the source material very well. There are some things about this movie that confused me. When did you.
- [07:22]
Juliet Littman
I'd love to explain them.
- [07:23]
Sean Fennessy
I look forward to it. When did you see the musical?
- [07:26]
Juliet Littman
I first saw it in Chicago when I was in college. The first national tour, and then it was in Chicago for a long time. So I saw that was, I think, 2005 or six, like, shortly after it came out. And then I just listened to the music for years and years and years. And, like, over that time, Defying Gravity became more and more of, like, this canonical song. And at the same, I think Defying Gravity also grew as Idina Menzel grew and Chris and Chenoweth. Like, I was really into Pushing Daisies, which was around, like, right after Wicked came out, and she was on that. So, like, there were other ways that, like, my interest in Wicked got reinforced as those two stars became bigger. And then I went this past May with my friend and her two kids to see it on Broadway, and it was sold out. It was a random Sunday in May, and I, like, sobbed through the whole thing. Like, every musical cue was, like, so moving, and I was just so happy to be singing again. So it was very exciting. And, yeah, Wicked is Wicked as a phenomenon. So unlike most other shows or really anything else, for lack of a better.
- [08:34]
Sean Fennessy
Phrase, Wicked is a prequel to the wizard of Oz. It's a story that's told through the eyes of Elphaba, who's the Wicked Witch of the west, and her experience at Shiz University, at least in Part one, which is the sort of wizarding school, the witching school where she and Glinda, who is the Good Witch from the original wizard of Oz, become kind of frenemies over time. During their time there, they learn a lot about the kind of underworld and machinations of Oz and who's controlling it and how it's all working. The film is a kind of, like, reclamation, I would say, of Elphaba's perspective. Cynthia Erivo plays Elphaba. Ariana Grande plays Glinda in the film. Jonathan Bailey appears Ethan Slater, Bowen Yang, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, star studded cast. Did you like Wicked Part 1?
- [09:24]
Juliet Littman
I did. I liked it. Good movie.
- [09:27]
Sean Fennessy
That's it? That's all you got?
- [09:28]
Juliet Littman
I liked it. I mean, I've been thinking about it. Like, I had a really good time. I cried three times throughout, which is less than I did at the musical when I sat down and started crying the whole time. But I think it's just such a tall order to adapt something that is so Beloved on Broadway that, like, I went in really, really nervous for everybody and, like, wanted it to be a success. And so I was like, okay, this is good. Like, this is not a debacle. This is not Cats. This is not Les Mis. This is not into the Woods. Like, this is a good movie. And overall, like, the two main things, like I told people before they saw it, was like, ariana Grande is absolutely fabulous in transfixing, and I'm so happy for her. And if you like the musical, this is an incredibly faithful adaptation. And so I think it's like, it was made very much with the musical fans in mind, but I actually think it does a lot more, which I've, like, kind of, like, took me some time to, like, really think about and piece together. But I think it's really successful in how it serves a lot of different audiences. And I've, like, anecdotally heard people who aren't, like, musical people, they're like, yeah, I liked it. It really picks up at the end. And I think that there is, like, it goes through, like, different phases where you're like, okay, it starts as just hitting you right away with the music straight into what you know from Broadway. And then I would say after two hours in the last 40 minutes, it kind of evolves into something else where it feels more like a superhero movie. Like, it becomes something that you could tie to, like, you know, being inspired by, like, Marvel or whatever. You get the big cameo, you get the big fight scene, and then, you know, like, whether you liked the first 2 hours and 35 minutes almost becomes irrelevant when Cynthia Erivo finally belts it out. And, like, Defying Gravity is already a beautiful song. I found, like, her triumphant moment so, so moving that I was just like, well, this is great. I'm so happy leaving the theater. So they, you know, they nail the last five minutes, and, like, if that. Is that the most important thing, maybe so if so, they did it.
- [11:28]
Todd McShay
Yeah.
- [11:29]
Sean Fennessy
You've just underscored maybe some of my issues with the movie, which is that it feels like a very structured IP execution, more so than, like, a heartful, spirited tale that people have had such a big relationship to. But I know I'm not the best person to necessarily weigh in on it because I don't have a lot of history. And so it does seem like most people, most fans of the musical are getting this huge sense of satisfaction from it.
- [11:51]
Juliet Littman
Definitely. Yeah, for sure.
- [11:53]
Sean Fennessy
Why do you have a big relationship with John M. Chu?
- [11:57]
Juliet Littman
I'm so glad you asked. Step up two is, like, Just an iconic movie for me. Also, you kind of alluded to this, like, you missed Wicked because we talked about this last week. Like you were a senior in college when Wicked came out. And I think college is really a dead zone for pop culture consumption. Like, you probably go really hard on a few things, but because the experience of college is being, like, engulfed in the smallest world that feels incredibly important. If it didn't make it in, it doesn't exist.
- [12:21]
Sean Fennessy
Right. Especially senior year.
- [12:23]
Juliet Littman
Yeah, yeah, you're just like, totally, like, from. The only thing I really watched when I was in college was the OC and that might be it. Interested development and, like, that's kind of it. And I was just like, everything else was. I guess we were watching more pop culture and stuff, but, like, that's all I can remember. Right. So I feel like it's probably the same for you. What did penetrate for me when I was in college was Step up and Step up two. And I loved those movies so much. And he directed Step up two, which, you know, was also a tall order. Cause Step up is, you know, the breakout of Channing Tatum, where he meets Jenna Dewan. Obviously, very important movie to pop culture history ever since. But Step up two is actually really good and quite different. And, like, John M. Chu is able to step in and, like, make it a worthwhile movie that then, you know, led to three more sequels after that. And he also, I think, really understood at the time how to make something successful. He, on the heels of step up two, engaged in one of the first, like, YouTube viral stunts, which is. He had, like, a dance battle fight with Miley Cyrus and her best friend at the time whose name was Mandy. And they had a child. A child. They had a channel called Milers and Manders. And they had this, like, just this weird. Like, in 2008, like, viral wasn't a thing, but they had these dance battle videos. And Jon M. Chu, like, really understood how to, I think, use that moment for himself. Step up two, plus this, like, this YouTube phenomenon to create something that fans would go crazy over, while also trying to experiment with his own work and craft as a filmmaker. And I think that actually, like, you can still see him doing that kind of thing with Wicked, where when I think more and more about the movie, he made something he knew fans would love and then also, like, kind of quietly set it up to be his own homage to, like, the wizard of Oz. And I don't know that it's all, like, entirely successful, but, like, I just kind of admire how he balances fan service with trying to be like the director he wants to be.
- [14:18]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, I've always thought of him as a very self styled Spielberg ish technician of wonder, you know, somebody who is very, very conscious of trying to make wow moments for his the people who are coming to see his movies and sometimes self conscious about it in a way that holds him back. His filmography is wild. Wicked is his 10th movie. I'm going to list off his movies you just mentioned. He directed Step up to the Streets and step up 3D. Those are his first two features. After that he makes two consecutive Justin Bieber documentaries. One never say never and then the concert film Believe.
- [14:52]
Juliet Littman
Never say Never is a really good movie. Like it is Justin Bieber propaganda that is incredibly effective. Like great job.
- [14:59]
Sean Fennessy
I will absolutely take your word for it on that. After the two Justin Bieber films, the Justin Bieber diptych he makes G.I. joe Retaliation, big CR film. He makes Jem and the Holograms, which I think is actually a bit underrated.
- [15:15]
Juliet Littman
Oh wow. Okay.
- [15:17]
Sean Fennessy
He makes now youw See Me two. Sure. I think is inferior to now youw See Me. We'll see when now youw See Me three comes along. Coming soon. Then he makes Crazy Rich Asians, which obviously completely transforms his career. One of the biggest hits of the 2010s. A kind of right place, right time, adapting the right novel with the right cast. An incredible collection of people in that film. The Henry Golding Discovery. Choose like I think balance of melodrama and light comedy fit really well with that movie. I was a big fan of that movie. And then he made it in The Heights in 2021 which was released into that sort of like Project Popcorn Max era. But I saw it in a movie theater in a screening room and I had a great time with it. And I think it's more people had seen that movie in a movie theater and actually I'm not a huge fan of that show. I saw that show a couple times on Broadway and I love Lin Manuel Miranda, but for whatever reason I could never connect with that show. But the film I thought was actually quite successful anyhow.
- [16:08]
Juliet Littman
I just gotta tell you, you're completely wrong. That's just insane. Take. I love the musical like love, love, love. Listen to it all the time. That movie is so inferior to the wonderful stage production. This is wild. Sean.
- [16:22]
Sean Fennessy
I'm willing to accept all criticisms on my musical takes. This is a genre that I really have a lot of love and appreciation for. But I don't know if I've really truly, deeply Madly loved a musical, a filmed musical in like 50 years. Like, there's just something has happened in the way that these are made now. And this is part of my hang up with Wicked that I struggle with. All this to say. Chu, on his 10th movie, he knows what he's doing. Like, he's an incredibly professional, competent director. He has made a couple of choices in this movie that I find like, unforgivable. Like, I find the movie, like, at times unwatchable because of the way that the cgi, the production design and the colorization of the movie intersects. Wizard of Oz, one of the most beautiful movies ever made. That combination of the sepia tone, black and white, and the Technicolor when they get to Oz, is just so wildly influential and like awe inspiring and I think genuinely forges true relationships to movies and what movies can be for young people. The way that this movie is colored, like, makes me. Makes me want to hurt myself. Like, I really don't. I do not like how the color looks at all. It's totally desaturated and I don't understand why.
- [17:28]
Juliet Littman
Yeah, it's weird. There are moments where I'm like, wow, this really pops and it's really cool. Like the first glimpse you get at Munchkinland when Glinda comes in on the. Or Glinda at that point comes in on the bubble. I'm like, oh, this is cool. Reminds me of the Hobbit. Reminds me of the thatch roofs of England and sort of like, what? And then a ton of color. So it sort of like works. It takes like a very classic look and then explodes into a color bomb. I felt like you will know better than me. I just felt like some of his lens choices were so weird. Like, I don't really know why. Then he would choose, like, seeming like a different camera package altogether for like, dancing through. Dancing through life. Dancing through life. I think people really like. I found that to be a real slog in the middle because of how it looked. And it was hard to know, like, who is the star of the scene. And it should be a really big announcement of like, who Fiero is. And Jonathan Bailey has so much charm. You don't have to do much to really make that clear. But I thought it was a mess, so I actually agree with you. I just think that, like, for me, some of the high, the emotional highs really outweighed, like the technical lows. So I sort of like, can look past it, but I was definitely aware of it as I was watching and I'm like, incentivized to like the movie a lot.
- [18:39]
Sean Fennessy
I'm glad you made the Marvel IP comparison, because I do think for a lot of people who have a deep familiarity with the stage musical and the songs, you're sort of anticipating something as you go through the story. So each time a musical number ends, you're like, oh, well, this is coming next. And I can start getting excited for it. Which is a very different way of watching something where you have no idea what's coming next. And so it's much easier for me to get hung up on the desaturation. I was reading some interviews with Chu, and he kept talking about the fact that, as opposed to the wizard of Oz, which is a film that is a dream that takes place in Judy Garland's mind, Oz needed to be a real place in this film, which I just think is dumb. Like, I don't know why we need to try to transmogrify an imaginary place into a slightly more real seeming place. But that is a big creative decision that was made that I think kind of hinders my experience just enjoying watching the movie. I do. Obviously the songs are. Are quite good in this movie. Like, I'm not an idiot. And I can tell. I could tell from the very first series of performances. And Chu, obviously is really, really gifted with choreography.
- [19:46]
Juliet Littman
Really? Yeah.
- [19:48]
Sean Fennessy
How did you feel like the dancing kind of intersected? Well. And how did it compare to the stage musical?
- [19:52]
Juliet Littman
It's pretty different. His choreographer is this guy named Chris Scott, who he's been working with for a long time. One thing that became even more explicit to me as you were going through his discography, and I know this isn't answering your question, so I'm sorry. But, um, he. John. John Chu and Ariana Grande are both, like, graduates from the Scooter Braun school, essentially. And so, you know, just. I think Scooter Braun brought him into the Justin Bieber projects, which then led to some other ones. And at the same time, Scooter was managing Ariana Grande. So I think, like, that has not been mentioned once in the press tour, but they've kind of been circling each other for a while, which I think is just kind of interesting. And I mentioned it. Cause Chris Scott is like, in the video that we were talking about, he's like the. Like the second dancer in it, essentially. So John M. Chu has been working with a lot of, I think, his USC friends for a long time. I'm not sure if Chris Scott went, but his cinematographer and he went to USC together. But, yeah, I thought the choreography was good and inventive. I think the smartest thing they did around the choreography was the sound design that went with it. The sounds of the choreography is noisy. Like, when they're. When they're tapping the books and when they're, like, hitting their marks with their feet, it's loud. Like, you can really hear those moments. It reminded me actually of Newsies, which does a similar thing with the guys dancing.
- [21:08]
Sean Fennessy
And I thought that the stomping and the slapping of the paper and all those sorts of things.
- [21:12]
Juliet Littman
Yeah, exactly. And so the scene that people seem to also really love and I liked a lot is in what is this feeling? And it's been, Ariana Grande is walking with the books and everything. And I think they did a really good job of turning up the sound design on that to emphasize the choreography, because otherwise I think it actually could have been because it's not bright enough, honestly. Also, it's hard. There's so many extras in this movie and so many dancers. It's hard to really capture the scope of that. But by using some of the other cues, they make you more aware of it. And I thought that was actually a really successful choice that, you know, I was gonna call it Quiet, but actually was a loud choice.
- [21:49]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, it's very loud. The other thing that I heard Chu say that I thought was fascinating was that 90% of the vocal performance was captured on set live, as opposed to recorded and later filled in, which is very uncommon for musicals and very difficult to pull off. And I'm kind of amazed by that and want to give the movie a lot more credit because he managed to pull that off. Obviously, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are in the sort of like 0.0001% of people who can sing on the planet Earth. So I guess maybe that's not as surprising as it should be. But even folks like Jonathan Bailey being able to pull, or Jeff Goldblum, for that matter, who have very little singing experience, being able to perform. What did you make of that?
- [22:30]
Juliet Littman
Well, Jeff Goldblum's song is very short. It's two minutes, so it wasn't. Weren't being asked that much of him. And a sentimental man. Also, there's no expectation that he's gonna be a great singer, in my opinion. So sort of fine. I feel like the biggest loser from this was Michelle Yeoh. She's like the least vocally gifted, but like a lovely actress who I'm sure we'll continue to have.
- [22:48]
Sean Fennessy
She sort of talk, sings her way through the movie.
- [22:50]
Juliet Littman
Yeah. So Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo in their multitude of interviews have mentioned this and they're like, yeah, it was a no brainer for us. I do find that when actors make this decision because they talked about it a lot on Les Mis, they love to remind you that they're singing live. So thanks. We got it.
- [23:06]
Sean Fennessy
I haven't been consuming nearly as much shoulder content for the Wicked promo as you have.
- [23:11]
Juliet Littman
I have, I would say it's like 60% of my content right now. I thought that it was really cool to see. I think for Cynthia Erivo, I was really aware of how it felt like she was holding her voice back and it was building to define gravity and I found that distracting. On the other hand, I'm also very aware of how powerful her voice is because I like, you know, watch her on YouTube all the time. So, you know, maybe that's like a personal problem. I thought Ariana Grande was just so captivating. And, you know, she started as a child star. She hasn't really been like an actress in like a decade. And seeing her return to that in basically a comedic role was honestly thrilling. It's sort of like what you get a glimpse of every time she goes on Fallon, but like for two and a half hours. And I just thought she was so incredible that, you know, probably because she was singing live, she had to really give herself over to it and was never really like taken out of the scene. And it was incredibly successful. So I thought it worked better for her than it did for Cynthia Erivo. But maybe Cynthia Erivo, no matter what, would have made the same choices.
- [24:15]
Sean Fennessy
Let's talk a little bit more about the performances because Ariana Grande is getting really, really high marks for the performance. Anybody who's watched her on snl, I think, would not be surprised to see that she nails this certain sense of like, stuck up, perfect girl upending her own Persona. She's sort of tailor made for a part like this Galinda, Glinda.
- [24:34]
Juliet Littman
So good. Yeah, it's so good. And also the. The way she throws her hair back is just like so funny. She just. All of the small moments, she really nails. That's a big one. But, you know, she just is. She's just hilarious. I loved watching her.
- [24:46]
Sean Fennessy
One thing that I've read though, and tell me if this is right or not, is that Idina Menzel's portrayal of Elphaba in the musical is a little bit more like sly, playful, knowing, like not, you know, Cynthia Erivo plays this part very, very seriously and very darkly and very quietly, like, very recessed for a lot of the films. Obviously, we're building towards that explosion that you're talking about with the finale in Defying Gravity and this sort of transformation that she has. But I think it's not really. It's just a choice that she made that I think I found the film a little bit more static than I wanted it to. Because she is a character who's very difficult to connect to because she's very restrained throughout most of the film.
- [25:27]
Juliet Littman
Yeah. Yes. Idina Menzel's Elphaba is definitely pushier, I would say. Like, she is sure of who she is. And I think she feels less wounded by the life she's led. Whereas I think Cynthia Arriva's Elphaba is much more aware of, like, the lack of love from her father and the fact that she wasn't even supposed to be at Shiz. That's a change from the musical. In the musical, she just goes. Instead of being, like. She's just supposed to be a student instead of being invited the way that she is in the movie. Okay. And so I think that's like, a big change. I think also there's more of a feeling of, like, Cynthia Erivo's, like, tolerating more of Glinda in a way. Cause she also has, like, her own thing going on. So I think it did feel more like, as you said, recessed. I thought they kind of made her seem like 11 from Stranger Things in the first scene. And I was just like, is she gonna, like, you know, have some waffles or something? They made her magic seem really, like, crazy. Whereas in the musical, it's more just like she's unaware of her talent or unaware of her gifts, essentially. And they need to be honed versus them being some burden a la Stranger Things.
- [26:41]
Sean Fennessy
This is a small quibble. And I know as a fan of Beverly Hills 90210, this won't bother you that much, but everyone who goes to Shiz is, like, 35 years old. Shouldn't these people be young? How old was Kristin Chenoweth when she was in the play? Was she in her 30s as well, I assume.
- [26:56]
Juliet Littman
I think they were in their late mid to late 20s. Cause, you know, Idina Menzel had been in Rent already, so she was sort.
- [27:01]
Sean Fennessy
Of, you know, she'd been around.
- [27:03]
Juliet Littman
Yeah. And it was like a big.
- [27:04]
Sean Fennessy
Cynthia Erivo was 37. That's kind of weird that she's going to university.
- [27:08]
Juliet Littman
I looked it up. It's myself, Jonathan Bailey's 36. Ariana Grande is 32. I just mentioned that because Cynthia Erevo, when her casting was announced, got the most like, she's too old to play Elphaba.
- [27:18]
Sean Fennessy
Oh, she did. There was that feedback.
- [27:20]
Juliet Littman
Yes, there was. And so I do get the sense that this movie is sort of, like, reactive to the audience or anticipating audience critiques. And I do. And so I did wonder if that script change of, like, how her being invited to shivs by Madame Morrible was like, in response to the fact that people said she seemed too old. But, like, I think she just. She's basically the same age as everyone else. So it's sort of like an unfair criticism, I guess. Ariana Grande looks young, but I don't know. It didn't really bother me. We'll talk more about this, I'm sure, but they're sort of presenting a world and I'm like, well, I'm buying into this. So if you're telling me that all these people are going to shiz. Fair enough.
- [27:57]
Sean Fennessy
It's a very fair point. I won't argue with it too much. Except it did dawn on me at one point, I was like, is it possible Cynthia Riva's in her 40s? Isn't that a little weird?
- [28:05]
Juliet Littman
I thought she was in her 40s before I looked it up. I was surprised. She's only 37.
- [28:08]
Sean Fennessy
Anyhow, let's talk about the story itself. So, as someone who holds the wizard of Oz fairly dear, like a reimagining of the premise of the film, I find a little curious. And I haven't seen Part two, so it's impossible for me to fully weigh in. And I honestly don't want it spoiled for me. I treat this so you don't know.
- [28:32]
Juliet Littman
What happens in actual Wicked.
- [28:33]
Sean Fennessy
I don't. I have a theory about how they'll finish the story.
- [28:37]
Juliet Littman
Okay.
- [28:37]
Sean Fennessy
But I won't share it here. Cause it's not important. And if I'm wrong, what's the upside of that? But I will say, like a question. Yeah, of course.
- [28:45]
Juliet Littman
Were you looking for wizard of Oz Easter eggs as you were watching this?
- [28:49]
Sean Fennessy
I mean, not particularly. There were things that I felt I clocked very early on, which was the man who comes into her mother's home just seemed to be Oz, and that he seemed to be her father. But that seemed, like, so obvious that maybe it was a wrong footing. Anyway, you don't have to respond to that to give anything away. Obviously, the movie very purposefully, like, shows us Dorothy and the Tin man and the lion and the Scarecrow going down the yellow brick road at the outset of the film. And almost as a way to sort of like, assuage someone like me to just be like, I promise this is related. Don't just watch the 1940s style Universal logo at the beginning of the movie. These things are connected. But truthfully, like, it just doesn't seem connected because the Wicked Witch of the west is one of the greatest villains in movie history, if not the greatest. And a story that recontextualizes her trauma and the way that she is, like, I guess, potentially framed as the villain of Oz I just find weird. Like, I don't know why I'm having a hard time with it. I guess it's a story about not judging a book by its cover and about bullying and about being open minded, about people who are different from you. Obviously Elphaba has green skin and she is mocked mercilessly at the outset of the film. And these sort of like, gentle unions that can form when people begin to understand and accept each other. Like, I understand all the bromides that are in the text of the story, but I'm not going to jump to any conclusions because I don't know where it ends up. But you didn't. I guess when you just began loving this musical, you were like, who cares about what the wizard of Oz has to say about these people?
- [30:22]
Juliet Littman
Yeah, I think I was really incentivized to love Wicked because of Rent, because Rent was like, probably one of the most important things to happen before I turned 13. You know, like, or so Idina Menzel was, like, looming large for me already. So I was like, incentivized to care about Wicked at the very beginning. And then it took on a life of its own as it became so successful. And the wizard of Oz piece of it, I was, it was like, totally separate, honestly. And I actually, I also read a lot of interviews with John M. Chu and like, he loves the wizard of Oz a lot. And Jonathan Bailey has been wearing wizard of Oz T shirts for all of his press tour. So, like, for me, I'm like, the wizard of Oz really looms over this movie. For people who care about it. I'm like, I should learn so I can really understand how they're feeling. But like, yeah, like, Wicked is almost separate from the wizard of Oz for me.
- [31:09]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, I guess the choices that are made, for example, obviously little people are used as performers for the Munchkins in the original film, and taller actors are used in Munchkin Land at the beginning of this film. The Monkeys, for example, are not costumed people, but cgi. And I guess all of those choices, much like the choice to kind of desaturate, are connected to this idea of, like, making this feel more like a real, quote unquote, real place. But to me, that makes it feel like a divorce from the wizard of Oz. Like, it feels like. Not like trying to separate itself in some distinct way.
- [31:47]
Juliet Littman
Right. Well, two things about that. First of all, all the animals in this movie are bad. Like, it's just a bad experience. I was like, well, talk about the.
- [31:54]
Sean Fennessy
Animals and what they mean to the story too.
- [31:55]
Juliet Littman
Okay. I was just. Yeah. Do you want me to talk about that?
- [31:58]
Sean Fennessy
I do, yeah. Yeah. Because I found that critical framework in the movie to be, like, fairly thin.
- [32:06]
Juliet Littman
Yeah. Also, in my, like, 15 years of listening to the soundtrack and not seeing it, I had completely erased the animal subplot. Like, I was just like. And when I went to see the musical in May, I was like, oh, right, there's like an animal rights piece of this. I forgot about that. Like, I was genuinely, like, surprised. Basically, it's an allegory for fascism. And the animals are being. They're animals who speak and they're being suppressed by. We find out Jeff Goldblum's character. And that motivates Elphaba to wanna, like, get rights for all the people of Oz, including herself. And I think she also connects to them because she is green. She doesn't know why, she's just born that way. And so it's sort of the animals and Elphaba together stand in for sort of like, the people of Oz who have been othered and therefore are being discriminated against or rejected. And then she finds out it's coming from the top down. And so it becomes, you know, like a government conspiracy.
- [33:07]
Sean Fennessy
Is that good? I don't know.
- [33:09]
Todd McShay
I don't know how to.
- [33:10]
Sean Fennessy
I'm not sure that I would totally bought that part of the movie is what I'm saying.
- [33:14]
Juliet Littman
Well, the thing is that also the monkeys, the flying monkeys, become like, Elphaba's fault, basically, because she is able to read the Grimory, so she is able to cast the spell on the monkeys that give them wings. And I actually thought a really uncomfortable and sort of like, gripping scene was when the monkeys are feeling the pain of their animals, of their wings growing. I am not an animal lover. In fact, I would say I'm pet blind, but I found that very uncomfortable. And I was like, sad for the monkeys. So it was effective because I felt really bad for them.
- [33:44]
Sean Fennessy
As you watch CGI monkeys transformed into winged, horrifying creatures.
- [33:49]
Juliet Littman
Yeah. So the animal piece of it is so bad. To your point about not. It's just, like, it's not effective. Right? Like, it's just actually not an effective part of the musical. And, like, I don't walk away from Wicked thinking it is about, like, fascism, honestly.
- [34:04]
Sean Fennessy
Well, you can see I can understand it as the literary device. It's an obvious homage to Orwell and Animal Farm and the idea of, like, the separation between classes, between types of people and who gets to be in charge and why they get to be in charge and taking advantage of the structures that are built by one class to raise up another class. Like, it's all fairly evident. It's just in the movie itself. And I can't say in the musical one, you've got Peter Dinklage giving a very weird performance, as. Is he a goat? He's a goat.
- [34:30]
Juliet Littman
He's a goat, yeah. Dr. Dilmond. It's basically Tyrion Lannister as a goat.
- [34:34]
Sean Fennessy
Tyrion Lannister is a goat who is a very wise man who's being pushed out of shiz University, much like all the other instructors. Why he's one of the animals who are all animals. Yeah. Why he's one of the last ones to stick around is unclear. Nevertheless, Elphaba grows a deep bond with him. What is his name? Professor who?
- [34:54]
Juliet Littman
Dillamond.
- [34:55]
Sean Fennessy
Dillamond. And that. That is like, really the inciting incident for her enlightenment.
- [35:02]
Juliet Littman
Yeah, basically. But I just think there's. One of the reasons Wicked's so successful is there's so many other ways to watch it. And I think in the intervening years as a soundtrack has become, like, the defining thing in the two original leads and their. I don't know, their friends, but their relationship of Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel. It's a story about two women friends who didn't expect to be friends and didn't expect to like each other. Like, for me, the most moving songs are in act two, so I'm, like, very excited about part two because.
- [35:33]
Sean Fennessy
Oh, see, that's. I have not heard many people say that. That's interesting.
- [35:36]
Juliet Littman
Well, Defying Gravity is like the iconic song, but at the very beginning of the movie, they play the orchestration of this song For Good, which is the penultimate song. And it's just incredibly, incredibly beautiful. It's one of the most important, like, tracks about friendship probably of all time. And it's just incredibly moving. And I think both Defying Gravity and For Good, the Two most famous songs can be applied to so many different types of relationships and feelings and people. You can really see yourself in them, even if it's not exact to what's happening in Wickedness. And so I think that explained a lot of the sentimentality and just, like, emotional connection people have with Wicked overall, because you can really. And even with Talking with the Animals and, like, it's about fashion fascism. But, you know, it's also like, you know, a lot of people made this point, like, it's very relevant right now. And then also the songs that. The lyrics of Dancing Through Life where he's like, life's less. Life's more painless for the brainless. Life's less fraudless for the thoughtless. Like, I think a lot of people also like, yeah, makes sense. I'm just going to check out and move forward.
- [36:36]
Sean Fennessy
And so you're saying that intersects with our life right now.
- [36:38]
Juliet Littman
Yeah, So I think. And I think. But at all times, in what ways, Juliet?
- [36:42]
Sean Fennessy
What do you mean?
- [36:43]
Juliet Littman
You know, I'm just scrolling my Reddit app looking for whatever it wants to give me, so I'm just going that way. But it actually doesn't really mean, like, as a teenager, can't you imagine just being like, yeah, like, I'm just going to be. I'm going to have less pain and think less and just, like, listen to music and smoke a joint. Like, I just feel like at any time in life you could apply a lot of the lyrics to Wicked and feel a lot of meaning.
- [37:05]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, I think that's right. I think I'm obviously extremely mixed on this movie. I'm not so heartless as to not recognize that. I think, particularly for me, Dancing Through Life, Popular and Defying Gravity are the three big set pieces of the movie. Dancing Through Life is obviously Fiero's big song, popular as Glinda's big song. And Defying Gravity is Elphaba's big climactic moment. All three performers, who are the stars, who are all, I think, all very good in this movie. I wish Cynthia Eriva was slightly more playful in the first act and second act of the movie, but by the third act, you were so fully with her. I agree with you largely about Ariana Grande. She's incredibly funny and is a wonderful performer. Popular's probably my favorite number because it feels the most like a John M. Chu movie to me. It feels the most that sort of like spring that he brings to his best stuff from Step up to Crazy Rich Asians that like that light comedy that he's so good at, I really enjoyed. But there are so many stretches of the movie. One critical one in particular, which is when Elphaba and Glinda sort of like, forge their union in the silent dance sequence where I was like, this is one of the worst things I've ever seen in a movie. Like, I found it to be completely incoherent and poorly staged and weird. But again, like, it's a scene that I don't. What is it like in the musical? How does it compare? I think in theory, what you were saying about a film about two women who would never imagine that they would become friends. Finding common ground is a good idea and a nice thing. And when it happens in real life, how wonderful. But it happening in that experience, I don't know, it just didn't work for me at all.
- [38:44]
Juliet Littman
Yeah. So those three songs you just noted are all extended in the movie and changed from the musical. So they are all the three moments when I think John M. Chu really got to express himself. Defying Gravity is very chopped up in the musical. It's Less so Popular is a standout song for Kristin Chenoweth from the soundtrack and for all Glenn does everywhere. But they added a riff at the end in just 30 seconds. Basically just kind of capitalizing on Ariana Grande. And then dancing through life is like a very important musical trope, which is like, when the whole cast comes together to advance the plot and for a lot of things to happen at once in the context of a song. Like, every great musical has a dancing through life. Some of them have a couple. And I really disliked dancing through life in the movie. And where would you say dancing through life ends in the movie, Sean? Like, what's the final frame of that scene?
- [39:42]
Sean Fennessy
Oh, I couldn't tell you.
- [39:43]
Juliet Littman
Yeah, because it's 10 fucking minutes or more. It's like 15. It's so long. And in the musical, it goes from Fiero's entrance through arriving at the Ozda's ballroom, but the dance is much shorter. Things don't go silent. It is dramaticized in a way that was overdone for me. And I was just like, this is really getting long. And so I just think that it was sort of like everyone's moment was both, like, intensified, but also worsened, except for Ariana Grande. And I think that's maybe why, to me, she's the star of the movie. But, like, for both Jonathan Bailey and Cynthia Erivo's characters, I felt like their defining moments were actually, like, taken down a notch by some of the movie Choices. I get why they did them, especially with Dancing Through Life. Cause so much happens in that song and you have to like lay it out linearly, whereas on stage, like you could do a few things at one time.
- [40:36]
Sean Fennessy
I just thought, I thought the choreography in Dancing Through Life was really, really good. Like that's really him trying to get as close as he could to the Stanley Dunn and Gene Kelly, you know, this sort of like bandwagon style, like Fred Astaire movies, where you've got this like huge intersecting cast, the swirling camera and, you know, trying to move sets around. And I thought that that was kind of impressive. But again, that's like a song I have no relationship to. Sure. So it didn't.
- [41:03]
Juliet Littman
I did watch a 13 minute video of the like creative team and Jonathan Bailey and Jon M. Chu explaining the Dancing Through Life scene and how they shot it. And the scene where like they're going through like the sort of hamster wheel library, like, and Fiero jumps out is all one shot. And they had to like flip the camera and stuff. And so hearing them talk about the artistry was like, really, really cool. But I do think it just became like overstuffed because the obligation to like explain everything that happens in that sequence is just too much. But so that's like really a mixed bag. Like, I think I'm like inherently more pro wicked than you are because I just have a relationship to it. But I think like every. All of the highs in the movie are met with some flaws too.
- [41:42]
Sean Fennessy
Why do you think this movie is such a massive hit?
- [41:44]
Juliet Littman
I think a lot of people have had 21 years to like form an attachment to it. I think also Broadway soundtracks that take off become so like, core to people's sense of like their pop culture self, their reference aura that like, you have a relationship to it, so you're just like, let's see what someone else wants to do with it. I also was reminded this morning that Ariana Grande has 375 million Instagram followers. She's also now had two number one hits this year. A number one movie, probably the viral sketch from Saturday Night Live this season so far in the Domingo sketch. And she's massively popular, so her committing to a Year of Wicked promo has definitely paid off.
- [42:28]
Sean Fennessy
It's an interesting thing to me. Obviously this movie in Gladiator 2 has been sort of compared to Oppenheimer and Barbie. It's a, I would say a significantly lesser combo than those two films. But eventizing dual releases. One more male leaning, one more female leaning. Obviously Wicked has this extraordinary queer fan base too that has come out very loudly for the film and the musical over the years. I would say Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande have gone way out of their way in the promo tour to acknowledge them as well and talk about the relationship between Glinda and Elphaba. So you are like, it's a film that's reaching a lot of audiences that are looking for a film to be excited about, to raise up, to claim as their own. That's obviously a factor.
- [43:07]
Juliet Littman
The queer culture thing is a big part of it too, definitely. And they've really, like. I definitely have not like given enough credence to that in this conversation. Like, first of all, they have like, the cast has been like, yeah, Glinda's a little bit, a little bit closeted. Like, they've kind of like come out and like named her as like a, you know, a queer character. And I think Jonathan Bailey and Cynthia Erivo are two like leaders in queer culture and also massively, massively talented people. So I think that's like a huge part of it too. I'm glad you mentioned it.
- [43:35]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah. And I guess the musical thing is so interesting. This movie was more marketed like a musical than most musicals are. But there's been this trend in the last five years in Hollywood to not really reveal that a musical is a musical in the marketing materials, in the trailers. This being so famous and well known and loved, there's not as much worry about that. You want to hear Defying Gravity in the trailer to the movie or you want to hear popular or something just to get people's excitement up if they're familiar with it. But musicals are really hit or miss. And so the fact that this one is hitting, I think is like a combination of, like you said, the right stars, good timing for this sort of thing, and also just like a super professional filmmaking team. This is not like a Johnny Come lately. This is somebody who's been figuring out how to make movies like this for roughly 15 years and it feels like he's ready to do it. It's just, I look at the source material, I'm like, this is okay. I guess I'm a little confused as to why it is the mega phenomenon that it is. But then again, it's probably not aimed directly at 42 year old men, right?
- [44:42]
Juliet Littman
Yeah. I found something so moving about seeing it in May when I. I mean, you know, again, I've been listening to the music for 15 years or more and seeing people so excited to be there and Then also just for me to. You made this point about the professional production. The guy who was playing Fiero at the time had been in 1000 performances of Wicked. And so I was so impressed just thinking about how he is so good at playing Fiero that like he can do it more than a thousand times in his marks every night is like, just like I find beautiful. I don't know, I find like the artistry of Broadway and the professionalism that's needed to be really impressive. And I think that I really like about this movie as well. And I just think also like, Wicked has become something that you can pass down and share. So there's also like an intergenerational aspect to it. Like, you know, I do think it's like a similar to the wizard of Oz for some people. Some people being me.
- [45:34]
Sean Fennessy
My daughter has seen the wizard of Oz probably five times and she quite likes it. She went this Halloween as Glinda, the good witch. Nice. She does not know about this recontextualization of Glinda. She has been listening to the soundtrack to the musical. She was in Target on Saturday and insisted upon getting an Elphaba dress.
- [45:56]
Juliet Littman
Oh, interesting.
- [45:57]
Sean Fennessy
So this is the first breakthrough of Elphaba interests. Now, in part because of that scene that you talked about with the monkeys transforming. I was like, my daughter can't go see this movie. Like, we can watch it at home. But it's 2 hours and 40 minutes. It features some horrifying transmogrification and it's frankly a little slow at times.
- [46:17]
Juliet Littman
Yes, I agree.
- [46:19]
Sean Fennessy
It's a little. I'm a little bit. This is a segue into a question about part two. But how long is the stage musical? Like when you saw it in May, how long were you sitting in your seat?
- [46:28]
Juliet Littman
2 hours and 40 minutes for the entire musical.
- [46:30]
Sean Fennessy
Okay.
- [46:31]
Juliet Littman
Including the intermission, first film is 2.
- [46:33]
Sean Fennessy
Hours and 40 minutes. And the second film presumably will be more than two hours. Right.
- [46:36]
Juliet Littman
I guess. I mean, act two is shorter, but in some ways more meaningful.
- [46:41]
Sean Fennessy
So my question for you is, why, like, how did this happen?
- [46:45]
Juliet Littman
Well, why is it so long? Yeah, I think it's because it's like. It's like taking like. If the musical itself is like a. Like a folded up paper fan or like an accordion, it's like taking that and stretching it out. And it's like everything that happened still happens like beat for beat. What you see on stage happens in the movie, except it can't. Nothing can happen simultaneously. And also like going in between scenes, it takes longer. And then There is. There is some new exposition, but, like, honestly, not that much. Like, there's more at the beginning explaining, like, the relationship between Madame Marble and Elphaba. Of course, there's the added three minutes of Christina of. I keep saying Christina of Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth at Wizzlemania. And then Defying Gravity in that sequence is made much longer as well. And they throw in some other things, like Jeff Goldblum asking them what color the brick should be, and they pick yellow. Like, that's not in the musical. That's added into the movie. So there's things like that. But I really think it's just because it's so faithful, honestly. Like, if it was not going Beat for Beat and they were willing to cut some stuff, it might move a little bit faster. But I don't know what you cut. So I don't know how you make it shorter and still be, like, as make all the fans of the musical as happy as they have made them.
- [47:56]
Sean Fennessy
Forgive this inherently gender essentializing question, but Amanda's not here, and I would do this if she was here, too.
- [48:03]
Juliet Littman
Okay.
- [48:04]
Sean Fennessy
Do you, as a woman, feel like you need more IP movie franchises?
- [48:10]
Juliet Littman
No, I do not.
- [48:11]
Sean Fennessy
Because this movie is very clearly pulling so closely from that framework that you're talking about where you had the key cameos from previous cast members. You've got a MacGuffin. Each musical number is like a fight sequence or like a splash page sequence. You've got big cliffhangers serializing the stories leading into the next stage. You've got these quote unquote, weak or different heroes who emerge to be the most powerful. Like, all of the tropes that you would find in a superhero story or, frankly, even like a Transformers movie are in this movie are essential to the structure of this movie. Something we heard a lot about with Barbie was that it was like, finally a blockbuster primarily aimed at women. That speaks to, you know, an unspoken sensibility that should be more at the movies. Obviously, that movie is really funny and clever and kind of fucking with that idea in the first place, which is one of the reasons why I liked it. It's self awareness. I appreciated Wicked, not in a bad way. And it's not. I'm not saying anybody doesn't deserve this, but it does feel very much like, okay, let's look at what worked on this movie and try to port it over. Does it feel that structured and that, I don't know, like, baked in. In the musical itself?
- [49:25]
Juliet Littman
No, it definitely does not like the musical. Just kind of Stands Alone. Like, I don't. There's no. Funny enough, there is an after, right? It's the wizard of Oz. But like, I've never once been like, okay, Wicked's over. Now it's time to watch the wizard of Oz. There's no like sequence. There's no sequence that it's following or playing into. So the musical definitely doesn't feel that way. I also will just say like without any spoilers. The more I have also read people's responses to Wicked, I'm like, oh, this is even more of like a universe spawning movie than I realize. There are a lot of tie ins to the wizard of Oz. Like a lot. And I didn't clock them because I'm not a Wizard of Oz person. I think a lot of people didn't clock them because they weren't expecting it. But if you want me to send you some links to what's in there, I'm happy to do it.
- [50:09]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, send me all the Easter eggs. Send me all the screen rant links, the collider links. What do you got? Everything you got for me?
- [50:14]
Juliet Littman
There's like just like tons. Like, should I name a couple?
- [50:18]
Sean Fennessy
If you'd like.
- [50:19]
Juliet Littman
Well, they won't mean as much to me, but like the lion cub, the lion is, you know, comes back in the wizard of Oz. The lion cub in the bike in like the. When what's her face is riding by is supposed to connect to the bike scene in the wizard of Oz. Like, things like that. There's a lot of like other just. There's some sartorial choices, particularly on Fiero, that connect to some of the costumes in the wizard of Oz. There's a lot of layering of like, of connectivity. Like that.
- [50:53]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, these are. We used to call these things illusions. A L L U S I O N S. We didn't call them Easter eggs, but now they're all just Easter eggs. You know, like, you can't, you can't just allude to a piece of material that is connected to the story that you're telling. Boy. Let's talk about the Oscars.
- [51:11]
Juliet Littman
Okay.
- [51:12]
Sean Fennessy
Cause this movie, once it started screening and I saw it at a fairly early media and industry screening, I saw.
- [51:20]
Juliet Littman
It on November 1st. So I've been waiting over three weeks for this. Thank you so much for having me.
- [51:24]
Sean Fennessy
Thank you for being a part of this. I'm so glad. I'm sorry I've been combative with you. I love you so much, but I just, I don't think you have been trying to work my way through the movie.
- [51:32]
Juliet Littman
Come on.
- [51:32]
Sean Fennessy
By our standards is where we haven't been combative. This movie really like hit the race hard two weeks ago when a lot of people started seeing it. And I had Katie, Rich and Jo on the pod last week and we talked about its chances and how it has like really arrived. And The Dune Part 2 placeholder for Big event movie that had been sitting in the race like this kind of quickly moved ahead of it. It's hard to tell how real that actually is. I don't claim to know. I just know that a lot of people have seen this. A lot of people like this movie. And because of some of those themes that you talked about and some of this where this movie like very neatly, metaphorically aligns with where we are in the world right now. I can see the wind at its back a little bit in the race. You don't follow the Oscars as closely as I do, but what's your sense of like, how it's fitting in right now?
- [52:21]
Juliet Littman
I think people are surprised by how good Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are and like, truly good. Like, these are great performances. Like, I actually was thinking, will they become the Idina and Kristen for a new generation? And I think it's totally possible depending on how part two goes and how people feel about the soundtrack of part 2. But I think that Cynthia Erivo's delivery of Defying Gravity, especially when you listen to the soundtrack versus the sort of like spliced up version on screen is so moving. Like, it's just incredible. And I really do well up thinking about her just moment of triumph on top of the broom. And I think that that combined with just like the humor of Ariana Grande that we don't get to see from her that often has like really surprised people. And so those two, I feel like, are really just getting so much deserved attention. And then I think the costumes are incredible. Like, just like great, great costumes and a lot of small touches. Like the fact that they are always wearing like bags, like purses instead of like a backpack, I like, really love it also kind of reminds me of like, I don't know, at like some fancy restaurant. Sometimes I do that. And I think the choreography is also really impressive. So, you know, I think that, like, I don't know, the choreography will be rewarded, but I do think a lot of the other, like craft pieces of it, like the smaller parts of it are being recognized too. So I don't know, I just think those two women, this is going to change their Careers, I really do.
- [53:45]
Sean Fennessy
So I'm with you almost through and through. I think costumes, hair and makeup, production design, sound and visual effects, maybe visual effects maybe. Not all seem the animals are tough. They're not. It's okay. They all seem like pretty safe bets. And this is a movie that, you know, it is like Dune Part 2 and then it's sort of like below the line. You've got Best in Class working on movies like this. There's going to be a lot of recognition for the people who made them. I don't think anybody had Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo as locks until they started screening the movie. And now that they have Ariana Grande maybe surging close to the lead of Best Supporting Actress right now she's seen, it seems like she's like neck and neck with Zoe Saldana. I don't know how true that is. There's still a lot to come in that race. In particular, Felicity Jones and the Brutalist, for example, could get a big moment since that movie comes out later this year. Best Actress is incredibly competitive this year. I think a lot of people seem to think that Cynthia Erivo and Nicole Kidman are fighting for the last spot. Nicole Kidman is going to be in Baby Girl. You haven't seen that, right?
- [54:47]
Juliet Littman
No, and from what I read, I don't plan to.
- [54:50]
Sean Fennessy
Interesting take. I liked it. I liked it. I think it's Mikey Madison's year, so I don't think it really matters either way. Nevertheless, Best Picture, I don't think it's going to win Best Picture, but if it wins Best Picture, I'm going to be a brat about it. I got to tell you, like an ip Part one winning Best Picture, even though I know it's a post strike year, but honestly, really, that would not think that would be a good outcome. I don't think that sends the right message to Hollywood at all. Which is like keep making, keep serializing your stories and be more like tv. I think just sucks.
- [55:22]
Juliet Littman
I also don't think it's deserving and I liked it a lot. And like I said, I love Wicked, but what it really succeeds at is like being a faithful adaptation, which is really hard to do. Like, and I was thinking about the other ones that have either succeeded or failed. I feel like Chicago is the closest to like also being a successful adaptation of the sort of like big Broadway adaptations of recent Memory, but most of them are bad. So the fact that he was able to pull it off is like a big deal and really impressive. But doesn't make it like the best picture winner. In my opinion, it's a feat unto itself.
- [55:54]
Sean Fennessy
I think that's one of the big reasons why Chicago did win, which I would say is not amongst Oscar nerds, is not considered one of the better wins of the last 25 years.
- [56:02]
Juliet Littman
Totally.
- [56:02]
Sean Fennessy
But I liked that movie at the time when I saw it. I probably haven't seen it since it came out. But I think one of the reasons why I won is exactly the reason you just cited, which is that it's very hard to make these effectively. And Chicago plays well as a movie.
- [56:13]
Juliet Littman
Totally.
- [56:14]
Sean Fennessy
And because of that and because the, you know, it's the same thing. It has three or four, like huge set piece songs where you're just so into it, a couple of supporting performances where you're all in. And so because of that, it's getting rewarded. It's more the part one thing to me. I've also seen a lot of people make this comparison and I'm curious if you. You probably won't agree with this because you're looking forward to some key moments in Part two, but many people have said that this is a little bit of like it and it Chapter two, which I know you didn't see because you won't watch horror films.
- [56:42]
Juliet Littman
Correct.
- [56:42]
Sean Fennessy
But the first IT movie is pretty darn good. Really scary, really entertaining, faithful in the right ways to King Story, focused entirely on when they were all kids and experiencing Pennywise for the first time. That Part two is about the grownups and engaging with Pennywise many years later in their lives. And Part two just frankly isn't very good. Even though it has Jessica Chastain and Bill Hader and, you know, it's just kind of like a CGI mess and the pacing's bad and it has problems. And some people I've seen speculate that Part two is gonna be like kind of a letdown relative to part one, but you don't see that.
- [57:16]
Juliet Littman
I think Part two, I have a sneaking suspicion this is a one for us, one for them. And I think this was for us. And I think two is gonna be for John M. Chu. And I think I'm okay with that. I like him as, you know, as discussed. I like his work. I really think there's gonna be a lot more, like, connection to the wizard of Oz and a lot more of the allegory. And I'm not looking forward to that. I am purely looking forward to it for two songs. Which one is the first song in Act 2, which is a long song. It's Very good. It's. Thank goodness is what it's called. And Christina. I keep saying Christina, Kristen Chenoweth has, like, a really, really beautiful soliloquy in it, basically about expectations and what it's like when you actually live your. And it's really. It's a very mournful song, which is funny since Act 1 begins with no one mourns. The Wicked and then the penultimate song for Good are just two staples of my life. So I'm very excited to see them performed. That said, I think there will be a lot more, like, political stuff. And John M. Chu has kind of alluded to this a little bit. He's like. He has a quote where he said, like, you know, I've already cut the movie and it's gonna hit hard, and after the election and whatever. So I'm actually really not looking forward to that part of it. But that said, I'm, like, happy to be in this world. I'm like, you know, I defend basically every show that I ever enjoyed watching. Cause I'm like, well, if I didn't have that show, what will I have been doing with my time? So it's kind of how I feel like I'm grateful to be a part of it. So I don't know. I do think it'll be more of a departure from the musical.
- [58:49]
Sean Fennessy
Interesting. Okay, well, thank you for coming on the Wicked Journey with me.
- [58:52]
Juliet Littman
Sure. Anytime.
- [58:54]
Sean Fennessy
I don't know if I'll ever see this again. I guess I'm probably gonna end up seeing it, like, a thousand times with my kid.
- [58:58]
Juliet Littman
Well, I think the music video moments will live on. The one thing we haven't talked about is the sequence of what is this Feeling? Which he uses split screen a lot and also has pretty good choreography. That's the best movie as a movie sequence, I think, because it doesn't. It takes something that was successful on stage and a very good song, but uses techniques of the screen in a way that you just don't get otherwise. So I wonder if moments like that. And also it has really good choreography will kind of become like, what replays in your world. It's like, not the whole movie because it's too long, but you'll get. You know, it'll be the cups of Pitch perfect of this movie, I think will be them and their split screen.
- [59:36]
Sean Fennessy
You just got your Pauline Kael on. Nice. Talking about form and content and where they meet.
- [59:41]
Juliet Littman
Thank you so much.
- [59:42]
Sean Fennessy
But for watching it on YouTube and not in entire films, which I don't think Pauline would Appreciate.
- [59:46]
Juliet Littman
I just want to be asked back, so I'm trying to seem smart.
- [59:49]
Sean Fennessy
Did you prep? Did you like. Were you nervous?
- [59:51]
Juliet Littman
My prep is my life. It's just like living in a consuming, wicked.
- [59:57]
Sean Fennessy
Speaking of your life, let's talk about movie musicals. You cited a couple of big ones at the beginning of our conversation that haven't gone so well. Cats. You know, Les Mis was financially successful and won some Academy Awards, but I think is reviled by some. What was the third one that you cited?
- [60:13]
Juliet Littman
Into the woods with Emily Blunt and James Corden and many others.
- [60:17]
Sean Fennessy
I deeply dislike that movie and I've never seen that stage musical, although I hear it's wonderful.
- [60:22]
Juliet Littman
It's inventive. I think at this point it feels. It's so impactful that I think that impact has been lost. You know what I mean? It's been mitigated through constant restaging and whatnot. But it's definitely. It's probably the most successful, financially successful. Sondheim.
- [60:39]
Sean Fennessy
So none of those films are going to be on your list of your favorite 21st century movie musical?
- [60:44]
Juliet Littman
No. This was very hard for me to make. And I'm going to be honest, when I saw your list, I was like, okay, this is where Sean wants to go. I'm going to follow him there.
- [60:52]
Sean Fennessy
Well, see, when I saw what you put down, I was like, okay, so maybe I'm right to have made some of the choices I made because the Pickens are kind of slim here.
- [60:59]
Juliet Littman
The Pickens are slim because I think, you know, I don't think we can say into the Woods, Les Mis, or. What was that one we just discussed?
- [61:07]
Sean Fennessy
Cats, which is an abomination, a zero star movie, one of the worst things put on screen.
- [61:11]
Juliet Littman
We don't acknowledge it. I just want to say common denominator in two of three, James Corden. So keep that in mind for your future musical casting. I don't think we can say any of those are great. And like, a lot of the other movies that have music that I like are so absurd. Like my favorite movie or not favorite, but the movie I've watched the most that has music at the center of it is music and lyrics starring Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. I guarantee you no one else on this planet can say that. So I'm not gonna, like, put that on my list. But, like, the song that they write is really catchy.
- [61:40]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, I find this tricky because, one, I don't live in New York anymore, so I don't go to see stage musicals. I don't go to the Theater, really, in LA for. It's really a loss for you, and it is a loss. And I used to love going to see shows on Broadway, and I would have loved to have taken my kid to have that experience. And it was something I did as a kid. We would go on, like, field trips in school to go see. We definitely saw Miss Saigon. We definitely saw Phantom of the Opera. We definitely saw a number of shows. We definitely saw Stomp. Definitely saw Cats. Like, saw many of those shows.
- [62:11]
Juliet Littman
Rent is one of the most important things to have happened in my life. I mentioned it before, but I do think a lot of my perspective on musicals, I was. I guess Rent came out in 97, so I was 11. And it was, like, the biggest deal there was. And it remains, like, one of the biggest deals there has ever been for me. So I think, like, my perspective on musicals and then also Wicked because of the Idina Menzel is so tied to that. And I do think that, like, if you. The musicals of your childhood really influence how you think about the genre and, like, their place in pop culture.
- [62:40]
Sean Fennessy
They do. It's interesting that you say that. So there's a couple of other things that I think fly into my mind when I start thinking about this, because I was raised in the heart of the rebirth of the Disney, like, the second golden generation of Disney films. You know, the Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King. Lion King. You know, that era, Little Mermaid, when the studio really, like, reclaimed its mantle as arguably the greatest movie musical studio of all time.
- [63:09]
Juliet Littman
Sure.
- [63:09]
Sean Fennessy
And, you know, setting aside, like, vintage MGM and a handful of others. So that, to me, is as much movie musical, you know, it's not just about adapting a stage musical. Also Hollywood history, you know, sure, there's. There are Singing in the Rain and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and, you know, Bandwagon and stuff like that. But there are 10 times as many completely failed movie musicals in movie history. Trying to adapt stuff off of Broadway that just doesn't work. It's too clunky, is too long.
- [63:37]
Juliet Littman
The Rent movie's awful.
- [63:39]
Sean Fennessy
Awful. It's really bad. Yeah.
- [63:40]
Juliet Littman
I think part of it is part of going to a musical is the live experience. Right. Like, in some ways, that's lost when we talk about a movie musical and going to a musical or anything staged where you're present, you get to make so many choices yourself. And there's so many people on stage usually, and you get to look where you want to look, and you get to experience it in a way based on how your eyes Move. When you see a movie musical that is adapted from a stage show, you're being. Someone's perspective is being imposed on you. And so it really corrupts whatever your memory is or whatever your feeling was of watching that. And I think that is just an impossible barrier. And why the success of Wicked is actually so impressive and also probably why they were scared into going for beat for beat. Because otherwise people are like, well, that's not my memory. Fuck this. And so it's just impossible to live up to that. Like no one could capture what it was like for me to see Rent the fourth time I saw it, you know. And so I don't why even try.
- [64:33]
Sean Fennessy
I. That's such a smart point. I love that you said that because it confirms something that is on our list, which is that we don't really have very many Broadway adaptations. You know, we don't really have any stage musical adaptations because filmmaking is just a different form. You know, in the same way that you made the point about using the split screen style in Wicked, which is something you could not accomplish necessarily on stage, is it, you know, is an amplification of an idea from the musical. But it's more easy to create something either wholly new or to shape around something more literary rather than this like musical live experience that you've had. Going to see it. Is it like a good time or a bad time for Broadway musicals right now?
- [65:13]
Juliet Littman
I think it's good. There's a lot of shows right now that are like very buzzy, like almost happy ending with Darren Criss. Nicole Scherzinger is playing the lead in Sunset Boulevard. She won the Olivier a the British Tony for it last year and finally came to the U.S. the show is getting like mixed reviews, but getting incredible reviews. Death Becomes her just opened.
- [65:35]
Sean Fennessy
I know. I'm curious about that. As a Zemeckis fan, I forgot to mention it on our Zemeckis pod, but I had been reading that it's pretty cool.
- [65:41]
Juliet Littman
Yeah. And Beyonce just went to see it because Michelle Williams is in it. So I'm excited to see. I happen to love that movie and like think about it often. So I want to see the musical. I think it's a pretty good time.
- [65:53]
Sean Fennessy
Would you have swapped out Back to the Future 2 for Death becomes her in or Zemeckis hall of Fame?
- [65:57]
Juliet Littman
I don't know. Death Becomes her is like a niche movie, but it's so perfectly done. I also think like talk about movies that are still resonant. I just think that like in the age of like, the mainstreaming of plastic surgery and stuff. I think about it all the time.
- [66:10]
Sean Fennessy
I totally agree. It got a huge second life in the 21st century.
- [66:12]
Juliet Littman
Yeah, that might have been a mistake.
- [66:14]
Sean Fennessy
On our part, but, you know, with me and Brian, you know, two straight white guys in their 40s, not acknowledging death becomes her.
- [66:19]
Juliet Littman
It's also just such a good cast. Yeah, it's incredible, but I think it is a pretty good time. You know, I think it took. It took a while after Covid to kind of, like, build stuff back. Also, I think plays are having a big moment. I think actors like doing them. And then, like, it was just reported, I think today that O Mary made its investment back, which is hard to do. Four and a half million dollars, so. And that's still going strong. I'm seeing it in a couple of weeks, so I think it's a pretty good time for theater.
- [66:43]
Sean Fennessy
I know Denzel is about to stage Othello in a couple of months. Right. Which is pretty exciting. He's really only done that, like, four or five times in the last 40.
- [66:52]
Juliet Littman
Years, so I know it's going to.
- [66:53]
Sean Fennessy
Be a hot ticket.
- [66:54]
Juliet Littman
It's really cool. Also, I feel like he just loves Shakespeare. He's been in so many Shakespeare productions. Right?
- [66:58]
Sean Fennessy
He does. He does love Shakespeare. Let's do our list. Let's do our favorites.
- [67:03]
Juliet Littman
Okay.
- [67:04]
Sean Fennessy
I found this to be difficult, as you did. I don't even really have, like, a clear methodology for what makes a good one, because I think all five of mine are different in different ways. And in some ways, when I do these lists, I try to. I try to pick, like, different kinds of movies so I'm not repeating myself. How did you think about the list making?
- [67:20]
Juliet Littman
I went with what music based on the movie did I want to listen to over and over again?
- [67:25]
Sean Fennessy
Oh, I love that.
- [67:26]
Juliet Littman
What movie compelled me to keep listening, essentially. And also, I think a really key part of it is, like I mentioned this earlier, is, like, I'm willing to buy into Wicked. I think with movie musicals, you have to establish the terms of your world and so that the music doesn't feel weird. And so feel like, well, why is this a musical? I have to say that's my biggest complaint about Emilia Perez, which is I'm just like, why is there music here? Like, there's actually no reason other than, like, just because they wanted to. And I think that, like, that's how.
- [67:55]
Sean Fennessy
I feel about a lot of that film is just because they wanted to.
- [67:59]
Juliet Littman
Yeah. And. But with the music in particular, I was just like, I do love Zoe Saldana. If anyone wants to talk to me about Center Stage, please send me a dm. But, like, the music has to both enhance and evolve the movie and push it forward in a way. And so I try to think about what soundtrack really impacted me and, like, what I was trying to recreate by listening to the music.
- [68:20]
Sean Fennessy
Okay, let's do our lists. We can do these fairly quickly since most of these are well known properties. Why don't you start us off with your number five?
- [68:27]
Juliet Littman
My number five was at one time the highest grossing film in the United Kingdom. It is Mamma Mia. And while I don't think it is a perfect movie, it is incredibly fun. My listening to ABBA has gone straight up since 2008. I also think it was, like, a career turning point for Amanda Seyfried, which is a weird thing to say, but I really think is true. And it's like the most fun, I think, that anyone has had making a movie, perhaps ever, particularly Christine Baranski and Meryl Streep. So I just felt it had to be acknowledged, though. It's sort of serious. It's flawed, but it's. It's a great time and I can totally buy into it. And again, the music of ABBA is pretty hard to deny. If a jukebox musical can be a hit, it can be as a movie as well.
- [69:10]
Sean Fennessy
It's a great pick. I would. I would ruin my life for Amanda Seyfried. She's been a guest on this show. She's absolute legend. Probably the coolest single person I've ever talked to in the history of this show. I think she's a great actress. Fun fact, I've never seen this film. Don't care about Alba at all.
- [69:23]
Juliet Littman
Okay. I don't know that it's like a Shawn fantasy film. However, it's a good time. I think your daughter might like it. Perhaps show it to her.
- [69:30]
Sean Fennessy
I'm sure. Honestly, I think that one of the reasons why I have the daughter that I have, and this is the third time she's come up on this episode, the absolute, like, Princess pilled girly girl that she is, is to kind of like, backfill all of my holes.
- [69:44]
Juliet Littman
Sure.
- [69:44]
Sean Fennessy
Open you up from the last 40 years of cultural consumption.
- [69:48]
Juliet Littman
How about open you up to a new world?
- [69:50]
Sean Fennessy
Are you saying I'm not kind?
- [69:51]
Juliet Littman
I'm thinking it's not about your failures, about saying what lies ahead.
- [69:55]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't describe Alice as particularly kind either, but she's fourth.
- [69:59]
Juliet Littman
Right.
- [69:59]
Sean Fennessy
Just like I Am.
- [70:00]
Juliet Littman
Kindness. It's okay.
- [70:01]
Sean Fennessy
Okay. She's probably gonna love Mamma Mia. And you gotta put it in her hands, you know, you show it to her, you put her onto it and then, you know, we can.
- [70:10]
Juliet Littman
Sounds great.
- [70:10]
Sean Fennessy
Dance to. Dance to.
- [70:11]
Juliet Littman
Do you accept DVDs or only Blu Rays?
- [70:13]
Sean Fennessy
No, I mean, we'll take what we can get, but Blu rays are preferred, frankly. 4K, if you can find it. That's really my preferred mode.
- [70:19]
Juliet Littman
Okay.
- [70:20]
Sean Fennessy
I don't think you've seen the garage recently, have you? It's been a while since you've been at the house.
- [70:23]
Juliet Littman
No, I haven't.
- [70:23]
Sean Fennessy
Things are getting a little out of control with the physical media.
- [70:26]
Juliet Littman
I gotta say, that's how I feel about books. I'm just like, this is an issue.
- [70:29]
Sean Fennessy
Maybe we should buy like a. Like a hanger together where we can put all of our physical media. What do you think?
- [70:34]
Juliet Littman
Sure. We could do high fidelity, like Part four, and just be like a record store and bookstore together.
- [70:39]
Sean Fennessy
Oh, well, now you're. I mean, that's our retirement plan together. That's how we can maintain adjoining offices long term.
- [70:45]
Juliet Littman
Sounds great.
- [70:46]
Sean Fennessy
When we co own a Blu Ray bookstore. Okay. My number five is Sing street, which is a movie that I liked upon release and like more the further I get from it. It's been almost 10 years since Sing street came out. 2016. John Carney's not his next musical after Once, but he's the director of Once, which is a beautiful movie. I think I have a lot of Irish bias when it comes to the John Carney story. It's a very sentimental story. Sing street is not so much about a love affair as it is like the making of a band, the making of a scene, the making of a sound, a kind of like new wave rock band in Ireland amongst teenagers in a private school that just has like an incredible amount of energy and verve and sincerity and great tunes. Really good performances. I really like Lucy Boynton in this movie. She kind of disappeared. I don't know where she's at. Probably best known for Bohemian Rhapsody, but she was really great in this movie. Have you seen Sing Street?
- [71:39]
Juliet Littman
I have not. I didn't see the musical on Broadway, nor did I ever see the movie.
- [71:43]
Sean Fennessy
Excellent adaptation. I highly recommend people check this movie out. I like all of John Carney's movies, even Flora in the sun, which kind of got mocked when it came out a year and a half ago, starring our girl Bono's daughter, Eva Hewson. Eve Hewson. Eve Hewson.
- [71:55]
Juliet Littman
Eve.
- [71:55]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah. Respect her she's really great. Florence Son is okay. She's at Sea street is where it's.
- [72:01]
Juliet Littman
At the Nick forever.
- [72:03]
Sean Fennessy
What's your number four?
- [72:04]
Juliet Littman
My number four is Encanto. First of all, I had to include something from Lin Manuel Miranda that's just sort of it. He's like, one of the most important people, if not the most important person in musicals in the 21st century.
- [72:15]
Sean Fennessy
He'll be coming up again on my list.
- [72:17]
Juliet Littman
And this is. I heard the music first. I don't have children. And so I was like, but you know what? I think I'm gonna watch this movie. And it's just, like, really well done. And it's actually, like, a little bit different than some of his other stuff for kids in a way that I just really liked. And there's just, like, a lot of bops in it as well that, like, make sense. So it's a great movie.
- [72:38]
Sean Fennessy
I like this movie, too. I've seen it quite a bit. Every time I go on vacation with my extended family. All the kids watch it, like, nine times in a row. So I'm very familiar with Pianto. It's great.
- [72:47]
Juliet Littman
Sure. I mean, we don't talk about Bruno. It's just, you know, great song.
- [72:51]
Sean Fennessy
One challenge I have is, like, playing, you know, when you play on Spotify now, and there's the video visualization with scenes from the movie. That's really hard to get my kid's face off of that. Like, to not be focused on that while we're listening to music. So a little bit of a dangerous thing like Disney has continues to crack the code on poisoning generations, myself included. My number four is oh, Brother, Where Art Thou? Which is a Coen Brothers movie. And you might think to yourself, the Coen Brothers haven't made a musical. But oh, Brother, Where Art Thou really is a musical. Obviously, it had an extraordinarily successful soundtrack. It's also obviously a kind of a remake reimagining of the Odyssey. It's also kind of a remake reimagining of Sullivan's Travels. It's like a reference to the Preston Sturges movie about a bunch of guys who break out of prison and become incredible recording stars. And, yeah, just an incredibly fun, beautiful movie, oddly set during the Great Depression that I love. Where are you at on O Brother?
- [73:48]
Juliet Littman
You know, it's part of the heyday of George Clooney as an actor, so I'm very high on it. I would say everything he did from 1994 to, like, 2005, I'm very, very pro. So I think it's great. I just wanna note, I think the Coen brothers made two musicals. They also made Inside Llewyn Davis.
- [74:05]
Sean Fennessy
They did. Well, is that a musical? I guess it is. In a similar way, it's a movie.
- [74:11]
Juliet Littman
That centers music and a cat.
- [74:13]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, I think it is. And I think if I include O Brother, Where Art Thou? Then I think it has to be. And there are other movies that come up in our discussion. Yeah. The diegetic music or the performed in real time as capturing the characters real lives inside Lewin Davis. Probably a better movie than O Brother. It is a better movie than O Brother, but it's not a better movie.
- [74:36]
Juliet Littman
I think it's more boring than oh Brother. Rare art, though. But I think the, like, revelation of Oscar Isaac in that movie, he was. It was so, like, early in his career was just so incredible. And I really like the music of Llewyn Davis.
- [74:46]
Sean Fennessy
I do too. But I think that's. I think I like. I think I like the movie more. And the. I don't know. I don't know. Let's just say they're tied in my fourth spot.
- [74:57]
Juliet Littman
The YouTube repeat viewing for me of Oscar Isaac singing Roar as if he is Llewyn Davis is so incredibly high. It's one of, like, the pop culture highlights of my life. So check it out.
- [75:07]
Sean Fennessy
Good to know. Good to know. What's your number three?
- [75:10]
Juliet Littman
Number three is a true musical. Probably the only, like, true musical. I don't even think Mamma Mia. Counts because it's a jukebox musical, but Hairspray from 2007, starring Nikki Blonsky, James Marsden, Britney Snow, Michelle Pfeiffer, Queen Latifah, Christopher Walken, and John Travolta. What a great, great movie. It is also the movie to stage and back to movie adaptation, which is very common these days. Uh, it is just so well done. I. I was thinking about it. I was reflecting before this podcast. The performances are universally strong. Like, everyone in it is really good. And even people who, like, are not famous, like Elijah Kelly. I thought he was gonna have a huge career based on. On Hairspray. I would have bought all of his stock. Um, and also, I think it. It represents another key part of, like, musical movie success, which is well done camp. And of course, John Waters is the father of camp and really understands it. It gets away with a lot as a result, and it's just really great. And then I think, like, the emotional center of it is just an incredible song from Queen Latifah. That's like, kind of offsets a lot of the, like, really frothy music otherwise, and it's just really great. If you haven't watched it in a while, I recommend it.
- [76:20]
Sean Fennessy
Haven't seen it in a while. Things really went off the rails for Adam Shankman there, didn't they?
- [76:24]
Juliet Littman
Yeah, I think this was his peak. This was many people's peak. Honestly.
- [76:27]
Sean Fennessy
It's really weird. Bedtime Stories was his next film, the Adam Sandler movie. Then he made Rock of Ages, which is a fiasco of a musical, what Men Want, starring Taraji P. Henson Disaster. Remember that one?
- [76:39]
Juliet Littman
Unfortunately, I do.
- [76:40]
Sean Fennessy
And then Disenchanted, which was the sequel to Enchanted. Did you ever watch that?
- [76:44]
Juliet Littman
No, I didn't. I liked Enchanted. I thought about including it. I think James Marsden is like, an underrated musical comedy guy. He's great. I love James Marsden.
- [76:53]
Sean Fennessy
And he was very nice that Marsden. That movie confirms that Marsden fits in the lineage of John Travolta and Christopher Walken.
- [77:00]
Juliet Littman
Totally.
- [77:00]
Sean Fennessy
Like, I really enjoy that framework of the song and dance, man through movie history.
- [77:04]
Juliet Littman
Totally.
- [77:05]
Sean Fennessy
Good pick.
- [77:06]
Juliet Littman
Yeah, it's great. Also, John Travolta, I think it was his first time in a musical since Grease, so it was like a big deal.
- [77:12]
Sean Fennessy
My number three is it was going to be Dancer in the Dark, which is a movie that I've always really liked and I find is fascinating and incredibly sad and punishing. But then I remembered that there's some really sordid and sad details around the production of that movie where Bjork accused Lars Von Trier of some absolutely awful sexual harassment. And I'm like, I don't really. It's an awkward thing where I want people to see Bjork's performance, which was. Is so intense and so impressive, but also led to her basically never acting in a movie again because of her terrible experience on this movie. But it's a movie about a woman who is experiencing, like, incredible, like, the loss of her sight. And she works in a factory and she has, like, a big imagination and a big relationship to musicals. And it kind of like blends real life with this fascination with musicals shot in that kind of dogma 95 style where it's like multiple digital handheld cameras that are cut very aggressively to capture all angles of performance. Very cool movie. It's just a little hard to be like, this is one of the best of this time because it's couched in so much pain. So I'll give a shout out instead to Pop star Never Stop. Never Stopping. Perhaps you've heard of it from the Lonely Island.
- [78:24]
Juliet Littman
I like to think I'm among the top 1% of Lonely island fans, so, yeah, I've heard of it.
- [78:28]
Sean Fennessy
Are you in on their movies?
- [78:30]
Juliet Littman
I was just gonna say Bin Laden Finest Girl is like one of my favorite songs maybe ever from this movie. But I like the music much more than I like their movies. But I love, love, love, love their music and music videos, like, just. They're so funny and they're my favorite rap group.
- [78:45]
Sean Fennessy
Do you listen? Did you listen to their pod with Seth?
- [78:47]
Juliet Littman
Yeah, of course. I like. It's like my favorite, like, doing chores pod. I love it. I also love Seth Meyers. I like everything about that pod is like, straight down the middle for me.
- [78:54]
Sean Fennessy
This movie is so, so funny. It comes kind of at the tail end of the Apatow era and it really bricked in theaters, but it opened right at the launch of the Ringer. It was basically the first Friday of the Ringer's launch. It was the first big movie of that weekend and we claimed it and loved it. Nobody else went to go see it. To me, this is like a full blown rewatchable, like, it's such a funny movie. It's one of the very few good studio comedies of the 2010s. Highly recommend. People check it out and yeah, it's just like full of hilarious Lonely island songs. I mean, they've written like 200 at this point, so it pushes the envelope.
- [79:30]
Juliet Littman
In, like, all the right ways. Like, it is, like, very edgy, but, like, not in, like, a bad way, in a great way. It's so. It is so funny. I absolutely love it.
- [79:40]
Sean Fennessy
Agreed. Very happy to see your number two. What do you got?
- [79:42]
Juliet Littman
Star is born, 2019. All comes back to Judy Garland.
- [79:46]
Sean Fennessy
It really does.
- [79:47]
Juliet Littman
I don't know. This movie's undeniable. It's a force. Lady Gaga's a force. Bradley Cooper's a force. This is another movie we claimed and, like, loved. I have a Jackson, Maine, like, tour T shirt that I still wear all the time. I don't know, it's another movie where you're like, holy shit. They nailed it. And it's, like, very exciting that they were able to pull it off. And there was so much anticipation from the first trailer and the snippets of Shallow, but, like, everything about it has become iconic. I also think because it hit right before COVID like, it was like a fall 2019 movie, right? Like, its legend got to grow kind of quickly because we were all at home and, like, the Oscars performance could Kind of like stand alone for a while. And there's just so many things about it that are legendary. And it's just a good movie. Like, it's actually a good movie with really good original music, which is hard to do as well.
- [80:35]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah. I think it's the fifth version of A Star Is Born. Prior to that, my favorite. My favorite still is the Judy Garland James Mason version. I think that's the best one. And if you have never listened to the songs from that original from that. It's not the original. I guess it's the second version, the one that came in the 50s. Yeah. Judy Garland is just like out of this world. Like the most extraordinary singing you'll ever hear in your life. This new one. Yeah, it was one of my favorite movies of 2019. I think. Amanda and I did roughly 48 episodes about the movie. Love it. So great pick. My number two, also a recent film, west side Story from Steven Spielberg. Obviously this is a world renowned filmed movie musical from back in the 60s. The new version is just some of the best damn directing and choreography you'll ever see in your life. One of the most striking movies ever. Also a movie that kind of bombed and not very many people saw in movie theaters. I saw it in theaters twice. Was just completely taken away by this movie. I love it so much. You're in on this or.
- [81:37]
Juliet Littman
No, I liked it. I don't think it's an improvement on the original movie with Natalie Wood. And so, like, that's why I didn't include it. I love west side Story as a musical. Like, and the music is incredible. It does also like ensemble really well, which is something that's important to me. I think my favorite thing about the 2022 remake is the way it captures New York and sort of like a heightened, surreal way. It doesn't try to make it, like, feel like a living city. It makes it feel like a set. And it actually really works in an interesting way. But I didn't love it.
- [82:10]
Sean Fennessy
Shame on you, Steven Spielberg. We'll remember. What's your number one?
- [82:15]
Juliet Littman
My number one? Are you surprised by my pick, Sean?
- [82:18]
Sean Fennessy
Well, you've given me an opportunity to talk about something else that I'm interested in discussing with you. I'm not super surprised. Cause you and Amanda are alike in many ways. You are different in some ways, but you are alike in many ways, and this is one of them.
- [82:29]
Juliet Littman
I chose Walk the Line starring Reese Witherspoon in Joaquin Phoenix. It is absolutely, hands down, my favorite Reese Witherspoon experience. I've ever had. I love her clothes. I love Joaquin Phoenix's renditions of Johnny Cash's songs. And I think it's just a really good biopic. I really like it. And also, definitely I knew Johnny Cash. Like, I knew of his music, but it really opened up the musical oeuvre of Johnny Cash to me. And I think this is just a great movie that's also really sad. And also another underrated actress from the television show Big Love, Jennifer Goodwin. Love her as well. And she plays his first wife.
- [83:04]
Sean Fennessy
Mm. She's kind of fallen by the wayside these recent years, hasn't she? Yeah, it's a sad story. Yeah. I mean, James Mangold is running this back with a complete unknown, which is out in one month and is a biopic of Bob Dylan. Johnny Cash figures into that biopic. He's played by Boyd Holbrook, not Joaquin Phoenix in it. I saw it last week. I'm holding my thoughts on the film for when I record a podcast about it. I think you're probably aware of how my relationship to Bob. Right, sure.
- [83:33]
Juliet Littman
Yes, I am.
- [83:34]
Sean Fennessy
So, yeah. Complicated subject matter. Walk the Line's good. I like it.
- [83:38]
Juliet Littman
It's a great movie. I remember seeing it very vividly, and I really had a great time. Yeah. And also the costumes in it are so good. It's like a fun movie to watch. It's very visually styled. The style of it is very cool. I mean, I also. It's kind of easy with the 50s and 60s style and the structured dresses for Rhys and everything. But she's just so plucky as June Carter Cash. It's very fun.
- [84:00]
Sean Fennessy
How do you feel about Walk Hard destroying it forever?
- [84:04]
Juliet Littman
It's funny, I was thinking about John C. Reilly when we mentioned Chicago. Cause he's my favorite part of the movie. So I'm like, okay. It's such a great part of that movie. I'm okay with it. I don't know. I really support both Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, so I'm okay.
- [84:19]
Sean Fennessy
Okay. My number one is Moana. I remember very vividly in the early days of the Ringer. Jason Gallagher was trying to sell me on how good Moana was. And I think his son was young at the time when the movie was released. And I think the movie was going really hard in his house. And I was like, that's cool, man. I'm not seeing it. And I didn't see it. I didn't see it for many years, and now I've seen it probably 15 times. And in addition to it, Having the framework of, like, a very traditional post 2000s, like, female empowerment Disney story, which is, like, pretty common through the Disney and Pixar films post. You know, like, the antiquated ideas of romance that you find in, like, Sleeping Beauty, there's been this real concerted effort to give the female characters a kind of independence. That's all there. And all of that is good. And the culture that is portrayed in the film and the adventure aspect of the story is great. All of it works really, really well. It's brisk, it's well paced, but it's Lin Manuel Miranda just absolutely cooking up something delightful. The songs in that movie are so good. And when you are a parent and you have to listen to this shit all the time and you find one that you actually like, it's such a relief when your kid is like, I want to watch that one. Because, you know, you can just sit comfortably with them and not be annoyed. And so is Moana the greatest movie musical of the 21st century? I don't give a shit. Like, to me, it is the one that has given me the most comfort and joy. So it's my number one.
- [85:57]
Juliet Littman
Great pick, Sean. And also a great tie in this week. How smart.
- [86:01]
Sean Fennessy
Well, that's the thing is coming later this week on the show. We're covering Moana 2. We're doing that with Yossi Salik and Rob Harvilla. How do you think that's gonna go?
- [86:09]
Juliet Littman
I think that'll be really fun and also very lengthy. So everyone bring your water.
- [86:13]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, Well, I mean, it'll be Thanksgiving weekend. People will be able to consume it. That'll be all right.
- [86:17]
Juliet Littman
I'm excited that Moana 2's coming out. I like Moana. I'm, like, on the periphery of Moana culture. I've never seen the full thing. The reason I choose Encanto over Moana is the music did not compel me to watch the movie. But I was like. When I heard the encanto music, I was like, I'm gonna check this out. But I do like the rock sound bites from Moana, so I'm looking forward to new sound bites from the Rock.
- [86:38]
Sean Fennessy
I think I neglected to mention Moana when I did the Red One episode, but that is, like, a true good that he has accomplished in his relatively complicated last 15 years of the movies. He's genuinely great as Maui, but yeah, Moana, Check it out, man. It's fucking good.
- [86:53]
Juliet Littman
Okay?
- [86:54]
Sean Fennessy
I love it. It's beautiful. And you know what, Jason? You were right. If you're listening Good job. Good bye. Good job by you. Um, where can we find you, Juliet?
- [87:02]
Juliet Littman
Um, on Bachelor Party on Mondays and Thursdays. Talking reality tv. Less and less Bachelor these days, but a lot of reality tv. And on Ringerdish on Monday's jam session, usually with Amanda. When she gets back, she will continue to be my co host. In the meantime, it's a rotation of great people to talk to me about pop culture, mostly celebrities. And on Fridays on Ringer Food Food News. Check it out. It's only 30 minutes. It's a great way to pass some time.
- [87:24]
Sean Fennessy
Gosh, I haven't been invited on any of those pods. What's going on?
- [87:27]
Juliet Littman
Do you wanna talk about reality tv?
- [87:29]
Sean Fennessy
I don't really watch any.
- [87:30]
Juliet Littman
All right. So that's tough. At least I watched some movies. But thanks for having me.
- [87:34]
Sean Fennessy
I really appreciate you watching Wicked and all these movie musicals and bringing your incredible expertise to this episode. Thank you, Juliette.
- [87:40]
Juliet Littman
Thanks so much for having me. It was really fun.
- [87:42]
Sean Fennessy
Let's go to my conversation with Malcolm Washington.
- [87:56]
Todd McShay
This episode is brought to you by State Farm. You might say all kinds of stuff.
- [88:00]
Juliet Littman
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- [88:02]
Todd McShay
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Sean Fennessy
Meaning you can talk to your agent.
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Todd McShay
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Juliet Littman
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Todd McShay
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- [88:38]
Juliet Littman
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- [89:11]
Sean Fennessy
Malcolm Washington is here with his first feature film, the Piano Lesson. Malcolm, thanks for being here.
- [89:15]
Todd McShay
Thank you for having me. It's an honor.
- [89:17]
Sean Fennessy
So obviously you grew up in a house with film in it. I'm wondering what was the first.
- [89:22]
Todd McShay
We did watch movies. We watched movies There was film there.
- [89:25]
Sean Fennessy
Was there a movie that you saw that opened your mind, that made you think you could be a filmmaker?
- [89:30]
Todd McShay
Mm, good question. You know, I feel like there's more movies that made me feel like I could never do that because of how much I love them. But I remember. I remember seeing Tree of Life with my mom when it came out. We saw in theaters. She was living in New York. We went to. There was like a. Like an art house theater in Lincoln center that I think is gone now.
- [89:52]
Sean Fennessy
Okay, yeah. Yeah, it is. Yeah.
- [89:54]
Todd McShay
Tragic.
- [89:54]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah.
- [89:56]
Todd McShay
But I saw that movie there with her. And I remember at the end of the movie, we were, like, holding hands, like, bawling, crying. And I'm, like, 20 years old. You know, I'd never seen a movie that dealt with, like, big kind of themes like that or. And dealt with it so intimately. And I saw myself in the story, and me and my mom was a. I remember having this feeling of the first time that we both saw ourselves in the same thing. And then time kind of warped around itself in that moment where it's like, wait, you're the child and I'm the child too, together. And it was a movie set, like, she's from the south, and it was in the 50s, and it was like a similar era of her. Of her. Of her youth. So it was just like one of those movies. I was like, whoa, this is more than a film. There's, like, something spiritual and poetic and all these things were in it. So that was an early one.
- [90:45]
Sean Fennessy
What did you think you were gonna be doing back then? You must have been in college at that point.
- [90:48]
Todd McShay
Yeah, in college, I didn't know what I was doing. I hooped for a little bit in college, but then after that, I started studying movies, but never. I didn't think to make them. Like, I was, like, just writing about them and studying them, but not never making them.
- [91:06]
Sean Fennessy
It's interesting. I had Ramel Ross in here the other day, and we were talking about it, and he played ball in school too, and he was talking about how that did help him and didn't help him on his artistic path. Did playing basketball help you at all figure out any aspect of your career?
- [91:23]
Todd McShay
In some ways, yeah. Just small things. So much of directing is just managing people and running a production. So it's like team building. It's communicating. So all the principles that you learn in team sports is totally there. And, like, how you build out the team you want, you know? We were talking about the Knicks.
- [91:44]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah.
- [91:44]
Todd McShay
And I'm a Laker. Fan. But so you want to build out diversity of thought, of experience. You know, you want some wily vets, you want some OGs, you want some young talent, you want some, you know, you want to just get all of that out. So I think in that regard it definitely helped. But the film, the artist life has been a different journey for me.
- [92:06]
Sean Fennessy
When did you decide you were going to be making films that that was something that you wanted to do?
- [92:10]
Todd McShay
I decided in. When I was in undergrad. I made this film. I went to. I again, I was writing about them, I didn't know how to make them. And I did this, this like a summer program. And I was like, okay, let's see, let's try it. And I ended up writing this story that didn't intend to be personal, but it became so personal. And we shot on 16 millimeter film. So you're loading the camera yourself, you're doing everything yourself. And when I finished making the movie, I was looking at it. I'm like, whoa. Something came out of me. It was not something I planned to do or aim to do, but there was some third spirit, some voice that came out and I was like, well, I want to. And it was really satisfying. I was like, I want to see what that's about. Like what this subconscious thing that's coming out of you, like what has chased that thing.
- [93:02]
Sean Fennessy
I assume you were on set as a kid at times, right?
- [93:06]
Todd McShay
I was on set a little bit. But like, not everybody assumes that because, you know, obviously my dad's a big actor.
- [93:12]
Sean Fennessy
But I was just wondering if, like I tend to ask that for anybody whose parents are in the business because then you like learn that for somebody like me growing up, movies are not mechanical, they're just magic.
- [93:24]
Todd McShay
Yeah, but sometimes if you grow up.
- [93:25]
Sean Fennessy
And you go to visit a set as a kid, you see that it is like, it's labor, it's.
- [93:30]
Todd McShay
No, it's magic.
- [93:31]
Sean Fennessy
Collaboration.
- [93:31]
Todd McShay
It's magic to me, the way I grew up. I grew up in the Valley, man. And we were like riding bikes in a cul de sac. Like it was, I would say it was no place for a kid, you know, and my parents always were so cool about setting up our lives in a way that they were trying to create good people and like well rounded humans, you know, with a consciousness and a worldview. So it was. I wasn't like on set every day as a kid, like understanding how movies were made at six years old.
- [94:04]
Sean Fennessy
What about August Wilson? Were you exposed to his work early? When did you come to him?
- [94:09]
Todd McShay
August is such a legend in our community and in our culture, and I come from a proud culture, so August is a name you hear about. But I didn't engage in his work meaningfully until I was at AFI in film school. In film school, we got to direct. I got to direct a scene out of one of his plays, and that was the first time I got to really read and interpret and be like, oh, wow, okay, I see what everybody's talking about. Like, this is why he's on the Pantheon. You know, there's just incredibly rich characters and somebody who's saying something.
- [94:41]
Sean Fennessy
One of the things I loved about your movie is August Wilson's work is incredibly powerful, but it is written for the stage, and adaptations are complicated because sometimes they can be seen as too stagey. That's the word that you hear all the time. But your movie is very cinematic. You know, it is very visually oriented. It's trying to break beyond just what you would expect you'd see on a stage. Can you just talk about, like, developing what you wanted this movie to be visually and making sure that it stayed true to what his vision was when he was writing it?
- [95:07]
Todd McShay
Yeah, I'm such a fan of the cinema. Like, that's where I grew up. That was like, my sanctuary as a kid was going to Universal. We used to go to Universal CityWalk. CityWalk, yeah. Absolutely was up there. And then later we moved and I started going to Century City.
- [95:24]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah.
- [95:24]
Todd McShay
And then in my adulthood, shout out to ArcLight Hollywood. I hope somebody brings it back.
- [95:28]
Sean Fennessy
That was my spot.
- [95:29]
Todd McShay
It was a spot. Oh, my God. I know, but that's, like, the language that I love and that I speak. So with this, there was so much reverence for Mr. Wilson and his legacy and his work, but I felt like the best way to honor it was to try to break it. Right. Was to break beyond the ways that we've seen it before. And it's also a work that's been produced a lot. So I felt like, okay, we can do something very different with this one, and the other ones will still exist, you know.
- [95:55]
Sean Fennessy
How specifically did you think about that? Like, because the structure of it is fairly straightforward, but you've got flashback elements. You've got almost like these kind of like, supernatural genre elements. Like, what specifically were you looking to.
- [96:07]
Todd McShay
Do all of that? So play with form. Right. So first, you know, we have this structure of the stories kind of barreling on this path anyway. How can we break that? How can we fuck with that a little bit? You know, how can we inform These moments with things of the past and also imaginings, memories. Some things are like dreams and nightmares. The thing that lives in between both, where it's like, you know, when you have a memory and you're like, was that true? Am I failing my own memory? But what is honest about is my feeling of the thing is it might not have happened exactly like that, but how I felt about it did. So it was trying to weave that into the structure of it, but also play with the language of film. So genre's a thing that we wanted to make something exciting and bombastic and, you know, muscular and just kick the door down. Like, we wanted to come in like that, but also tell a story that was subjective in nature, that we're telling a story of a family who all have different ideas of what happened and what they should do, who all are standing on hallowed ground and write in some way about the direction the family should go in. But how you experience it as an audience member will change how you think that that moment should be. So we're gonna play with perspective and subjectivity and give you some moments are really about the person listening. And sometimes it's about this other thing, not the big monologue. That's the real story point for this part. And not to get into the story too much, but I wanted to guide the audience through the story using things like this, like perspective and point of view.
- [97:52]
Sean Fennessy
Before we go too much further into the movie itself. Like, why did the adaptation happen? You know, it had been recently staged. Samuel Jackson, acclaimed for his work and the performance. Like, why did it become a movie? Was it something that you said, I want this to be my thing? Was it something that, you know, there's this mission to film all of Wilson's plays. What happened?
- [98:09]
Todd McShay
So there's a mission to film the century cycle. There's a mission to film these as plays at Netflix. I mean, as films at Netflix. And this one made a lot of sense to be next because it was the play, and they had Samuel Jackson and my brother John David were gonna do it. And anytime Samuel L. Jackson wants to do a movie, he's like, yeah, let's find out how to get this movie made. So I spoke to them about this take on it, and like I said, what we were trying to do was to be bold, you know, to be fearless in our pursuit of making this a film. So we wrote. Me and Virgil, co writer and homie of mine, we wrote the script to see. To show everybody what the take was. Like, hey, this is gonna be a genre Movie. This is gonna be like a fun movie that you're gonna fall into it, expecting this, fall into this genre, elements of it. But when we land it, it's gonna be this poetic kind of musings on ancestry and lineage and legacy, like these big themes. That's where we'll land the plane. But on the way, it's gonna be a fun ride. And do you wanna come? Do you wanna take it in this direction? You know, and luckily they did.
- [99:22]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah. I love the take on it so much. Tell me about working with your brother. It's complicated. Like, you know, I'm sure you guys are close, but making a film is complicated, and it's a lot of hard work. And he'd also, you know, played this part before, which I'm sure helps, but also, you have your vision. So what is the dynamic on set with two people who are as close as you are, but maybe have a lot of history too?
- [99:46]
Todd McShay
You know, it's. It's interesting. I'm such a fan of my big brother, you know, and he's somebody that. I'm not only a fan of his work, but just who he is as a person. Like, he was such a great example for me coming into, you know, my adulthood and ways to move and what to listen to and all these things. But getting to work with them was so great because we had a shared language already. And, you know, in any creative process or any project, you want to be able to communicate freely, clearly, to have trust with the other person. And so in that way, it was so amazing. But at the same time, you want. Sometimes if you want something so bad, you start pushing too much for it. And I think that once we both had to understand, like, hey, we both want to do good for the other person. Like, let's settle in and just, you know, trust the offense. Yeah, yeah. And we'll be okay. And once we did that, we just fell into a wonderful rhythm. And there was such a great collection of actors that were there with us. You know, Danielle Deadweiler, who smashes this movie. She's so gifted, and Samuel Jackson is so good in this movie. And I think a different type of performer in this film than you might expect, which I think is really wonderful, and it was just awesome.
- [101:03]
Sean Fennessy
So I'm curious with someone like Danielle, who has built up a reputation as, like, a commanding performer, you know, like somebody who kind of can take over a movie a little bit, I think that benefits this movie in some ways. But it's interesting. Your brother has a very big part, but there are a lot of big supporting parts. I have some questions about those parts, too. How do you balance who's stealing the moment properly? Like, it's something I'm always curious about when you have a lot of very, very charismatic actors, and especially with a story that's written so thunderously, you know. Right, right.
- [101:34]
Todd McShay
That's such a good way to put it and to set it up in that way, because there's so much to chew on. And each of these actors and characters, there's so much depth and dimension to them, and each one of them are deserving of their own version of this film. But what was amazing with working with all of them was they were so generous to each other, and it wasn't about stealing the show or stealing the moment. It was about telling the truth and just being honest. And then everything else would kind of fall where it may. And from a filmmaking standpoint, that's exciting, because if you have all these elements of everybody being honest and telling the truth and delivering their best, as a filmmaker, you can make choices as to who. Who are we empathizing with, when. Whose side of this should we be in any moment? And sometimes you're completely objective, right? Sometimes you let them. You lens them equally. You give them similar size across cuts and things like that. And other times, you take a stance, you put the camera in another position, or you cut it in a different kind of way, depending on what the story's trying to give you or trying to say for itself. So it was exciting to work with such great actors where you can have the privilege to start making choices on where you want to put the camera and what you want to say.
- [102:52]
Sean Fennessy
Ultimately, was there anything that surprised you, being in command on set for the first time on a feature that you didn't expect? I mean, obviously, you probably are surrounded by people who've made a lot of films. You talked about the wily vets versus the rookies, you know, balance. But I assume when you're in that situation and this is the first time you've done this particular thing, some things happen and you're like, shit, I just did not see that coming, or, this was a nice surprise or whatever.
- [103:17]
Todd McShay
Well, in performance, it was. In just making a movie, there's so many incredible surprises that you try to get all of them in the movie because you plan this thing for so long, you think about it for so long, but ultimately, when you get there and you start shooting, the last thing you want is for it to be exactly what you planned. You're like, please, somebody Come with something that I couldn't. That's beyond my own level of comprehension, that I couldn't see in the thing itself. So you're seeking that anyway. So that was exciting. But I think, overall, one thing that I was actually really surprised about, I come from short film. I made a bunch of shorts and music videos and stuff like this. And in that space, I feel like we were constantly. Especially in school, you're constantly trying to make your movie look like a feature. You're trying to make it look. You know, I want my movie to look like the master. I'm trying to make Phantom Thread. And, you know, that's what you want to. You get the anamorphic lenses. You, like, get the Steadicam dolly out. And now I'm working with so many of my heroes, like Leslie Jones, our editor legend. And I loved working with her. And Mike G, our DPs, made so many. Shot so many incredible movies. And what I found was interesting was at that level, they're all trying to dirty it up. They're like, no, no, the characters and these other things, like, don't. It shouldn't be too glossy. Let's dirty it up a little bit. And that was really exciting because it's like, yeah, like, that's. That's. Now we're getting to the truth. And that's where the cracks and crannies in the story are. And that's where all the flavor is. Like, that's the thing.
- [104:45]
Sean Fennessy
It's interesting. When I saw the film at Telluride and I wasn't really sure what to expect. Obviously you hadn't directed a feature before. I was completely blown away, especially by the third act. I was like, this is such a cool choice to make. This, like, Exorcist style, like, electron. Yeah, I thought it was great. And then I saw Gia Lucas in the credits and I was like, aha. That's a really interesting choice for a movie like this. So why Mike, as your cinematographer?
- [105:09]
Todd McShay
Mike. Mike shot It Follows, which is a movie I love. And I thought what he was doing with the top light in that and the kind of camera work, it was this kind of slow. This slow and moving camera that I thought was really interesting. And then us. I saw and really loved how there's the funhouse sequence and what he's doing with light and shadows and what he's doing with the complexion of the skin. It's really wonderful. And composition. So I was really interested in his take on genre, but I hadn't seen him do a movie like this either. So it was kind of like, meet me in the middle. And then when we talked, we talked. We had so many similar influences, and we talked a lot about Tarkovsky. Like, we were both interested in that kind of film, visual language. And so he brought so much great genre stuff. But he was great with story, too, and telling the story with the camera. So he was somebody that, early on, I think, the studio and everybody started to understand exactly what I was after. When Mike came on and Annalee, our sound, our designers, she made such an incredible soundscape for this thing. And it's so alive. The house is breathing, and the genre elements there, like, all these people came together and kind of put it together.
- [106:34]
Sean Fennessy
I thought all those choices are really great. Like, totally elevate what could be something that just feels more claustrophobic and is claustrophobic at times, in a good way. But I feel like it was really expansive in a way that was surprising. The big revelation for me, acting wise, was Ray Fisher.
- [106:48]
Todd McShay
Okay.
- [106:49]
Sean Fennessy
Who, you know, people know from the DC movies.
- [106:52]
Todd McShay
Yes.
- [106:53]
Sean Fennessy
But I didn't clock that it was him through the first 20 minutes of the movie. It's so different and just, like, remarkable. Like, I thought he was actually, like, kind of held the movie together in some ways for me.
- [107:04]
Todd McShay
Well, you know what? I think his character, too, represents the audience in so many ways. Like, he's the one that receives the piano lesson.
- [107:11]
Sean Fennessy
Yes.
- [107:11]
Todd McShay
He's like our eyes and ears into this thing. It's like so much of it is through his imagination of it all. So in a lot of ways, it's good that, you know, we're supposed to position ourself with him. But the way that he played him I thought was so beautiful because Ray is this gigantic man. You know, Rey is, like, tall, super strong.
- [107:31]
Sean Fennessy
He looks like a linebacker. Yeah, yeah.
- [107:32]
Todd McShay
He looks like a superhero.
- [107:34]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah.
- [107:34]
Todd McShay
So. And he was playing him in this way. Like, we did this camera makeup test, and it's the first time that the actors. We're the clothes of the character. We're starting to light it in a way. We're moving the camera how we think that we'll use it in lensing, how we think that we're gonna do it in the movie. And we're playing music, too, so just kind of trying to set a vibe and let everybody settle into their stuff. And Ray started doing this thing where he would, like, sit in this. He'd pick the smallest chair and then try to be tiny inside of it. And the contrast of him, the biggest man in the room, trying to be the Smallest in the room was so interesting and gave me insight to, oh, how he's thinking about this character. And he thought through the whole thing in such a wonderful way, but then threw all of it away and was so present in the day. That Ray is like a brother to me, and I'm so proud of what he did in this film.
- [108:27]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, I really was so amazed. Is there a difference when you're on set between talking to someone like Ray and someone like Sam Jackson? How do you communicate with actors? How do you modulate? What's the right thing to say to more experience versus less experience?
- [108:44]
Todd McShay
This is like my favorite thing. This is my favorite thing on filmmaking, is because it feels like a thing that you'll develop over the course of your whole life, you know? And it's something I like, is like, I love talking to people. I love talking about movies. I love trying to understand where somebody's coming from. And in an ensemble, you have so many different actors that have different experience, different process. They communicate in different ways, they listen in different ways. And I think the role of director is very much meeting the actor where they are and then help guide them to where the movie wants them to be. And that's a different journey for each of them. So with this one, yeah, Danielle and Ray and John, David, Sam, Mr. Potts, Corey, Erykah Badu, all different people that I got to deal with differently. We forged different kind of relationships. And it's funny because now we're rolling this movie out and everybody's coming back together again and we're talking about it, and everybody's like, wait, you talked about that? Like, you talked to me about this other thing? And it's like, yeah, we all had this different kind of experience of this thing, you know? And I think that that's what's so great. And we had a project that could sustain all of that because the characters were so well drawn, they're so dimensional that there's enough to. There's a full dimension and a full life of each of these characters, even if we only see them for a little bit.
- [110:05]
Sean Fennessy
At any point, did you have to say to any of the actors, like, this is not for the stage? Because obviously, film acting is very, very different from stage acting. You got a couple cast members who played the parts on stage. How do you navigate that, too? Like, this is too big or this is too small. What's the language you use to communicate to people?
- [110:24]
Todd McShay
You know what I think from the beginning, A, we had a. Everybody's very smart. Everybody knows what we're doing. Everybody knew that this is, you know, they had all worked in film before, but from the beginning, I gave everybody a bunch of material, a bunch of images. I made books all the time. I was always making books and videos and in the script. And all of these materials are screaming to you. This is a visual, this is a movie. This is tonally different from what was done before. This is a new thing.
- [110:56]
Sean Fennessy
What was in those materials?
- [110:58]
Todd McShay
I made like a hundred page book of reference images of like my musings on Afro surrealism, my musings on spirituality and faith, of West African spiritual practice, of the black Southern American Christian church tradition, these belief systems that are being wrestled with in the black community and the black American experience. And with the film. Ultimately, the end is a wrestling of these conflicting. But ideology that exists in concert. And black Americans today still, these are parts of our histories. So ideas about that, ideas of Black American reclamation are themes in the film. Just all the things that I was thinking about wrestling with the movie as well as images of the time, a historical context, information on Parchment Farm. Just a bunch of ideas, you know, that they could touch or not. Thoughts on genre and what genre can do for a film like this and how we're gonna use it. Exactly. So just a bunch of different things that they can tap into or not. But you know, this is a considered work. That's a film.
- [112:07]
Sean Fennessy
So you weren't quizzing anybody at the end. It was like, no, what are my thoughts on Afro surrealism?
- [112:13]
Todd McShay
Because that's not even always for like. This was also for the crew too. This was for everybody. Yeah, everybody got it. When you walked around our product, the walls were adorned with like pages out of this, these books I was making. And it was to bring everybody together. Hey, this is the vision, this is the mission. This is what we're after.
- [112:29]
Sean Fennessy
You know, that's so interesting. You hear all the time that filmmakers will put together a lookbook or they'll have references or they'll say like, hey, look at this performance in this film. But the idea of like writing through your thoughts on an intellectualized aspect of the story that you're telling, I don't know if I've specifically heard that. Where did that, like, why did that strike you as something to do and share?
- [112:50]
Todd McShay
Well, Cause I was doing it for myself. Because this is something like, I think that I've thought through this story conceptually so much. And in making a film, you're housing so many different ideas. I know some filmmakers are like, never do this, you know, never like intellectualize the thing. But this is what, this is like a canon. Like, this is an important piece of American history and literature, you know, of American artistry. And so, yeah, I'm gonna think through it. I'm gonna like, intellectualize. I'm gonna connect it to these larger ideas that exist around it and inside of it and dialogue with it. And I think that that helped some of our crew. It definitely. It just helped me. It helped me to write through it and think through it in that way.
- [113:33]
Sean Fennessy
I wonder if I don't wanna get too pointy headed about this, but I wonder if, like if. Because you have. You're already working in adaptation, so you've got this really strong thing to kind of balance all of those things against that somehow. It kind of keeps things grounded in a way so that you don't get too far flung, but it still lets you do things that you wouldn't otherwise be able to do in an original or something like that.
- [113:57]
Todd McShay
You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. It was strong enough to contain it. It was so. And we're working. This is a Pulitzer Prize winning masterwork. Here's why it's a Pulitzer Prize. These things are in it. We're going to explore these things and. And there's stuff in here that exists in the text and stuff that we added to it that they're icebergs onto these much bigger cultural touchstones. You know what I mean? And like I said, I'm trying to make a film that is exciting and stuff and is scary and funny and all these things, but underneath that is mountains of ideas of cultural touch points.
- [114:37]
Sean Fennessy
Do you have to stress test those things with the estate? How does that work where you're adapting something but you're adding to it or you're redefining it?
- [114:44]
Todd McShay
You know what the estate was. Ms. Constanza Romero Wilson, August's widow, was so welcoming of me. And I think August himself was so concerned with the future of black artistry, you know, and was always interested in pushing things further. That's why he deals with space and time so much. He's concerned of the past and the future and the present, how these things all live together. So I had a. I got a lot of support, not only from the estate, but his niece was like. I talked to his niece in the beginning and I was. When I was really scared and reverential and she was of just wanting to, you know, do a good job with the thing. And she was like, she was like, fuck it up. She was like, tear it up, you know, like, do you. That's what he would want, is, like, for you to take it on and then bring all that you have to it. Honor what he's doing, understand the man and. And his mission and his purpose, but ultimately, embody that spirit, embody that mission and interpret it and adapt it in your way and bring it out in how you do it. And that's what we tried to do with this one.
- [115:55]
Sean Fennessy
That's very cool. I really like that you did that because, I mean, it's weirdly a challenge. Now to the other. Is it seven or six more adaptations that need to come? Because in a way, you want to see these things evolve and become new, because otherwise they're just a regurgitation.
- [116:10]
Todd McShay
It's a story. In the movie itself, you have to build on the legacy that was left for you. You have to contribute to it. And that's risky and it's dangerous, and you have to have skin in the game, you know, but ultimately, you have to build on that thing. And I hope that this one is like a window cracking for the rest of them where somebody else will come and blow it out the water and do something that we never even could have imagined for the next seven or however many are left.
- [116:36]
Sean Fennessy
Were you nervous at Telluride?
- [116:37]
Todd McShay
Are you kidding me? Yeah. Yeah, I was nervous at Telluride, yeah. 100%, because this work is so personal. I've never made a movie. I've never made a feature film before. I've never put one out. Everything I've made has been so. It's lived in, like, small corners of the Internet. Like, I don't tell people about it. It's not, like, out publicly, you know.
- [116:58]
Sean Fennessy
Was that purposeful and strategic?
- [116:59]
Todd McShay
Yeah, I just wanted to develop. Yeah, I just wanted to develop. I liked making this stuff. I didn't want, like. I wasn't, like, ready for the scrutiny. I wasn't ready, and I was making personal things, so I didn't want to expose myself to that kind of. I just wanted to keep developing and making things I loved. And I knew at some point I would have to confront that fear in myself, confront that insecurity in myself of, hey, you know, if you want to make stuff, you're making it for people.
- [117:24]
Sean Fennessy
You ready now?
- [117:25]
Todd McShay
I had to.
- [117:25]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah.
- [117:26]
Todd McShay
Yeah, I had to. It was like this project was too important and too big for everybody, for all of us. It was much bigger than me, you know? And ultimately, that mission became. I was humbled in front of that mission.
- [117:40]
Sean Fennessy
So now that you've made this what kind of movies do you wanna make?
- [117:42]
Todd McShay
I wanna make, like, moving forward.
- [117:44]
Juliet Littman
Yeah.
- [117:44]
Todd McShay
I wanna make movies that I just grew up going to the theater, you know, I grew up, like, having exciting film experiences, you know, And I wanna make movies that reach those audiences too. I wanna make movies that operate on multiple levels, that are fun and exciting and you can go with your friends on a Friday night, but ultimately, when you leave, you didn't expect for it to stick with you the way that you did.
- [118:10]
Sean Fennessy
Do you have anything that you are working on to do next? I do.
- [118:14]
Todd McShay
Yeah. I do.
- [118:15]
Sean Fennessy
And you're not gonna tell me anything about it?
- [118:17]
Todd McShay
I'm from the Spike Lee school. Like, when I was working for Spike, Spike wouldn't tell you anything until it was, like, Set in Stone is happening. It's coming out, like, interesting. You wouldn't even know.
- [118:26]
Sean Fennessy
Can you tell me about working for Spike? You worked with him on this TV show.
- [118:29]
Todd McShay
I worked with them on She's Gotta have It.
- [118:30]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah. Yeah.
- [118:31]
Todd McShay
And it was amazing. You know, Spike, obviously, we know the films that he's made that, like his. His impressive body of work. But what people don't understand about Spike is that underneath Spike, he's uplifting a community. Like generations of young filmmakers. There's. He's like a. He's Professor Lee for real. Like, when you walk on his sets, there's so many people that he's bringing with him and showing them the ropes. And I'm one of many, you know, that he allowed in the room, that he not only allowed in the room, but gave opportunity to later. Like, he'll produce his assistant's short movies and he'll put your name in a hat and he'll uplift you. He'll fight not only just above the line. Like, Spike will fight to have black teamsters in the union. He fights for black gaffers and electricians, like, across sets. He's made so much opportunity for so many black people that couldn't get in to the unions or couldn't get onto a set. So that's the thing that I saw firsthand that I'm so impressed by. And doesn't talk about it. He just does it. Yeah, he just does it. So there's a generation of filmmakers that have come up under Spike, and I'm honored to put my name among them.
- [119:46]
Sean Fennessy
Malcolm. We end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they've seen? You're clearly a cinephile.
- [119:53]
Todd McShay
Yeah, the last great thing I've seen. Whew. I watched Wait, are you gonna answer this too?
- [120:00]
Sean Fennessy
No, no, just. This is you, man. This is your.
- [120:02]
Todd McShay
Okay, when we wrap, I wanna ask.
- [120:04]
Sean Fennessy
You wanna know about the last great.
- [120:05]
Todd McShay
Thing you've seen recently? I watched. I watched. There's two things that are coming to mind, but I'm gonna just give you one. I watched the other day. I watched Belly.
- [120:15]
Sean Fennessy
Oh, God.
- [120:15]
Todd McShay
You know Belly, Hype Williams.
- [120:16]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah. I mean, a classic for me.
- [120:18]
Todd McShay
A classic.
- [120:18]
Sean Fennessy
Oh, I love that movie.
- [120:19]
Todd McShay
Do you?
- [120:19]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, I do.
- [120:20]
Todd McShay
What do you love about it?
- [120:21]
Sean Fennessy
Well, I mean, it's like visually one of the most, like, breathtaking movies ever. I saw it in theaters when I was a kid and I was like. Cause I was a Hype music video freak, so.
- [120:29]
Todd McShay
Yo, same. Yeah, so I was talking to somebody. I'm sorry. Not to.
- [120:34]
Sean Fennessy
No, go, go, go, go.
- [120:35]
Todd McShay
I was talking to somebody recently and we were talking about like the 90s, like 90s black renaissance in art, you know, And I was talking about how important music videos were. Music videos are and to fine. And that so many, some of them have transcended music video and are in this space of fine art.
- [120:55]
Sean Fennessy
Right.
- [120:56]
Todd McShay
That they're reaching to something bigger and working in the medium in a new way. And Hype Williams work is so influential.
- [121:03]
Sean Fennessy
And I know Busta and Missy videos and. Yeah, I totally, totally even how he's.
- [121:08]
Todd McShay
Playing with like aspect ratio and letterboxing and all that stuff. He's like, hype and skin tones. There's a direct line from Hype Williams Belly to like Barry Jenkins Moonlight.
- [121:20]
Sean Fennessy
100% direct line. The, like the walking into the club sequence at the beginning of Belly. And then when you get into DMX's house and Gummo is on and the house is all white.
- [121:30]
Todd McShay
Yeah.
- [121:30]
Sean Fennessy
And those contrasting colors. Yeah. And the way that they're shot. I'm with you 100%.
- [121:35]
Todd McShay
100%. 100%.
- [121:36]
Sean Fennessy
It's cool to hear that, you know, for sure, Barry. And for someone like you, that that influence is kind of trickling down because, you know, that's the only feature he ever made.
- [121:43]
Todd McShay
Yeah.
- [121:43]
Sean Fennessy
And I don't even. I guess he still makes videos, but.
- [121:46]
Todd McShay
You know, like, I feel like that's what I'm so excited about this next generation of filmmakers. Because we all grew up in that. We all grew up on that stuff, you know. So you look at like Hype Williams and now you look at people like Khalil Joseph. Like, Khalil is like somebody that. I admire his work. So, like, his work was some of the first work that I saw where I'm like, actually, that's an answer to your question. Your first question, you said, what's the movie? What's the movie that made you wanna make films? It was Khalil Joseph's work, watching until the Quiet Comes. I saw until the Quiet Comes. And I just saw myself in something in the same way that when I first read Ta Nehisi Coates, I saw myself in that and I felt like you're talking directly to me. I felt like that with Khalil Joseph until the Quiet Comes and he did this thing called double consciousness at Mocha. Did you see this incredible, incredible work? So sorry I rambled, but those are.
- [122:39]
Sean Fennessy
You didn't ramble. Those are great answers. Malcolm Washington, thanks so much, man.
- [122:42]
Todd McShay
Thank you. Thank you.
- [122:51]
Sean Fennessy
Thank you to Malcolm Washington, thanks to Juliet, thanks to Jack Sanders, thanks to Sasha Oshel for filling in on this episode. Thanks to our producer Bobby Wagner. Later this week, as I said, with Yossi and Rob, we will dig into Moana 2. We'll see you then.