[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check At last! My podcast is complete again! He's not a pirate!
[00:00:26] I can't get that laugh! His voice is so weird and lost. At last! The one I wanted to find was Alan Rickman saying you gandered four times in a row. Oh! You gandered, you gandered, you gandered! I can't do it! I can't do Rickman!
[00:00:42] You can't do Rickman and also you don't remember the line. Right. But you know that part where he catches Jamie Campbell Bower? My ward. Right. And he just keeps on saying gandered over and over again.
[00:00:51] And that's like, that's my new ASMR. I had forgotten what a sort of pleasurable physical response I have to hearing Alan Rickman say gandered five times in a row. You gandered at her. Yes sir! You gandered. Yeah. You gandered. Well right. Is that what he's really talking about?
[00:01:09] You gandered. I you know Alan Rickman obviously we lost him too soon. Sure. He had a very, very tragic loss to the artistic community. I am happy that before he left us someone figured out that he needed to say gandered.
[00:01:26] It was like there was what's the thing we haven't given him the chance to do on screen? And Burton said I got two for you. One say gandered five times in a row. Two play a CGI caterpillar. Right. We'll sneak that in under the wire.
[00:01:39] A thing I forgot is that this movie shares like five cast members with Alison Wonderland. He like rolled them over. He always does that though. He's always sort of... Yeah, exactly. I'm gonna be making an Alan. Right. Yeah. That's his vibe.
[00:01:55] And I think this is when he's like doubled down on London which David you probably don't understand this but Tim Burton... There's no place like London.
[00:02:03] ...lived in London for a while. Right. I mean you understand it because we need Todd lives in London but you don't have any personal connection to this idea. Yeah he lives in a very evocative real London. You know very much like the real place.
[00:02:14] Yeah I grew up in London. What? What are you doing with that? Even the guest. Our guest is perplexed. In 1995 I moved to London. I've seen productions of Sweeney Todd in London.
[00:02:28] Yeah. I mean look at the... I think of like the Royal Opera House. That's where they did it. The shock and awe on our guest face. And it's genuine because no one can act this well. Two Tonys be damned. Certainly not me. No one can act this well.
[00:02:45] We have a very exciting guest. But you should introduce the show first. It's called Blank Check with Gryffin and David. It's about filmographies, directors who have massive success all around their career. Giving a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want.
[00:02:58] Sometimes those checks clear, sometimes they bounce. Baby. I can't do it. It's cuz I'm going too far into Jack Sparrow. Baby. Well he's treading that line too. He's got a touch of the sparrow in this performance. This is just sort of like depressed Jack Sparrow.
[00:03:16] Right. Like Jack Sparrow if he was on a prison ship for 50 years. Right. Or on a Johnny Depp style wine spiral. Sure. Right. Yeah. It's a... we have many series on the films of Tim Burton. It's called Powered Scissor Cast. And today we have a very special guest.
[00:03:34] Yes. We had teased when we were getting ready to do this season. We have booked a guest for this episode in the very loose way that we booked by six months in advance. What do you hypothetically want to do? Are you free in the next year?
[00:03:46] Yeah, sometime in the next year. Who has won one of the major awards? We wanted to keep it vague so that people could speculate. Right. So he has won one of the major awards. One of the egot. Of the performing arts. But in fact he has won two.
[00:04:03] Of the same one. Of the same one. That's pretty cool. I mean I have zero of all four. Yeah, exactly. You got a double T. Yeah. You have a Tata. Michael Cervers is our guest today. Hello. Who has played Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleas Street?
[00:04:22] I have. And when we were like who do we want to get on? I had this lightning bolt of light. Paddle of Pone. And great. She recommended me to him. She gave you a withering look. She told me to turn off my cell phone.
[00:04:36] And then she reminded me that I know you and we've worked together. We're in a play, Sweeney Todd. Yes. Tick with Mikey? We're not doing that tick thing. But I like this movie a lot. I feel like David likes this movie a little less than I do.
[00:04:55] I love the show Sweeney Todd. So I think when I saw this movie, which is I hadn't seen it since I last, you know, I saw it in theaters. I was like, wow, I still love Sweeney Todd and I, and it was violent.
[00:05:05] And I sort of appreciated how violent it was. Those are my two big takeaways. Now I had never seen the show before seeing this movie. So I like this movie a lot, but it exists as its own object to me. That's interesting.
[00:05:17] In that case, it's probably almost great to see this. I think it's kind of. I mean, it's 80% of one of the great musicals, like one of the best shows of all time. But I've also spent much of the last 10 years having people go like, but you don't understand.
[00:05:30] You haven't seen the show, like getting so frustrated when I still haven't seen the show. You didn't see any of it. They had that revival recently where they made you a pie. I know. I know.
[00:05:39] Shamefully, but I, but so I felt like we need to have someone on who not just is like, you know, a fan of the show, but has like literally lived in it to explain what this movie is or isn't doing
[00:05:53] correctly at different times because I have no understanding of any of that. Right. I just like that it's, you know what you like. I know what I like. I know what I like, but I also, I have been in the other position a thousand times
[00:06:05] where I like covet this like beloved object and someone adapts it poorly and it drives me insane. And I spend like, I go out into the streets and rip my clothes off. Are you ringing a bell? Yeah. Right. You won't believe what they did to Thundercats.
[00:06:18] You're like ringing a bell. So how long was the production that you ran? How long did it run? It ran for a year on Broadway. Okay. Yeah. Did you do it off Broadway as well? There was no off Broadway. It was in London though.
[00:06:34] The same, the same conception directed by John Doyle also there and with where you play the instruments. That was the big, I did it right. That was the big change. Yeah. It was an ensemble of nine instead of, you know, the 35 people who had done it
[00:06:49] originally and the orchestra was just us. So the orchestrations were all changed and it was, you know, it was more of a kind of chamber piece, which Sondheim always said was his original intention. It's pretty intimate.
[00:07:01] It's a lot of, you know, the songs are often just in a room, like two people singing to each other. Like it's not, I mean, there's no dance. I have to imagine stage is still mostly set within a shop. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:07:15] I mean, sort of one unit kind of set and it was how Prince's idea to kind of, you know, open it up into this sort of, you know, allegory of the industrial world grinding up people. The original production at this giant contraption.
[00:07:29] I mean, I've never seen it, but I've always heard about it. It was the first Broadway show I ever saw. Really? Oh, wow. I saw in previews right before it opened. So people didn't really know what it was going to be. People were not prepared for it right.
[00:07:40] Yeah. And it was not, you know, super warmly received at the time, you know, but... This is my biggest question for you. I'm sorry. I'm interrupting you to cover for the fact that my phone started ringing and make it look like this was all in control.
[00:07:53] Exactly, I know. Acting is reacting, baby. Like it was critically fairly well liked, right? One more, like... Yeah, it did, but it wasn't... But it was a very polarizing change. It's not cherished the way it is now. Sure.
[00:08:06] You know, like it's so many people's favorite musical of all time now. Maybe their favorite song. Right. And sometimes career is a lot of that where it's a lot of like, why didn't we give this the respect it deserves? I mean, it wasn't the first musical I saw,
[00:08:18] but like seeing the production of Assassin's that you were in and won your first 24 was like one of those for me. Where it was like a total light bulb, like... I didn't realize you could do this. Yeah, that was... Everything about it. That was my experience too. Right.
[00:08:35] I mean, I had grown up sort of being in community theater musicals and stuff like that. But I'd never really thought that I would be in musicals because I thought the things that I'm interested in and what little talents I have is not really destined for Oklahoma
[00:08:52] or the music. It was sort of... Because you're a very talented musician and a very talented actor. But in terms of what you're interested in, you were feeling like, well, I don't want to do musical comedy. Yeah. I enjoy going to see it,
[00:09:03] but I don't think I have much to offer it. And then I saw Len Carreyou in this production and there was this fantastic, terrifying actor in this really dark and funny piece. And I thought, well, maybe there is a world where my tastes...
[00:09:19] So this is like the Thunderbolt moment in a way? Yeah. Right. Now was it a thing for you where then that became like, oh God, what if I ever got to do that? Like was it a notion of like, I hope I get to play Hamlet someday.
[00:09:31] I hope I get to play, you know? It was in a broad, broad way. Sure. I mean, at the time, of course, in a broad way. In a broad way. I identified with Victor Garber as Anthony. Like that was the role because age-wise,
[00:09:45] that was what I was closer to. So I sort of thought, you know, someday maybe I'll get to do that. And when the chance to do this came around, it was so much sooner than I ever expected it would be
[00:09:57] because I had this idea of Sweeney being much older than me. And I realized... I see Len Carreyou. How old would Len Carreyou be back in his 40s? Well, Len Carreyou was younger than I was when I actually did it. But he looked so much older.
[00:10:10] Like their vision of the character was what's much more kind of haggard and world-wearing. And then Bob Gunton played him in the revival, which is another sort of character actor guy, like the warden from the Shawshank. Those are both guys who are wonderful actors
[00:10:26] and are handsome men but have old guy face and always had old guy face. Right. I mean, there's that effect too. Right. You know, I'm sure they made them both up a ton. You look at pictures of young Bob Gunton,
[00:10:36] you're like, right, he always looked like Bob Gunton. He had to kind of grow into it. So it's like he's maybe best fit to do in theater roles like that and sort of like, agelessly cranky to be totally dismissive. But so what you were talking about,
[00:10:53] the opportunity comes around, you're younger than you were. That's sort of 2004 or 2005 somewhere in there? Yeah. 2004 I guess was assassin. So this was 2005, 2006. Right. Yeah. But you were happy to do it? I was thrilled. Sure. And so grateful that Sean Doyle's take on it
[00:11:15] was so different from the original because I had like warned the vinyl LP out learning every nuance of it and I saw it seven times on Broadway. Wow. I saw George Hearn and Lan Cario do it and I just kept going back through the,
[00:11:32] you know, through the couple years that it was on and so I knew it inside out like that version and it would have been, I was already competing with my memory of those guys to begin with. Yeah. So it was such a helpful thing to me
[00:11:46] that John just wanted to go back to the beginning and explore and question everything about it. I mean everybody involved in our production revered that original version. It wasn't like, oh, we're going to make our own or we're going to solve it or something. Right.
[00:12:01] Like it wasn't something broken and fixing. No, but we realized even with things like the, in the worst pies number, we started staging it the first day and we had like a rolling pin. Patty Lepone who was playing Mrs. Lovett had a rolling pin
[00:12:17] and a dough and flour and stuff and as we went along, it's like, well, she never actually talks about making pies. She talks about the pies, but it's Angela Lansbury's version is so indelibly interesting in our mind that we think, well, you got to have a rolling pin
[00:12:36] and you got to have flour. But actually none of that is taking place in the lyric in the song. And in the end, we got rid of all of that and it just sort of reduced everything down to its bare essentials. So you didn't take anything for granted.
[00:12:51] You sort of reexamined every assumption that we had. Reset, I guess, back to like. Yeah. And wasn't Pirelli played by a woman? Is that... Yes, right. Yeah. Who learned the accordion to be able to play the accordion. I mean, there are like fiendishly talented people all around me.
[00:13:09] I would sit there some nights just like there were sections where I wasn't playing when I was just sort of sitting to the side and watching Lauren Molina who's playing Joanna sitting on a chair on top of a casket on top of saw horses with her cello,
[00:13:28] not just playing Joanna and singing Joanna but playing the cello part at the same time. Both playing Joanna and playing Joanna. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I guess you've maybe sort of just answered this through, I mean, talking about the process and Doyle forcing you to sort of reset.
[00:13:47] You know, I had all my like mental gymnastics with the tick because it's like, here's this thing, I've grown up with this character I know. But like this script that I'm playing is new. Right. So I would just engage with it as like these lines
[00:14:01] have never been said by a guy before. So I don't have to worry about it. But if you've listened to a soundtrack a thousand times and you've seen it seven times on Broadway and you have those specific like sort of choices in your head.
[00:14:13] I mean, etch not just you saw it and someone did it well but it's like, you know the meter, you know their pitch, you know everything. Is there like, do you put active work into making sure you do something different than them?
[00:14:26] Do you try to just block it out of your mind? No, I again, I think it was because of the way John worked. It made it possible to kind of forget all of that pretty quickly and just, and like you're saying, like going back to this new script
[00:14:42] even though the words were the same as has been said before and it all sounded different because the orchestrations were different. We were playing, you know, the instruments and it was also different because John works in this fascinating way. Everything's just kind of developed so organically
[00:14:58] and he has, because of the changes in the orchestration some of the actors weren't playing the same instruments that the actors in London had played so that meant that they were free to do different things. We were also sort of building the set through the show as well.
[00:15:14] Like we would move the ladders and we would move the coffins so the direction would be like we would just start at the top of the show and just kind of stage just minute moment by moment as we went along and so John would say,
[00:15:31] all right, I need you to take this bucket full of blood and it needs to get to the top of that ladder by the time Joanna sings and then it was sort of up to you whether you grabbed the bucket and ran up the ladder
[00:15:44] and then just sat up there and waited until Joanna sang or whether you sort of hung out down at the bottom and just ran up at the last minute to be there in time for Joanna or you could kind of do something in between
[00:15:56] and you could do that on a given night differently every time so everything you did was related to what everybody else on stage was doing which started to take your attention off yourself and what you were doing you just had like a bunch of tasks. That's really interesting.
[00:16:11] It was so great. Because of the take on that production the actors are inheriting a lot of jobs that often are done by other people on stage where you have to stay kind of not mechanized but precisely timed because well, that's connected to someone with a pulley
[00:16:28] or a guy with a tuba but then when you're the guy with the tuba and a pulley you can sort of still live in the moment in the way you're doing it. That's really cool. Even more than usual and I think it made for us an amazing ensemble
[00:16:43] because we had to listen and feel and breathe with everybody else on stage and even to play the music we didn't have a conductor so we just had to listen to each other and often we're not facing the rest of the company
[00:16:56] so you had to be able to kind of focus with the back of your head so it changed the way you acted the way you listened, the way you did everything. Okay, so this is why I'm fascinated. And also you have to act and sing as well.
[00:17:09] But the great thing is that you're spending so much of your conscious time focusing on these detailed things that it actually lets you act and sing much better because you aren't doubting yourself every second. It's that weird fucking thing of just like how much obstacles actually help.
[00:17:28] Obstacle or opportunity? Right, that's the thing but all those nightmare scenarios where you're just like, oh fuck, this ran long and we're losing the light and we have two minutes to get the scene done somehow that ends up being the best scene
[00:17:42] and then the things where you're like, give me all the time I need it's just like garbage. Yeah, I like... You know, I can say this because we shot in a very weird way on season two so you will not be able to necessarily ascertain the shooting order
[00:18:03] but I was like, you know, I'm a very neurotic person and I was... Where are you from England too? Sluicy. Here's a little sloosey, a hot scoop. I'm a very neurotic person and I went into season two and I was like, here's my new approach for season two.
[00:18:19] I'm gonna be very calm. Oh, right. You're sort of trying to put that out there in the universe? Yes. Like your hot David thing. David said he's gonna... Put a hashtag on it. David's gonna become hot this year. Hot David 2019. Right, in 2018... It just came from the gym.
[00:18:33] Yeah, it was the year... Okay, come on. Keep it in your pants. Nothing going on there. Literally, put it back in your pants. Ben, squeeze my room. But I was like, I'm gonna be really calm and I'm just not gonna let myself get worked up
[00:18:44] and I'm gonna try to be relaxed and breathed and prepared and not let myself get back into corners or any of that. And then inevitably the show started becoming crazy as it does. Sure. Well, and it's built around your being neurotic
[00:18:58] so you must have really thrown everybody else. Yeah, maybe they were like, this is too easy for them. Let's put the screws on them. I remember the exact order we shot stuff in and when I watched the first five episodes
[00:19:07] and I saw the pieces that were filmed in those first ten days I go, wow, I am not good here. Like, I am not good. And then the days where I was losing my mind and I was like, I can't even act.
[00:19:15] I'm so stressed out about all this stuff. I'm fucking killing it. Like Michael says. Right, you gotta be stressed out. You gotta be stressed out. You're just a stressed out guy. Right, but also that thing of just like if you have other things to worry about
[00:19:27] it forces you to just make the sort of see your pants decisions which if you are connected to the character of the material or any of that. Right, if you have sort of the basic operating chops or whatever then it's probably better performance
[00:19:42] than the one where you're guessing yourself and thinking about it and being meticulous about it. You're launching it. So you live in the show for a year. You live in this character for a year. You're really like putting your blood, sweat and tears into those performance
[00:19:53] from like multiple sides and he's making a movie right around the same time. I mean, you've told me he came... Yeah, he and Helena came early. Well, midway maybe through the run. Did you know that the movie was happening at that point? Like was that announced?
[00:20:10] It was rumored. I think... I feel though like Sam Mendes was initially... Sam Mendes was supposed to do it for a while. And it was like ostensibly this was the Sam Mendes movie that Tim Burton took over. It was DreamWorks had the rights.
[00:20:22] John Logan had been writing the script. These producers were on board. And then obviously he made it his own thing but it was that movie. So I think it was like right around the time that it was becoming apparent that Sam wasn't going to do it
[00:20:34] that they showed up kind of unannounced and we didn't know for sure if the movie is happening but the fact that they were there seemed to kind of hint that maybe they were at least thinking about it. And they didn't come backstage or anything
[00:20:47] but they were unmissable out in the audience. Really? You think they're like a vibe? They're like distinctive. Maybe it was a spotlight on them. I don't know. And then a little while later actually I think we had the rumor was that Johnny Depp was coming with them
[00:21:07] and he wasn't there with them. Because that must have looked like an even cleaner equation of like okay what? Do they tell you if someone's famous, like someone famous is coming up beforehand will they be like guess who's coming?
[00:21:20] They know and some actors don't ever want to know. Right I was going to say would that freak you out? But I like to know. You don't want to just look and say like Johnny Depp's there. Exactly. So yeah so I'll always ask if there's anybody
[00:21:35] and half the time it's like I have no idea who that person is. Okay great. So yeah so I think we knew but when Johnny Depp did come then a little while later totally unannounced like didn't tell anybody and somehow escaped being noticed
[00:21:51] on the way in and through the whole show. Well he was hiding under 16 hats and scarves. Yeah I think so but you would think that somebody might notice that. There's a scarf man here. I hear bracelets clanking. But he apparently came around to the stage door
[00:22:08] and said do you think they would mind if I came back and said hi and they're like no I think that probably would be okay and then word like spread like wildfire backstage and I mean he said also the height of his like in Pirates of the Caribbean
[00:22:21] is very recent at this point. Yeah I was like rewatching this remembering because it's kind of bizarre that he got an Oscar nomination for this. Not just because of the performance but because... He won a Golden Globe. But this movie didn't have much other success with the Academy
[00:22:38] but then I had to remember like this was his peak. Like this was the like him doing the victory lap after 20 years of being this like underground icon and he's the biggest movie star and everyone was just so on board with him. Yeah so did you meet him?
[00:22:56] Yeah he came back and you know like all the girls in the company all ran back up to put extra makeup on you know to come back down You took all your makeup off. Yeah I took all my makeup off that took a while
[00:23:08] and I think he went over to see Patty first we had dressing rooms on opposite sides of the stage so it was hard to kind of like see everybody at once so he went over there first and I also had Larry Lawrence Fishburne
[00:23:22] had come to see the show that night and I had done an equalizer. David and I just got like shivers. I fucking love Lawrence Fishburne. Okay, okay. I've done an episode of The Equalizer with him like a zillion years and years before when he was Larry Fishburne.
[00:23:37] So he came back to say hi and Adam Durritz from County Crows was there that night. Durritz, Fishburne and Deb. It was also a friend of mine so okay. So yes there's a photograph of the three of us in my dressing room together. Wow.
[00:23:52] It was or the four of us. Sure, right, right, right. So yeah so everybody ended up in my dressing room we were hanging out for a while and then But at this point did you know that he was playing the part or was it still sort of?
[00:24:03] It was still like and I asked him like after the other guys left he hung out for a while in my dressing room and I had my guitar and an amp in there because I used to like practice and stuff between shows
[00:24:14] and so we talked for a long time about music and stuff and I said you know so are you doing the movie? Do you know? And he said well you know after watching he was really very nice and complimentary. I put myself on tape for Tim
[00:24:31] he hasn't gotten back to me yet, I don't know. His casting was announced I'm finding it right in 2007 mid-2007 so that's when it became formal. Yeah, it wasn't I guess it hadn't been announced yet. Very often if there is a revival of a show
[00:24:45] that is so acclaimed and so successful and then new movie adaptation happens it's like well either they're going to carry over some of the cast or they're going to take their inspiration that never happens. Well I feel like no, I feel like more often
[00:24:59] you're right they cast big movie stars who don't have musical training. It's one of two things There's either the sort of the producers thing where they're like let's just new cast of the hit show will hire the director of the stage show
[00:25:12] which is you know totally different skills. Mama Mia was that but with a new cast Yeah and we'll just do as close to it as possible and that usually doesn't work because there's some weird lifeless quality. Or this approach which is like
[00:25:26] let's just cast the most famous people we can think of and hire a big shot director. I guess I was leading there under false pretense but that's the thing is like the second he comes on you're like well it's going to be Johnny Depp and Halmobon Carter
[00:25:39] and I know what he's going to do with the material. Now at this point in time where do you stand on Tim Burton and where do you stand on the idea of him doing it when you're starting to put this together? I mean I thought Sam Mendes was
[00:25:53] an exciting great idea but then when I heard that he wasn't doing it I've loved Tim Burton's movies so I thought well that makes a lot of sense and yeah and I can actually see Johnny Depp and you know I know what he does saying you know
[00:26:07] he had bands and stuff. He had bands, right? Yeah, although I think he took a lot of like voice lessons because it's a whole different Yeah, absolutely. But yeah so I thought in the world of big box office movie stars and directors this is actually
[00:26:25] one of the better choices you could make to put this particular show out there. I did sort of feel like a little too obvious of choice like a little too easy. Yeah, I remember having this is easily his most violent movie which is so interesting.
[00:26:43] He's never made anything quite this like graphic. I also think this is his most Sleepy Hollow is also quite violent like he's certainly. This is more violent. Yeah, no for sure. This has the very red goopy blood that's the 99. These are sort of his only two movies
[00:26:59] that are like aggressively violent like very much a hard R. The thing I find really interesting about this movie now in the context of we've been watching the fucking 20 films of his. He's the one who picked him Bert and I want to make clear. And I have
[00:27:13] certain regrets but I don't I don't regret doing this. I'm so tired. No, the thing that stands out to me about this movie is so often he's making films from this sort of outsider perspective. I'm the weirdo I don't understand this world.
[00:27:31] I don't understand how other people behave. Sometimes those people are villainous. Sometimes those people are well intentioned but the movies are all about that sort of feeling of alienation. This is a misanthropic movie. I mean, this is a movie about how everyone's terrible. It's a very misanthropic show.
[00:27:47] I'm not saying he brought that to it. But it is unlike his other films in that way. The good characters are the weirdos in this movie. And, you know, that's inherent to the material but it's interesting because I did have that reaction. Never having seen Sweeney Todd
[00:28:05] but growing up with theater kids who were like you haven't seen Sweeney. You would love it. It's like a musical but it's like fucking dark. That's not me making fun of Sweeney fans. That's me making front of a 14 year old. But I
[00:28:19] remember reading that announcement and going like oh, I guess that makes sense. Like I didn't feel excited by it because it felt like I was on the nose. I wasn't dreading it. I was more excited than hearing he's going to do Dumbo which at that time
[00:28:31] I went like what is he, why would he what does he have to say? A dark Dumbo. Right. But you read that he loved the show that he saw it. He had sort of a lightning strike moment like you did where he was in college
[00:28:43] and it was like the first musical he had ever liked and he saw it five times. And you're like I guess this is one of those things. He claims that he wrote letters to Sondheim when he was like a student at Cal Arts
[00:28:53] and was like would you ever let anyone make a movie which he probably didn't read those letters. Well no, an interesting thing about him Sondheim does and or I mean at least used to always read the letters and would write back.
[00:29:05] Like you could, I remember when I was in college people saying no you can write to him and he will send you a typewritten letter back. I didn't do it then but I saw friends' letters and then subsequently I had done it before I ever
[00:29:21] read him and he did. Sondheim. I wonder if today the same rules apply with texting Sondheim. 1800? Yeah. But yes, I mean you understand all the things he was connecting to in the material but yes he usually is, I'm the sensitive person who is wronged
[00:29:43] by society around me. I don't know how to function and this is one of those weird morally dubious things where like everyone is kind of bad in their own way. The general take on it is just like God fucking people huh? We all suck.
[00:29:57] There's a hole in the world like a great back. Right, right, that kind of thing from you know... Well he's style I feel like Depp is sort of styled like Len Carrey was with the sort of curtain hair and Elsa Lancaster. Right, with the
[00:30:13] shock of white that's true and as you were talking about the staging the staging is much more like the Angela Lansbury where she's got a rolling pin she's got pies, she's got flour she's sort of banging it all around like it does feel like
[00:30:27] the original version is the one that's in his head. Yeah. His main work he's doing is and this is what I think... De-saturating it. De-saturating the fuck out of it. S severely. Like there's that scene where during the Pirelli scene when they start speaking out from the crowd
[00:30:45] this is a classic sort of Tim Burton-y moment of here you have this big crowd scene and two people in it are so incredibly stylized that even in this wide shot they're going to stand out without the need for like a special, you know, on them.
[00:30:59] And the movie is so de-saturated that everyone looks as pale as they do despite the fact that you know that they're wearing two tons of like literally caked and powder. White clown makeup and like dark eyes and the film is so colorless say for that one sequence. Right.
[00:31:20] It's an interesting choice to make the entire thing look so goddamn bleak. Sure. I mean it's a choice. I don't know. Also these sort of CGI London, these sorts of like weird shots where it's like, you know, zipping around this fake fleet street.
[00:31:38] When it started I was like, oh wait fuck do I hate this movie? Like when you open the CGI boat on the CGI rivers and then like the super fast like zooms through. I was just like, I don't what? Alright so before
[00:31:50] you said you do like Tim Burton before we get onto the plot of the movie. And I like Johnny Dapp and I like Hal and Bonham Carter. So you were so I was all on board and like really eager to see it and eager
[00:32:04] to love it. And you were telling me Off-Mic that you saw it at the Ziegfeld. Yeah they had a big meeting right before the opening weekend. It was like on the Wednesday before or something at the Ziegfeld. And it was, you know, their invitations
[00:32:18] to all the Broadway casts and lots of people. And Sasha Baron Cohen was there and Alan Rickman was there and Sondheim was there. John Logan was there. I don't think Tim Burton wasn't there. I don't believe and Johnny Dapp wasn't there. But you know it was
[00:32:32] a celebby sort of New York premiere kind of thing and in the perfect place to see it too. And your reaction, I mean are you watching the film as it's going on? Because I feel like there was a cloud forming in the months leading up to this
[00:32:50] movie's release where I feel like all the purists were like, oh have you heard they cut this out, they're doing this instead. Like there was a lot of skepticism from Sweeney Purists months before this movie came out. I was trying not to give
[00:33:06] any of that because there had been a different version of that same thing in anticipation of our show opening. Because we were doing a very faithful to what Sondheim had written thing and he was there with us and he was very much on our side.
[00:33:26] But there were plenty of people who had heard what they're playing their own instruments or something like that. There's no horns. And so I knew what that was like. So I wasn't going to give that a lot of weight. The thing that worried me the most was seeing
[00:33:42] trailers with no singing in it. And I thought why are they trying to sell this like it's not a musical? Like it's a hard period piece, right? Like it's a sort of... That worried me more than anything else. The trailer has no singing
[00:33:54] at all except there's that one thing from Epiphany where he says it. Yeah, yeah, that's it. Which I guess people were just like, oh I guess he... That's like a weird Tim Burton flurus that one line of dialogue is on. He sings a lot.
[00:34:08] Right they have the user... That leading into the I Will Have Vengeance is the only singing part in the trailer. And this was a movie where I remember Deadline writing the story about it. That its opening day was big and then
[00:34:20] it dropped like a stone. And they were like people are walking out 10 minutes and demanding their money back because they didn't know it was a musical. They sold it as like a slasher. They sold it like... It was like a hero.
[00:34:32] It was kind of like Christmas which is a very strange time to release a movie like this. But this became like, oh this is like for the people who were like, I don't want to see that fucking Christmas family movie. I'm gonna see that like Tim Burton horror
[00:34:44] film. It's like Tim Burton's soft and then like the opening is him on a pirate ship singing and people were like, what the fuck is this? Well that's the thing. You can't get around it. It's almost sung through. You know it's mostly singing and so you're
[00:34:56] like, oh well, I'm gonna go away. Yeah, you better be in on it or not. But like it says on the Wikipedia people were literally like filing complaints to like, not the FTC but like the advertising commission that the film had been
[00:35:08] falsely advertised that they went to see it under false pretenses. Well I mean I don't disagree entirely. No it was the same choice. Yeah, I think it was really not smart. No, I think it caused them a lot of damage and especially when it's like
[00:35:22] you have the people who love the original work so skeptical about this. Right. And then you're advertising in a way to try to trick the people who aren't gonna like it into seeing it. It kind of feels like they were lining themselves up to be
[00:35:36] to get everyone angry. But this is like the kind of musical for people who don't like music. Yeah, absolutely. So why wouldn't you like put that forward? Right, you should own This Is The Musical for People Who Don't Like Musicals
[00:35:48] rather than being like, it's not a musical. Come on in. Just sit down please sit down. Well I did this movie The Mexican with Brad Pitt and Julia Robinson. You're in The Mexican? Yeah, I played it. I haven't seen it since I was 15 years
[00:35:58] old which I saw on my 15 year old birthday party but anyway, sorry carry on. People are constantly campaigning for us to cover Gore Verbinski on this show. Oh you should. You definitely should. Yeah right, it's an earlier gore. Early gore. The magic, the
[00:36:10] weird magic gun with the heart. Yeah. You were in The Mexican. I'm sorry. And it was like when we shot it, it was this kind of quirky, you know, indie thing. Oh yes. And you know and you've got. And they're barely in it together.
[00:36:22] And they were not at all in it together. And the poster was them canoodling. Yeah, and the trailer was like the same thing. So similarly, like they kind of sold it as this romantic comedy that it wasn't and the people who would have been interested in what
[00:36:36] it actually was didn't think it was for them and the people who it was sold to came and it like it wasn't that. So it's the same thing. That's another one. My 15 year old birthday party, we all had a great time. I was going to say I remember
[00:36:46] that movie coming out, it opening pretty well and then dropping so fucking hard. I wasn't interested in seeing it because I was like, I don't care about seeing like a Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, like Romcom. Sure. And then. But it's got like Gandalfini
[00:36:58] and like Gage Man. Well then I saw it on a plane six months later. I was like this movie fucking rules. Why didn't anyone tell me it was this? And in both cases, it's like you've got Johnny Depp in Swinney Town. You've got like Brad Pitt and
[00:37:10] Julia Roberts. Like what are you afraid of? Like why do you feel like you have to sell him a shot? These are still commercial elements. Like saying like it's like, it's sort of a stylish like crime comedy with Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts
[00:37:22] is as strong a sell as it's a Romcom with Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts. Sure. And the same thing of like you want to see Johnny Depp sing? Here's like a really bloody musical. It's an interesting pitch for people who don't like musicals. You want to see him
[00:37:34] shave throats? Right. Was the Mexican your connection to fringe? I'm putting this together in my head. It was the same writer. It was. It wasn't, I mean, it wasn't direct. They weren't direct. There was like years and years in between. But yeah, when there's an interesting
[00:37:48] lining up of things. So what I haven't thought about the Mexican in a while. It rules. I mean look, it may be by this point in time. Yeah, we'll be talking about it right exactly. But sort of
[00:38:02] what is your experience? We'll go into the plot of the film and you know, you'll be able to elucidate what it's doing wrong or where it's shifting from what you would have done or any of that. Okay. Not that I'm
[00:38:12] going to team you up to just give notes on Johnny Depp's performance or anything. But what is your sort of experience while watching the movie? Well, is it like a sinking sort of stomach thing? Yeah, kind of. I mean I don't think I knew that they
[00:38:28] had taken the ballad out. I knew that because he had, Burtin had said in interviews beforehand, like we couldn't really fit it in. They had cast people to play the chorus, Christopher Lee among them. Really? Yeah. Anthony had, that's why he's in the movie. Right, right.
[00:38:42] And then I guess for, I think it was partly time and partly they had some sort of interruption in filming because Johnny Depp's daughter was sick or something. Yeah. And so it's what they cut. Now you're cutting one of the most famous numbers in Broadway history.
[00:38:56] You're cutting the signature song of the show. And the thing that starts it off. Yeah. And here are two other crazy things. One is he cast five actors to play the ghost chorus. They're all gentlemen ghosts. And so they announce that Chris Verlie, Anthony had to play
[00:39:10] gentlemen ghosts. And all the sweet Todd fans are like, there are no gentlemen ghosts. What are you talking about? And then in interviews Tim Burton. A gentleman ghost? Right. Sort of like, and he's a guy where this has come up a lot. He's not
[00:39:22] super articulate. He's kind of like sort of mumbly when he like does interviews and everything. And people worked with him or like, he really knows what he wants but he's not good at expressing it. So in interviews when people
[00:39:32] asked him what he was cutting out he would just sort of be like, I don't know it just feels weird to have like the townspeople singing stuff. Which I think set off red alerts for everyone to be like, does this guy
[00:39:40] not get the show? So then they announced they're cutting the gentlemen ghosts. And it wasn't clear at the time but it was, Johnny Depp's daughter had gotten sick. They shut down filming for four weeks and they had to sort of restructure and go like
[00:39:50] we've already cut a bunch in the adaptation at the script stage. Now we have to cut even more because we have to finish the movie. We have a release date to hit. Johnny Depp's probably got three more pirates movies lined up that he has to jump on to.
[00:40:02] So it is like this, it's a very short movie considering. It's much shorter than the show. It's less than two hours long. But it's just under two hours though. I guess the show maybe the show isn't much longer. No, I don't think so. I mean, the salad
[00:40:18] is what's been cut and that's probably 10 to 15 minutes. Yeah, and when I was going back to look at it again in anticipation of getting together today, because I haven't seen it since I saw it in the movie theater. And I was thinking about was it for time?
[00:40:34] Because I didn't know any of the story about his daughter being sick or anything. So I didn't really know why that was cut and I thought it was just time but there's so much air in it. That if that was the concern and for me
[00:40:48] one of the problems in the film is the pacing to begin with that it's just like it's rather letting. We just sort of go from scene to scene without a lot of energy to a story. And then the end moves really fast. Like I forgot
[00:41:02] the last 10 minutes are like a bullet train and then you're like, wait it's over? And that's true of the show also. I just think when the pacing is that deliberate leading up to that it becomes more jarring. It's not that there's a problem with all the sort of
[00:41:16] inciting incidents hitting at the same time it's that it's just like... You get whiplash, right? Because then when it starts speeding up you're like, oh they're gonna be 30 minutes of them maintaining this pace and instead it's like 10. Yeah. There were just lots of places where
[00:41:34] sometimes there are places where the ballad, a reprise of the ballad would have been that's just a montage thing anyway. Like when he's building the chair for the first time. It's like you could have that text in there and do two things at once
[00:41:48] instead of just watching him put gears on. Right. And I think you need the staging of people singing to relax the audience about the staginess. It's still staging. The movie is staging. It's mostly in two different rooms and that would just heighten the unreality a little more
[00:42:08] and make it more fun and it's a great song. Well, and it is like... Sometime pretty smart guy. He didn't write that song by mistake. He knows you have to sort of lure the audience into this world especially since it's such a specific tonal
[00:42:24] thing and so different than most musicals. And as I said, I love this movie but that opening still fucking almost turned me off of it and I've seen the thing three or four times now where I'm just like, what the fuck is this? It's like hard to imagine
[00:42:40] an opening that is so perfect at alienating almost every single audience member. If you're a fan of the musical, you go why aren't they doing ballad sumitat? They sort of do it over the credits like instrumental plays. And the orchestra sounds amazing. I mean, they've got the largest
[00:42:58] LSO is playing it and Paul Gemignani who is sometimes musical director for years is fantastic and so the orchestra sounds amazing and it's so exciting and then nothing is done with it. And then we're on a boat. That's the thing, it's this one moment
[00:43:18] where you go like, he starts singing on the boat and a part of the audience goes, they're singing the wrong song what is this? They fucked it up. A part of the audience is like, they're singing a song? What is this?
[00:43:30] And then even for me, I'm just like this is dropping you in fast and I can't get the rhythm of this thing. I remember kind of liking it just because you've got the young hero singing and then Depp sort of slinks up and he's like, ehhhhh
[00:43:44] It's fun. And he's doing like Grand Gnul. I mean, I forgot how sort of posy this performance is and I'm not saying it's a posthory performance but he's really going for just kind of like pure iconography Like it's 20% nose acting like it's a lot of nose snarling
[00:44:00] You know, but it's a lot of stillness in dramatic poses He's letting the wig do a lot of the work for him. I forgot how severe that Robert Kardashian stripe in his hair Robert Kardashian was the father He had a stripe? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:44:18] You mean David Schwimmer? Yes. He's sort of got a grown out Uncle Juice kind of thing going on. No way, Rob is the son you're right. That's what I was fucking not David, ehhhhh What's his name? No, they're both Robert There you go, it's explained
[00:44:34] He named his son as himself as people often do But for me this movie starts working when Hal and Barnard Carter comes in because I think she is super keyed into the right sort of zone I love Hal and Barnard Carter She's a great actress
[00:44:50] She's nothing not to love She's a fine singer. I mean the singing in this is sort of fine. Like I don't know how He hired actors who can kind of fake their way through the songs as opposed to musical theater Yeah, there are a couple of people like
[00:45:06] Laura Michelle Kelly who plays a beggar woman She's an amazing West S stage singer The woman who plays Joanna also I think came from the West End I think that's probably right. Let's find out I forgot about her. She was sort of a young discovery type Jane Wisner
[00:45:24] She's Irish She'd been in a youth production of West Side Story and she was discovered from that More like West End story Yeah, you know Is this thing on? Yeah, she's mostly a stage actress Sure. Helena I feel like at this point she's a great actress
[00:45:46] who's been around long before Tim Burton just quote-unquote She's stuck in a bit of a Tim Burton trap though I mean that was the other thing This is the thing. It's like After Planet of the Ape she pops up in every
[00:45:58] Burton movie and people would sort of going oh you know because he'll always cast her Even though she's always good in them She gets tagged unfairly with this sort of ineptis you know like and then she gets this role which is a huge role
[00:46:12] Because she's played more supporting roles in all the other films And again I feel like people sort of rolled their eyes but she's pretty good. I think she's pretty great in this I do. I mean I understand you can throw all the complaints at the singing
[00:46:26] but I think she's The thing he's trying to do with this movie is he's sort of trying to find a midway point between the Son Time Show and the sort of horror movies that he grew up on And there's a company
[00:46:40] I forget the name but it was like the company that was Sub Hammer Horror Uh Sub Hammer? Oh yeah you mean like the Buckets of Blood Company. It's called like Alcheon or something like that Yes, oh I do know what you're talking about
[00:46:52] Yeah go on but keep talking He and John Logan bonded over watching those movies That it was like the sort of like degrade amicus Amicus movies. Right they were like They wanted Chris really in the house. Exactly. Like the House of the Drip Blood
[00:47:06] Those sorts of things. So he's like I kind of half want to make the musical and I half want to make this sort of very straight faced sort of like Gothic horror grand deal movie Which is like a weird balance to do And I think she's best
[00:47:24] tapped into the sort of not the tongue in cheekness of it but the humor of it. Yeah. I mean Deb is sort of like allowing other characters to get laughs off of him in contrast Yeah. Because he's so stuck in his own like universe the whole
[00:47:40] film. Like it's all him staring off into the distance Yeah I remember thinking at the time and thinking again when I saw it recently that that sometimes it's not good to work with the same people all the time and especially somebody that you
[00:47:54] you know are on such a wavelength with because maybe they don't push you the way you need. I feel like he has Deb has a much better performance in him Especially at this point in time. This is more him doing as you say what
[00:48:08] we might expect of him. Yeah He's a charismatic actor. Right. But him in the Sam Mendes version would have probably result in a more engaging performance. I mean this is really when they start to get stuck in like a cul-de-sac The three of them of like
[00:48:22] HBC, Burton and Deb We're also there's like tempered excitement every time they're announced to be doing a movie together again because I know what it's going to be. And this one also feels like the apex of they're literally just becoming fetish objects for him
[00:48:36] Like he's found these two people with both upside down teardrop faces He's very angular sort of gothic beautiful people his wife and his best friends and he just keeps on styling them more and more to look like his dreams. And I do have
[00:48:50] that like uncomfortable kind of thing watching it where it's just like it feels like he has too much control what we were talking about before of like the limitations and the obstacles or whatever. Like he has now like had his the two people
[00:49:06] he's closest to in his life are both bankable so he can make any movie he wants with the two of them make them look exactly how he wants He's got his regular creative collaborators and people just back off and it just feels like there's not necessarily enough tension
[00:49:22] that he had the early parts of his career because he had to do the tempered thing just do it. Well Sweeney is a character and you have played Sweeney Todd. Could be one dimensional like he's this sort of terminator ask he's so ruined
[00:49:38] and he's so hell bent on revenge he's sort of this like ghoul He's sort of died already I mean he's like kind of a reanimated by revenge I remember in your production a lot he rises out of a grave is sort of the classic introduction of
[00:49:52] that right. But yeah is do you think that's a limiting thing like that you could just sort of look at this character and be like yeah he's just a scary ghoul man I think it's just it's a mistake when people think that
[00:50:04] that's what it is and try to you know play it that way obviously it's never going to be interesting if it's just one dimensional I mean I think again because our production was so unusual it was easy to go back to this script
[00:50:20] because though you know like if you're doing Hamlet you've got to look at it people have been doing it for 400 years but you have to pretend you know well what if I'm the first person to ever read this you know what do I know from the script and
[00:50:34] you know you get details like this is a guy who's been away for 12 years this is a guy who's still a father and a husband and my thought was if he could have come back and found his wife and daughter immediately which for all he knows
[00:50:52] when he gets there and then he'll you know he'll take them and they'll escape to the north of England and have a happy life and it's actually the villain of the piece really is Mrs. Love It who recognizes who he is she's the one who's gotten rid
[00:51:10] of his wife and daughter essentially and then channel sees her opportunity to have an alliance and have this man that she always was sort of fascinated by to begin with and she channels and you know she's the lady M of the story so
[00:51:30] I think there's a lot of room and I think Johnny Depp does this or gestures towards it with vulnerability and a broken side in addition to the deep deep wells of vengeance I would say half in depth performance half in the stylization of Depp
[00:51:52] from the moment he steps forward and starts singing on that boat you're like this guy's gone there's no coming back for this dude and that is a thing I think the movie kind of botches which is just like there is no possible happy scenario for this guy
[00:52:04] the way they've played him in this film it doesn't feel like if he met his wife he would just be like let me scrub this streak out now it's the difference between like playing Dracula who is still like a romantic character with emotion and empathy
[00:52:20] even though he is villainous versus playing this character as a theatrical zombie which is kind of what Burton and Depp have decided to do that he's sort of just like a mythic monster at this point I mean was that kind of like not to force you to
[00:52:38] sort of spill your secrets if they are things you covet but was there sort of like a central thing you tapped into for the character where you're just like above all else this is like my key to to Sweeney this is like the fundamental spine of the character
[00:52:54] is that well I think for me it was that he's a father and that as deeply as he goes into his you know his tragic flaw is his need for vengeance and retribution that makes him oblivious to what is literally in front of his face at times
[00:53:18] so you know I think he has to remain a human a recognizable human being to us so that the monstrosity can be even more disturbing because it's like wow I guess if I felt that deeply maligned and that my life was taken away from me
[00:53:36] I might actually you know have that kind of revenge fantasy myself and this movie certainly has none of that tension really it's more like when are we going to get to you know the killing but the thing is I feel like Depp his best two scenes are
[00:53:52] the Pirelli scene because he gets to be a little fun right he gets to have a little more levity and a little more sort of like pride in his skill and then Epiphany which is the one time that like they kind of like which is the you know
[00:54:06] sweet again a little like charisma like he's right at least like alive and the staging of that is alive with him like walking around and it feels more unreal it's not just him in a chair or next to a chair because some of this movie feels
[00:54:20] like like like a fish out of water comedy like it's like Thor or something where the joke is like why is this guy so stilted sure it's just sort of standing there being weird right and he spends so much of the movie not making eye contact with people
[00:54:32] I mean it's like he's in his own show in his head which is a choice and that can work I think but then it has to be supported and not left to just kind of sit there by the you know by the direction by the design
[00:54:46] right but even when he's like peering at Joanna through the window you're just like this guy is still just like gone yeah like he's in the sunken place there's no rescuing him the biggest place I feel like they miss that opportunity is in a little priest
[00:55:02] which is one of the most fun numbers in the whole show it's so nastily funny yeah and it's so brilliantly placed in the order of things right after epiphany so right when you've had this like bio filled like horrific thing I want you to play this
[00:55:18] yeah and then immediately Mrs. Love it's like you know it's an awful ways and so it should be it's so great and and it just lands like a lead balloon in the movie and it's he's very lead in that one
[00:55:36] he really is not doing anything and they also I think make the mistake of it's one of those oh okay it's a movie so we're gonna open it up so when they talk about each of the kinds of pies you know they look out at the window
[00:55:48] and see the kind of people and the point is not like that it's the people it's the pie like in the show right it's all like pantomimed and they're always talking about pies so it's a game between the two of them instead it becomes a little literal
[00:56:02] it's so literal when he says when he says is that squire on the fire and they have a guy through the window a squire standing in front of a fire come on yeah and and it doesn't it doesn't make it delightful and and wicked
[00:56:18] and fun the way you know it can be without losing any of the you know actually giving you more of an opportunity to go even deeper in the dark stuff because you've had some playtime so well also I mean this is not a dancey musical
[00:56:32] no but he even more so is trying to create more movement through his edits and the juxtaposition of images that he is through right yeah because there is some sort of like pointed choreography of people where how they rotate around each other in the
[00:56:48] room yeah there's some sort of like theatrical dramatic choreography that that is effective yeah but a lot of it is like that and that's an example of one where it's just like you're not gaining anything by doing this I love like just in the Pirelli sequence
[00:57:06] the reveal you start with Sasha Baron Cohen sharpening the blade and then you cut to the reverse angle and you see his knuckles there's stuff like that that's like perfect Burton like delayed gratification like yeah that's where I see the animator stuff come in he really
[00:57:22] understands like the power of like showing you an image at just the right time sure when the whole by the sea thing I think it's like one of the most successful parts of the whole movie and that's sort of playing off this
[00:57:34] comedic concept of like Sweeney's just in another fucking show yeah like you can't break through to him he's just like an Edward Gorey cartoon and it's funny if he's sitting there all dressed up in the sea clothes and like sort of looking so healthy
[00:57:46] that's a musical number that's all about editing but it works he found an interesting way to make it cinematic yeah the first time she slides over the pie is like a very well timed edit I mean there's like a gulf between when he's on to
[00:58:00] something yeah about not how to open the show up but how make it work in this medium yeah versus when he's just opening things up or literalizing things for the sake of I don't know that can't just be them in a room right
[00:58:12] right which I feel a lot of it's them in a room right you kind of have to own that walk down the street yeah well and that's two two you know problems with those two things one the rooms are so huge very cavernous and odd and
[00:58:24] empty yeah yeah which doesn't feel like you know the London of the time no it should be like cramped and smoggy and gross as a British person you know exactly my father worked on Pleat Street not this sweet street but but yeah so how is that possible
[00:58:38] he was an Englishman I remember reading the newspaper stories about Sweeney Sims the demon journalist of Pleat wait a second your father was a journalist right yeah okay nailed it that's what that's what Pleat Street was in the 20th century is where all the papers were
[00:58:54] except the typewriters weren't filled with ink they were filled with blood I'm sorry Michael carry on oh but so you've got these like huge cavernous rooms with just like people and nothing else in them so you're more aware of any kind of staging
[00:59:10] moving them around stuff or not doing it and you also like just don't have a lot of stuff around and then when you go into the streets of London teeming with life at this time and they're like empty most of the time in the movie
[00:59:24] pedicotes yeah that's it you know it's just that's what and the asylum scene is one of the you know more disturbing environments because it's chock full of like freaky scary people and shadows and stuff yeah I think the movie gets so much better in the back
[00:59:42] when it gets when it's being it's embracing the night yeah it takes yeah I mean the movie doesn't have much of a pulse until blood starts spurting like there's a clear like shift of like you know the way that musicals it's color like in the movie
[00:59:58] demands color and so that is the one thing that's good about the black they're very very intentional course it makes the first hour a little tricky to get into yeah and then the other thing is in the same way that like you know musicals are
[01:00:12] the characters are at a point where the only way to express themselves is to break into song the blood feels like it's serving a similar purpose in this like he's using the blood as sort of a cathartic opening of yeah everything that server press but the problem is
[01:00:26] you are setting up and I like this film but you are sitting up a film where it's like okay so for the first hour it's gonna be monochromatic and no one has any emotion because I'm leading it all it's all
[01:00:36] wind up for the second hour where it's a ton of blood yeah and that's I think it could have worked just as it is if you really felt underneath that surface you know depth surface deadness there was this this raging right fire inside which you just
[01:00:54] don't that's where I think you know he that's the phil had been helped and the zombie thing is just like you know I go to that specific analogy because it just feels like he's like driven by like brains like it's not a thought process
[01:01:08] he's just moving towards an end goal without any sort of strategy as opposed to Alan Rickman who I mean brilliant actor in the area and a great stage actor and you know and also not that I know a particular musical theater actor but he knows how to
[01:01:26] use language and fill you know your text with so much nuance and complicated I mean he's a credible much more torn you know driven troubled questioning character than Sweeney Todd is right and I think he's also owning that this is a filmed
[01:01:44] musical and he knows that he can do slightly more introspective work because the camera is like right you know two feet away from him and then even as another parallel like Timothy Spall is going big with this performance Timothy Spall is one of those guys
[01:01:58] where he I've seen him give the most subtle yeah but right you could you can sort of wind him up and he's like let me go let him go Harry Potter you think of a chanted yes but he is tapped into the central sort
[01:02:12] of vanity of this character that's driving him where even though it's very cartoonish it's rooted in a real thing and you see that you see him playing the conflicting emotions yeah there's a real need right depth there it's just like eyes on the prize like yeah yeah
[01:02:26] in a way that is sort of lacking any nuance yeah I mean it's well performed but it's like and I just you know I just I'm certain that there's there was more there in this time there was more there's more to mind he's a very good actor
[01:02:44] he is and this is sort of his last sort of quote-unquote good performance I'm trying to think about his filmography like after this he makes well he makes well right after this he makes public enemies right which he's pretty good in he's
[01:03:04] sort of being used as a marquee idol there I mean I think his last good performance is Rango yeah and then he's in Alice in Wonderland in the tourist and then he's in Rango I mean this is when we start moving into
[01:03:14] a really bad direction yeah and then he does another Pirates he does Dark Shadows he does the Lone Ranger he does another Alice he does Mordecai he does another Alice right and yeah but certainly I don't think this I do think he is
[01:03:28] somewhat trying to stretch himself that's why he got an Oscar nomination but I I agree that he's a little lifeless I wonder too if if any of it has to do with so much of your performance having to be through singing and you know and
[01:03:44] maybe not feeling you know entirely entirely confident even though he is a singer and has a you know very nice voice but it's it's different you know it's different being a pop singer or a rock singer and and a you know a storytelling theatrical
[01:04:00] singer and I feel like I mean it's a problem I think generally in musicals on stage too often when people open their mouths to sing they kind of stop doing anything else yeah they're just singing and I understand why and it's
[01:04:14] you know you have a lot to think about when you're singing but it almost I would always rather hear somebody who's not hitting every night every note beautifully but is really telling me the story and really using the text to like convey the character and everything else
[01:04:30] I do feel a little self-consciousness maybe at what he perceives as his lack of experience where's it Helen knows doesn't have Helen I didn't for her and she's sort of just having fun but also even like this is not a musical
[01:04:46] where they did the songs live you know that's another thing I think was a big mistake and I see him like there are moments especially in some of the bigger sort of more operatic songs where his performance sort of you know they still sing on set
[01:05:02] because as Burton says you have to match the sort of breathing and all of that but I sense in his physical performance less confidence than what is on the track which he probably had more time to like hone and then I feel at moments distinctly like he looks
[01:05:22] not embarrassed to be singing but embarrassed that he maybe isn't as experienced maybe it's not that so much as trying I mean because when you're when you're essentially lip syncing in your you know live performance you're trying not to screw up all the time
[01:05:38] you know and so there's this and I'm sure there also was a lot of concern and probably discussion about you know the scale of the performance in the singing scale of you know for the camera what's too much and it just felt like everybody was afraid
[01:05:54] of going too far being you know too far over the line for the most part and you have to make a decision in the recording studio in a booth about what it's gonna be and then you know and then recreate it on the
[01:06:08] day with all this other stuff going on I mean it's a really difficult task and you know it just seems like I just would have loved to see them do it live see them you know not worry so much about the details and the particulars and the
[01:06:26] nuances and tones and just like just go and chew the scenery a little more yeah yeah I mean I feel like she's having a lot more fun with it and she seems a little more confident and I do feel like she is certainly doing that thing where
[01:06:42] she is singing in character and she is acting while she's singing yeah you're getting the story, you're getting the thought processes and stuff the other thing I just was really taken by rewatching it is her eye acting is so good because so much of this movie relies on
[01:07:00] sort of like twitchily looking around yeah the shifting of her focus I mean like Tim Burton milks so much out of her glancing from one area to another especially sort of choreographed to the rhythms of the music she's got spinning right like that's
[01:07:16] what that character is where she's like oh I spy on Patunia but as you say for her to be the sort of leading Beth figure that makes the show as tragic as it could be you have to believe that she is preventing him from a certain level
[01:07:30] of happiness that I don't think is attainable from the start of this show when she reveals that you know she is lied about his wife I just go like yeah but I mean what's the they weren't gonna get together right you know
[01:07:42] what are you talking about he's gone you know he's like Robocop now it could have been that she gives him the razors he starts a nice little barber business he's good at it he's a great barber she can close the shop
[01:08:00] they could make a profit if he wasn't so intent on stabbing people I mean repeat business is nil that's a big problem with this business model it is a big town but still and also word of mouth nonexistent but that's another thing about
[01:08:14] you don't have any people walking out of the store going like I cannot recommend this guy highly enough except for the one guy with the family who comes which is another burnt moment that I think is pretty well executed of revealing that family
[01:08:24] through the cut where you don't understand why he hasn't slashed the guys throat yet then you cut to the other angle like yeah trying to think if there's other stuff we should talk about Sasha's performance he's so great he is he's really into it and he's fun
[01:08:40] you kind of get the feeling it's like he figures I've got nothing to lose yeah exactly I'm just gonna go for it I saw this in theaters I was living in Paris with my friend this is actually true I saw so many weird movies in Paris
[01:08:58] that would like I saw this with the French subtitles in France they will usually show it in the language but they'll put French subtitles on it after college David it's weird see them try to translate soundheim into French you know lyrics
[01:09:14] after college David lived in Paris for a year and worked as a bartender aka the sexiest thing that anyone's ever done so mysterious of you David so compelling you saw this in France and when Sasha Baron Cohen comes on screen we're gonna give him a credits plate
[01:09:32] okay and his name came up my friend and I were like Sasha Baron Cohen is in this no for some reason exactly I grew up in England Ali G was very important to me and I guess like Borat so I guess he's really on the
[01:09:50] he's really should a king of the world and this is him doing a different thing it's in his wheelhouse he's doing a funny Cockney accent Italian guy accent but he's a decent singer he's got like a nice sort of like profound voice you know he's fun
[01:10:08] and he's playing emotional depths to this character I mean the pettiness and the sort of strategic minded kind of wailiness of him I remember them announcing his casting in that sort of like I mean what this movie they film it the beginning of
[01:10:26] 2007 Borat comes out the end of 2006 and I feel like this was maybe the first post Borat where everyone was going like well you can't keep on doing these like hidden camera movies forever because everyone's gonna know what he does so everyone was trying to go like
[01:10:40] what's his movie career gonna be like now like what's it gonna be and this seemed to be I mean he has pretty consistently always been more interesting if you give him a supporting partner scripted movie versus his scripted vehicles which don't really work
[01:10:56] well like you can imagine Johnny Depp being a great Pirelli without the burden of carrying this iconic character especially in his early Burton working relationship where he was a leading man making character actor choices whereas this it feels like he's burdened with the like I'm the leading man
[01:11:14] he would have a whole spin on this sort of showman thing anyway it would be great it was the Pope that's my favorite line it's so funny then they have the little little portrait of the Pope so funny I think Toby is very good in this too
[01:11:30] and he didn't really act that much after this no he is good he's got a good face I mean often that's played by an older actor like I feel like that's played more like a teenager like right because Neil Patrick Harris played that role yeah it's usually
[01:11:44] it's usually a young you know youngish looking but older person like a tenor and this is it's great making it a child makes it all the more disturbing and I love it when you leave the bottle I'm a drunk kid it makes those things funnier
[01:12:04] you're a big urchin fan but it's like there's something like a Nate in our like human condition to when you see a kid with dirt on his face who looks sad and it's like it makes those jokes funnier it makes the ending all the more sweetness at her
[01:12:20] and it makes it more frightening and it makes the tension of when he's locked in the basement really like this role I mean that's like something you really kind of gain something that I think doesn't work in making it a film rather than a stage show is
[01:12:36] the second the beggar woman comes on screen you don't have the same sort of license that you have in a stage production where you're like well actors double up on parts the fact that they're not showing her face and you go like well this has to be something
[01:12:48] they're clearly withholding a clear shot of her face for a reason again the other problem of this empty London where she's like the only character because in the production she gets lost and you really don't clock it so much but yeah there's no way not to
[01:13:04] it's theatrical license who knows whatever I felt like she's a fantastic singer and emotionally brings everything she would want to it but yeah it is sort of no not knowing where that's headed it's that sort of basic like film language I literally think the only movie
[01:13:24] where that works is somehow the prestige where for an hour into it you don't really clock that they're not showing you the other guy and he only starts focusing on when he wants you to like figure it out for yourself
[01:13:40] but I feel like any other time in a movie where you give you a close up of a character saying that much dialogue you know something's happening you know that they're withholding something for you deliberately to trick you who else the two young romantic characters they're pretty and
[01:14:00] sing well enough I rewatching this forgot until she comes on screen that it isn't Amanda Safe-Reed because I had somehow combined this and I had between the Sasha Berenko and Helena Bonham Carter and the sort of like kept woman in the ivory tower
[01:14:18] even though Lim is after Sweeney Todd that's what this is making fun that's what Joanna's a good song it's sort of like you're like wait is this a love song or is this frightening but they're fun Jamie Campbell Bauer he's been around
[01:14:32] since right when he was in the Twilight movies he's been in a couple of those big franchises he's got that sort of vampire look he's a handsome vampire he's a drawn Englishman very you know skinny drawn Englishman and yeah it's a very small it's a very intimate movie
[01:14:50] it is and you had done this intimate show but obviously intimacy is way easier to get away with on stage than it is on screen I mean you would think it's easier on screen in some ways it can be because right yeah you can
[01:15:04] but I think if you're not moving around too much it can become very oppressive very fast in a movie I think that's also one of the reasons why I hate all the sweeping CGI town shots not just because I think they are not particularly well executed
[01:15:18] but it feels like you are trying to quote-unquote open this up in a way that's totally unnecessary and works against what should be an asset how intimate it is you should feel sort of bottled within it and every time they cut to the CGI
[01:15:32] like cityscape or the crazy like you know sort of zooms through the city I'm just like you're working against yourself yeah if it was a claustrophobic like you could never get away from you never get any perspective I think that would
[01:15:48] make you even more in the middle of the story well even you look at something like the first Burton Batman where it's like they have this massive city set but you can tell they only could really afford to build this one sort of town square center
[01:16:02] and the fact that the set is that big but you're also so confined to this one area helps add to the menace of the city and this it's like every time they zoom out you deflate the balloon a little bit if you can zip around London that quickly
[01:16:18] it's easy because the thing starts really like clicking in a real high gear there's one for production design one for the Academy Awards Dante Ferretti who's obviously a legendary beautiful but you know you think of Dante Ferretti
[01:16:34] you think of like Gaines and New York you think of these giant sets that he would build out in Rome another movie where like the town square sort of the main area where they meet it helps if you movies like this you just have one giant set
[01:16:46] where you cannot comprehend how big the set is but you also understand where the walls are I'm sort of getting a peeky blinders kind of vibe to this one Penn loves peeky blinders like our peeky blinders all the time have you seen it? it rules
[01:17:02] it's so good so I was just like the whole time I'm like are some peeky boys gonna show are some peeky boys that's like 50 years on I think they're like post World War 1 right the peeky blinders you can pretend this is a prequel to peeky blinders
[01:17:16] that's also Birmingham which is the even like glummer place Birmingham he did it better from the accent you say it won the Oscar the other thing I forgot was only reminded by looking at Wikipedia was that this one best picture and best actor at the Golden Globes
[01:17:34] and I was like why do I have no memory of that happening and it's because it's the strike here this is the writer strike here where the Golden Globes was a news broadcast it was 20 minutes long they had two people and they just in like a
[01:17:48] fucking local news set I forget who it was it was like sub entertainment tonight anchors it was like those types of people you know Billy Bush or whoever going like and the winner is Johnny Depp and then they just play a clip and there were no acceptance speeches
[01:18:00] of course not they barely read the nominees I think they just read the winners it was like 45 minutes long I remember watching it sadly in my college dorm room where you had only like the college cable I bought a little TV
[01:18:16] they did it in my college dorm room Jackie Wasserstein from down the hall was the host it was this very surprising here because Mad Men was in its first season and was still this sort of like critical favorite that was on a weird channel no one watched
[01:18:32] and it won the globe and John Ham won Best Actor and it was just sort of like in the list and people were like wow that would have been a big deal if this was a everybody knew about it every shocking win failed to make any imprint
[01:18:44] because there were no acceptance speeches which you realize are what make those awards mean something there's always something they're always trying to cut down shorter shorter shorter right but it's like the greatest illustration of like if you don't see what winning the award
[01:18:58] means to the person the award kind of means nothing to the public and you just imagine how weird it is for Johnny Depp to just like get FedExed in the mail like because you imagine he probably wasn't watching that broadcast and then just shows up
[01:19:10] on his doorstep and he's like I guess so I want a globe is your globe for best comedy for best comedy it was best comedy but you know I am glad for its existence if only because you know somebody like you who's never seen it before
[01:19:29] like your introduction to it and you're still getting Sweeney Todd you're still getting so I'm happy that it exists for you know for Sondheim and for people to discover it and you know and certainly has had a lot to do with the estimation of the piece itself
[01:19:49] yes I think so and it helps culturally it helps people who might not have ever heard of it discovered or might not have ever seen and then maybe you can then go and listen to the original cast recording or your cast recording or anything like that
[01:20:01] it also feels to me like it doesn't feel like culturally this holds the place of oh this is the definitive Sweeney Todd movie certainly not or that it was so disastrous that no one wants to touch it again I think because of how specific
[01:20:17] Burton is and the two actors he used at the time and how much it takes place in his own little hermetic like career it almost stands outside right where it's just like that's his Sweeney Todd yeah maybe 15 years from now someone else
[01:20:29] is going to do a more traditional version or a more untraditional version or whatever it is it doesn't feel like he's sort of taken the one shot that someone had to make this movie I would not I would be surprised if there
[01:20:43] is not a new Sweeney Todd film within the next decade or so it just feels like it will probably happen at some I suppose there's only a the only other film adaptation is into the woods really just so bizarre which was a big hit
[01:20:55] this was not a sort of medium a very big hit that like kind of doesn't exist yeah that one kind of doesn't and feels like another movie where I sort of forgot all the purists were like they're going to fuck it up
[01:21:05] they're going to fuck it up and then it came out and people were largely kind of indifferent to it I saw that you did yeah when I was very young and oh you mean you saw like this show yeah sure sure and it left a real lasting
[01:21:17] impression well it's a great show right and it was if you remember the set it was huge yes and that I think was like a real you're talking about the Broadway yeah yeah the giant boy huge and I remember being kid like I like
[01:21:31] right I saw it with Vanessa Williams oh yeah that makes the revival of it that was the revival right yeah I mean it's so wild that show is done so much yeah that's like done in high schools right they usually only do the first half right
[01:21:45] yeah there's no I think it's just you just make the wolf a little less I think there is a version like a young people there is a young just the first half because I think that one gets dark because it gets dark yes it does yeah certainly
[01:21:59] but I think that was everyone's fear going into the Disney film was like well that's totally what Disney's gonna do and then they adapted the whole show and it kind of just doesn't work but in a way that no one could really get
[01:22:09] angry about like it's just sort of like well that thing just kind of lays there it's just kind of there they do yeah it's very wrote they sort of they stage the songs yeah it's okay everyone can sing kind of you know a room to mine
[01:22:23] like that is a little passion that's an example of a movie where it feels a little claustrophobic where the amount of time they spend in a bad way somehow the the woods set which is big makes the world feel too small you know or maybe it's the sets
[01:22:39] outside of the woods I don't know what it is but there's something about that movie that costs like fucking 80 million dollars and still feels really small and hermetic in a way that doesn't help it like everyone's good in it like it's like a weird you know
[01:22:53] I have to see how it's going Chris Pine and Billy Magnuson doing the agony is very funny it has moments that are great Emily Blunt's great in it she's talented actually alright let's play the box office game okay I still I mean you still like it?
[01:23:11] no no I still like it but the other thing I was going to say is you know people how few sound time adaptations we get how sort of sacred those texts seem to be how afraid people are to try to bring them to screen I so badly
[01:23:25] wish someone had the courage to try to do assassins which is a tricky one because it is very sort of its whole conception that it doesn't take place in a tangible reality but I think there's a way that's what I think I mean so many of them company
[01:23:41] could be a really interesting small scale like Mike Leish kind of musical there are ways to get creative with his shows Folly's seems like designed to be a film Folly's is the one that would be easiest I think and this new company that I saw in London
[01:23:57] there's another one here I think it's a fiasco theater company I think is doing a roundabout somebody was just telling me it's a great no no sorry merely we were along oh yeah right no that's yes that's being staged here right now
[01:24:09] that's in Lady Bird so I feel like that's been handled that's the show they're doing they didn't understand it that's what he says you know that Mark Kudish is on season 2 of the tech I heard so I have this I've repeated it to everyone who has the power
[01:24:27] to make these decisions but I'm like if we get a season 3, if we keep going every season we gotta get someone from the Broadway musical 2003-2004 production right I'm like literally we're just working with the assassins and Deniso Herr would be perfect
[01:24:43] Becky and Baker are like great people right let's get them all in there yeah sure Patrick Harris could play a chair face chip and they'll love it leading up to the musical tech episode exactly yeah that would be good
[01:24:57] I am kind of the only person in the cast who can't sing right but then it would be like Buffy the Buffy musical episode where Buffy doesn't sing too much right you cut around me no no it's Willow who can't sing I would certainly commit
[01:25:11] Griffin has plenty of shame what are you talking about he just weaponizes it I weaponize my shame I make it seem like a choice exactly but Valerie is a great singer Peter seems like a big guy who'd be a great singer those English people also
[01:25:27] they are always like five tool talents secretly where they're like oh I can fence and dance what are you talking about I had to do it for my O level Peter does this crazy thing where the hours on the show are so difficult such a physically demanding
[01:25:41] thing there's so much verbal dexterity that he has to apply for that character and he'll stay up until like three o'clock in the morning every night being like can I play something I worked on last night I just thought I had this idea
[01:25:53] I thought it was funny and I stayed up working on it and it's either like a video where he'll cut something together and redub the people or whatever or he'll write song parodies like weird Al Jankovic style yeah but he'll do them in perfect impressions of the people
[01:26:07] so he's done like Beatles songs where he just like you know the beginning of day in the life where it's like get up, get out of bed he does a version of the song where it never gets out of that period and Paul McCartney just keeps
[01:26:19] describing every single thing that he did that morning and he like played it for me I was like why did you do this and he was like I don't know I just thought it was funny but it's his personality right and then you like go wait a second
[01:26:31] you're like singing really well as Paul McCartney he's done the same thing with Bowie like he does like a perfect Bowie sure do a musical episode Scott and Brennan are both great singers get Sondheim on board yeah we should I bet he would love
[01:26:45] he must love the tick Sondheim doesn't watch the day doesn't like 0% chance okay box office game yeah okay so do you want to explain this game for Michael December 21st 2007 I'm a crazy person and the only thing that sticks in my brain is box office performances
[01:27:03] movies so I try to guess the box office the weekend that the film came out oh actually oh wow this is a good one for you was this it was welcome to join it as well please guest what were we going to say this is literally Christmas
[01:27:17] yeah it's a Christmas weekend it's my it's yeah 21st 25th it's a four day weekend yeah it opened to 13 million dollars and I feel like we need Todd right I feel like four or five were the opening day sure and then it like dropped 70% on
[01:27:31] day two it did pretty well on Christmas I was looking at its daily but but you know it's Christmas people go to the movies they go see sweet right but it opens pretty well it's like open people's throat some some families you know yeah I think
[01:27:43] it was 13 for the four day and then yeah 52 domestic was its final total basically it's budget yeah and 152 worldwide yeah so you know I made okay no one took a bath now number one is a movie we've talked about it's a sequel ok Ben loves it he's pointing
[01:28:01] to and he's pumping his it's a sequel in a franchise that never never got to go any further but it did really well this is the second and last film that's right it could be the last well they could make another one it's been a while
[01:28:15] and Ben loves it and it's from 2007 yeah yeah is it National Treasure Book of Secrets see here he is Nick Loscage's character's name is Ben Benjamin Gates I don't know I think I just remember that because isn't he like supposed to be a great great descendant
[01:28:33] like Benjamin Franklin or something which is really cool right because in families the first one would they steal the constitution no the second one is they steal the book of secrets right fuck I don't know why I haven't seen this I saw the first
[01:28:45] one remember that when they still the constant give a national treasure take Michael I know okay that's fine the second one the big trailer line is we're gonna have to kidnap the president yeah right they kidnapped the president right it was a big hit it did really
[01:28:57] well they didn't make any other fucking rules it's like an example of like easy layup to do a third movie except two things happened one Disney shifted to being like we only want to do movies that make a billion dollars
[01:29:11] if a film makes seven hundred million dollars it's not worth it for us anymore and two is indeed Nicholas Cage like this was the last moment time just sort of caught up there right they were like before we do National Treasure 3 what if we
[01:29:23] do Sorcerer's Apprentice right and they just lost all their goodwill on that one my friend Derek Simon and I we have spent years trying to stealthily do our own sort of real life National Treasure trying to steal the script for National Treasure 3 which exists
[01:29:37] they commissioned it and they wrote it right after this and it just never got off the ground writers or I believe so we have friends who have at different times worked in the Jerry Rock iron productions offices who have stolen pages truly stolen pages
[01:29:51] my friend Derek has two pages framed in his office no I have them save to my phone they're in the cloud like we know the opening two or three pages of this missing it's we're trying to literally trying we're trying to steal the script for National Treasure 3
[01:30:07] okay so that's number one it's a huge Christmas movie I saw it two times in viewers it was the movie my whole family went to see Christmas Day because it was it that was it was that type of movie where it was like everyone can kind of agree
[01:30:19] no one's totally excited except for Griffin right okay number two is a film I saw in theaters kind of a horror movie like very big budget horror movie with a big star really good I've always been very fond of this movie truly hard five comedy points
[01:30:45] this is no ordinary dog not this dog wow it's a song how do I it's a it's a based on a book how do you explain this movie it's scary 2007 I was I was scared was it an Oscar play at all no no
[01:31:05] not at all so it's a pure commercial play totally it was a big Christmas time yes comes out that came out the week before it makes a stopian yeah it's the future comes out like makes two hundred fifty million dollars it makes huge oh
[01:31:17] oh I am legend I am legend will Smith Omega man yeah I mean I feel like you and I share this opinion which is like one of those best performance definitely his best performance he is so incredibly good in
[01:31:29] that yeah and also one of those movies that is so frustratingly close to being a masterpiece it's like it doesn't have a great ending which is sort of its problem and the monsters are really bad they've been shoulded goopy they like that's one of those crazy movies they
[01:31:43] I grew up in Greenwich Village where they filmed all that movie my senior year of high school was every night I would look out my window and watch them filming overnight right and they like in the Washington like square fountain yeah they would have like
[01:32:01] clearly like movement actors and like dancers in white leotards and vampire makeup running and screwing around and I would just like literally like hands on my like you know on my chin look at me like someday I'm gonna be in the pictures
[01:32:17] and then they thought that the vampires look so bad that they like at the last minute CGI'd all of them and they look really bad and really rushed I can't imagine that the practical ones look worse but the stuff that's good in that movie is so fucking good
[01:32:33] and Will Smith rules on that Do you have an eye on Legend Take? I'm just agreeing I remember seeing it and I remember when they were filming it too like Marin Ireland as a friend of mine she like bleeds from the eyes at the fence
[01:32:49] at some point I remember that clearly Alright number three is a children's film that you like to talk about the first in a long running franchise that is not going away And ironically I have only seen two out of the four
[01:33:05] and this isn't one of them? No this is I hate this fucking movie it's out on the trip monks which makes an insane amount of money Yeah, so I surprised hit in 2007 Right the entire like sort of economy of a small country Do you remember the tagline
[01:33:21] for the first movie? No, no, it's really specific You only would have done this tagline right about now Here comes trouble? The original entourage in like sort of the font of entourage I also remember the poster like they all had like bucket hats and sunglasses on
[01:33:39] They're like hoodies up and they're like cool There was a poster that was Jason Lee just leaning into a white negative space like a void of humanity and the three chipmunks are there and the tagline was just here comes trouble That's right, that's this one here
[01:33:57] Here comes trouble and they're all dressed in their sort of entourage adjacent wardrobes One of them's got a bucket hat I did not know that the film was being made and I went to see a movie with my friends that summer and we walked by that poster
[01:34:11] and stopped and just stared at it for five minutes The original entourage we just looked at it and went here comes trouble I think Theodore Yeah, he's little I guess he's the little one Right, Simon is E? Obviously Vinny Chase and I don't know Dave Saville
[01:34:33] is Johnny Drama Who's Ari? Fuck, in the first one Oh no, it is David Cross plays their shifty agent Those three films are all about David Cross trying to get the better of those chipmunks and one of those things where he signed a three picture deal
[01:34:53] because he was like, you're not going to make a fucking sequel I want to buy a weekend house in the world I want to load a squeakle Just let me do the first movie and get out of it and by two and three
[01:35:03] he would be doing the rounds promoting them and being like, I hate these producers I hate them on a personal level I didn't want to be in this movie Right into me? Right A terrible franchise Number five is Swinney Todd So number four How do I describe it?
[01:35:23] It's a true story Legendary director legendary screenwriter Charlie Wilson's War Mike Nichols Aaron Swerkin Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman and it's like one of those like you wouldn't believe it but this congressman sold guns to Afghanistan It's sort of like
[01:35:47] Is that something we need to re-examine now? Nope! It's a movie that ends the final minute is them being like and actually, this is serious and you're like, it is and they're like, yeah, I think so Anyway roll the credits We are not going to get into it
[01:36:05] It tries to have its cake and eat it too It's gone from lag the dog Very heightened like Washington woulda clown show That's also one of those movies that just has an insanely over-qualified supporting cast of people who are on the verge of becoming major like Emily Blunt
[01:36:21] and Amy Adams in like really nothing roles in the future Right, like Amy Adams plays like his secretary and just takes notes for Tom Hanks in a bunch of scenes and it's like this is the last time Amy Adams isn't Amy Adams with all the weight that implies
[01:36:35] There's one great scene in that movie which is Philip Seymour Hoffman's introduction Which is very funny Where it's him John Slattery and he just does, because Aaron Sorkin wrote that fucking movie too, right? I know, yes! There's one scene of Philip Seymour Hoffman
[01:36:49] doing a five minute Aaron Sorkin monologue to John Slattery that ends with him taking a hammer and breaking his office window that rules. Great! I watch it on YouTube all the time The rest of that movie does not exist and there's one of those movies where
[01:37:03] a year in advance everyone was like well, Oscars are solved It's done, it's locked, they're gonna sweep I mean you would think It was Nichols, Hanks, Roberts, Sorkin One of Nichols' last movies, is it his last movie? I think it's his very last film
[01:37:17] Right, because Closers before that It is, 2004 I think that's his last movie and now do you think it's because my father was a great soda pop maker or do you think it's because I'm a fucking spy Fuck you! That's the Philip Seymour Hoffman
[01:37:31] It's really good to watch it on YouTube He said you fucking child It's a good Philip Seymour Hoffman yells at someone scene You wanna ask those questions? Oh yes, so apologies in advance Michael, because you're a wonderful man You've been very kind to me
[01:37:49] And we've been so close for so long We've been very friendly I will say I was very intimidated when you had gotten cast on the show I was kind of your work But was like, oh fuck That went away as soon as we started working together
[01:38:05] You're famously terrifying I was like, fuck he's like a real actor He's gonna like see through me He'll walk right up to you and be like, excuse me Right, who's the fucking trained dog? Do I have to put peanut butter on my finger in order to trick him?
[01:38:19] Could we put him in a velour tracksuit or something? Yes, and the first day that we worked together were those two days where we were out in the field where it was like 120 degrees going up cars and stuff Right, and you were wearing like a camel skin coat
[01:38:31] That was like Or camel hair Camel flesh hats That would have been a real choice You were wearing this coat and then you had stunt harnesses underneath you and everything And I was in the full costume That was the day that Peter fainted out of dehydration Oh great
[01:38:49] It was like a nuts fucking On the Boy Scout camp in Staten Island Right, and we had like fire and explosive We had our lunch in the Boy Scouts like cafeteria And so you and I met in the tent where we're both sweating
[01:39:05] And it was kind of great because immediately it was like There's no pretense here But David even said to me, not to out you David but you were like, I'm kind of intimidated by Michael coming and he's such a serious actor I just like, I won there
[01:39:19] And I was like, no he's the sweetest guy He's the best, you know he's got no ego whatsoever And you're also just such an incredible artist and so incredible a worker I needed to pre-state all that because you're going to stop being friends with me after this
[01:39:33] So Rachel, or sometimes producer of the show out the window here at the audio film offices You should let her inside at some point Yes, she sometimes She'll pop in and work the ones in Zeroes She and her friend big fans of your work
[01:39:49] big fans of Sweeney Todd And I wrote a series of questions You're cold reading these as far as I know I'm cold reading these So if I can put on my James Lipton hat Please, please Is Mr. Todd here with us today? Can we speak to Mr. Todd?
[01:40:05] I suppose you could Well, not fucking around Okay, question number one Dear Mr. Todd What barber school did you go to? I guess I would say School of Hard Knocks Sure Little Off Fleet Street They have a good theater program too, right? Hotel Administrator I started with shampoo
[01:40:36] Of course Oh that's like 101 Working way up Now this one feels less like an interview question or like a trivia question To what food stuff do you enjoy comparing hair colors and don't worry there are four options B. Sunflower C. Hey D. Wheat
[01:40:58] It's supposed to be D but instead they put a second B in I'll take two B Okay Or not Oh Mr. Todd Ben's very into this Mr. Todd, what rhymes with locksmith? I've been stumped by this for years Next Where did you plan to retire after
[01:41:26] vengeance since you hate London so much? Big black pit Your post vengeance plans? Blackpool Lovely this time of year It's the best place You want to go from a pit to a pool even if both are black Sorry if this is too personal
[01:41:46] Did you and Miss Love It have intercourse? Wow, that's a question I did not write these questions I mean I'll let you speak Could you be more specific? Which Mrs. Love It? Wow I think that let's just say a barber never tells Okay
[01:42:08] A lot of time teaching Anthony the different shades of blonde hair back to the blonde hair But when Anthony gets to the asylum he just points to Joanna and says that one do you regret the time you spent teaching Anthony all of that
[01:42:20] Do you think of that as sort of sunken cost? He's a fucking idiot Yep, sure It feels like these questions are very pointed to try to get specific answers You're kidding me I've managed to do none of them When you return to London
[01:42:36] after 15 years no one recognizes you except Senior Perali What did you do that he remembers you? Or is face blindness limited to the English? After all you did not recognize your own wife that you spent 15 years this feels kind of cinema sensey
[01:42:54] You know I never really looked at her that much when we were together I had changed my hair but I guess the Irish are more perceptive That is sort of the principle your entire life is based around that a hair can really change your man
[01:43:14] modification of a cut Are you sorry that you didn't get to kill Anthony? Well I suppose this is the son I never killed so in that way it's probably a good thing Here's one and I don't know someone else might enter the studio to also answer this question
[01:43:40] Who would win in a fight between John Wilkes Booth and you? Oh my god John Wilkes Booth has a gun Yes I'm forgetting my accents now Wilkesy SIG SEMPA TORANUS That's a big one It's kind of the at last my arm is complete again of his asses
[01:44:04] I can tell you an interesting anecdote about that I always knew it from the recording as at last my arm is complete again which is what Len Karyu sang So when I went to do it the first time when Sondheim was there for a run through
[01:44:22] I did at last my arm is complete again and he said did they change the script? I was like no that's and he says no it should be right arm really? My right arm is complete At last my right arm is complete again meaning like metaphorical and literal
[01:44:40] but Len Karyu was left handed So it was cut for Len Tricky Len and another assassins related one I love doing research for characters especially when you have a real person you can One of the great actors of all times That's what he's mostly remember for
[01:45:02] Yes, exactly up to that point Right There's a book a collection of his letters and stuff so it was really interesting research and I realized that in the Balladier song he says 27 years of age did you do it Johnny? and when I was reading I realized
[01:45:20] actually he was killed he would have been 27 that year but he was killed short of his birthday so he was actually 26 So thinking I was doing him a big favor I go up to Steve and say You know Steve I've been doing a little research
[01:45:36] and he was actually 26 and there was a pause and he said 27 sounds better It's got two syllables What a tragedy that John Wilkes Booth He didn't get to join the Jimi Hendrix Club He could be up there jamming in heaven with Hendrix and Joplin and Cobain
[01:45:56] Maybe that's what Steve wanted to do He was really almost there too looking at him He was like 2 weeks off of his birthday Yeah He was doing some fuzzy math Fair enough I'm going to apologize in advance for this question
[01:46:12] which I want to remind everyone was written by Rachel who usually acts like we are poorly behaved when she appears on this show I just want to remind everyone that she acts like we are immature We got to wrap this up
[01:46:24] There are two questions left they're both quick I think you will not want to answer either one Did you ever eat Mrs. Love It's pies? Also did you ever eat Mrs. Love It's quote unquote pie You should have screened this I didn't know this
[01:46:42] I will say that in our production they were all pantomimed The kind of lungace was I mean there was not even a prop pie for you to eat Final question and another very leading question What did you do with the bones? Carven ice spoon set?
[01:47:00] I started a band and played drums I love a bone drum Absolutely I'm a big fan of bones Let's just drop it No follow up to that Do you have anything people should check out your music if they haven't been Loose cattle is my band
[01:47:24] We've got the few recordings out there on the iTunes Spotify Tour around Their finger on the pulse In New York and New Orleans especially I just finished doing something that I'm still toxic We'll have my tongue removed if I mention it yet Actually probably Don't try anything
[01:47:52] You've done your marvel punch card which you weren't allowed to talk about In fact now I think I can because it's been on Netflix Right, it's been enough time Kevin Feige just walked in He says it's a can of wire We were talking about your marvel
[01:48:08] appearance and how you could come back It's possible The character in the comics does come back as egghead and you know Tick we don't know Toasted You and I have both heard some of the blue sky pitching that they did
[01:48:26] They were ideas for how you could come back That were fantastic It doesn't happen season 2 It's a non-spoiler-spoiler Now you tell me You've been waiting I thought this was like when I was going to find out I can tell you Season 2 we finished filming in July
[01:48:46] and it comes out April 5th We're still waiting for a couple of those final rewrites I think we're still missing some pages on the script That's the timetable we usually work on Yeah, and Gotham is over now so I won't be coming back on that either
[01:49:02] I want you to come back Egghead The first two Ant-Man films have leaned heavily into like sciencey villains and I want the third one to just be like here's a guy with an egg gun I think that's what the franchise has been missing
[01:49:22] It's sort of like superhero surplus culture if we can't get to the point where guys got an egg gun I demand it, I want that Come on, amen 3 Amen and the walls and Egghead We dare you Thank you for being on the show Thanks for having me
[01:49:42] And thank you all for listening And please remember to rate, review, subscribe Thanks to Andrew Guto for his social media Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for our artwork, Layman for our theme song go to Blankies.Reddit.com for some real nerdy shit
[01:49:58] Go to T-Public for some real nerdy shirts and Patreon Become a checkmate Listen to that stuff We're going through the Marvel film so we'll eventually get to Eggman himself And we'll pause the movie and go on a 40 minute Eggman specific And as always You know I had Sweeney
[01:50:22] I had one like 45 minutes ago that I was trying to hold on to The end of this movie pays out like a blood bank Very good, there we go