Jon Chu on Wicked, Silicon Valley, and Defying Hollywood’s Gravity
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Before you were very famous, when you did the day on movies, step ups, step ups, he shows them to me and he said, my son is gonna very famous, that he brought me right over and pictures. Don't you understand how big my son and he goes as biggest chef two, and he refers to himself in the third personal.

Of course, I, I grow up IT at that, but I will always actually be chef two son, everywhere I go. L, A, seven go doesn't matter. I chef two son.

From new york magazine in the box media podcast network. This is on with kerr swisher. And i'm a kerrs switcher with a bad voice, but my guest is a fantastic person, so I hopefully I will drown out the noise of my voice.

My yesterday is john shoe, the director behind the new wicked movie, which we will be in theaters this friday. Wicked is a classic for musical lovers. It's a story about chAllenging power and perceptions that is always relative, especially important.

Today, I ve been waiting for this movie, and let me tell you, I have been very deeply moved by IT. I think it's beautifully dunk is john hue makes beautiful movies. But IT really went well beyond expectations for so many different reasons, including its stars since ia arrival and ariana grand day, they start as alphago the wicket.

Which of the worst if you didn't know and maybe she's not so wicked and ginde the good witch and maybe she's not so good. They are in fact spectacular and their chemistry is off the charts and they sent a really wonderful movie ah and a massive production. The choreography, one is insane, and you did a beautiful job bringing IT to the big screen.

I saw the original musical on broadway with the original cast, and this is really something special. Uh, he creates a specific kind of magic in his films. He did IT with crazy Richard. And another movie I really love and watch over and over again that came out in two thousand eighteen and twenty one, adapting lin man well mandis musical in the heights. Not I didn't like as much, but I was sure beautiful.

And one of the interesting things about Johnny that he grew up and was shape by the tech revolution in silicon valley, parents own chef tues in those altos, one of the best chinese restaurant, the area I have gone there of billion times. And in fact, john talks a lot about IT. In this member of you finder, a member of seeing and being seen, which he co wrote with jerrem and mcCarter.

So we're going to talk about all that, how hollywood silicon valley emerged over the years for Better and worse, and what impact our current political climate could have on john's efforts to expand representation on screen. Let me be clear. There are a lot of wizard ards out there trying to get us witches, and we'll see who wins.

Our expert question this week comes from tony award winning director bart sher, whose currently adopting the musical film law, a land for a broadway and we'll be directing dully partners musical hello, i'm dolly and I absolutely can't wait for either of these. So IT should be fun. Define n gravity with john to even though my voice is probably going to bring me down. Let's get.

John, welcome. Thanks for being on on.

Thank you very much. honor.

Be here with you. I almost went to your dad's restaurant, uh, in silicon valley. I was just there, uh, and I was like, I got to chef choose and ask a question for a son.

You gotta go.

You got to go. They would like to nine times every chinese company that was had coded in silicon valley did their banquet there. So i've been there a million zillion times.

But everybody goes there. Everybody goes there. Your dad is very proud of you.

What did you learn from him? He's an interpreter. Ur, of course, he's surrounded by entrepreneurs and serves entrepreneurs. What did you learn from him?

Yeah, I learned a ton from watching him. Just, just his work. And and that's not just him. Him, in my mom, they built this from nothing one thousand nine sixty nine when they started IT. And that's tough, that the restaurant business is tough.

And and i've watched him work really hard in the kitchen like he if the chef was down, he would get in there and he would get greasy and he had loved IT. IT was like playing music to him back there. He would draw his a, his dishes, his new dishes on a apkon.

So I would watch him draw these dishes, and then he would go make them and get sweet, and then go into the front of the house and wiped itself off. And my mom would be there and they would be greeting um out the customers and they'd be the host of the night and watching that charm, watching them tell stories IT was literally a house of stories is there. And I always watched them go back and forth. And what I realized is when I when I was really drawn to with the guy in the kitchen to me, that that's where he's like, this is where the work actually happens.

IT is like being a director, right? It's putting on a theatrical show for people don't know what chef choses, just it's so far anta tic. It's so over the top equity and a very a classic chinese restaurant but super popular among the value people. So IT is like putting theory and on the yeah .

and even working with the chefs in the bus point in the back and everybody IT was IT was chaos. IT was a pieces in my in my eyes and and he had to maneuvre and get to the vision of what he wanted to do and and IT was I was very rarely glamorous, and I would sit there at the bar doing my homework. And so he was, if he always included us, he always included us in the work itself, telling us what he was doing.

So, but you didn't want to go into IT?

No, I did IT. And not because of anything other than I think my my parents were always like you're doing other things, including my mom, who you know they wanted us to be present in the other states. They wanted us.

They thought we were the asian Kennedy es. They would like dress is up the same. We go to like h adequate classes.

We go to dance classes, we go to musical Opera, ballet in the city. We had season tickets. And so they really wanted to immerse s in american culture. They didn't not want us to feel. I mean, i'm named after a television show Jennifer's, JoNathan, me, my sister Jennifer er jana from heart to heart. So it's crazy yeah ah so media stories, what the american dream was, that's what they wanted to achieve in everything that they did and and they put that on us and not a bad way IT was just that was the dream and and they lived IT every day .

for us so congratulations, you've got two new babies. You miss the red carpet, your me of wicked because your wife was giving birth to your fifth child. Is that correct?

First child .

and i'm the Youngest, seems like a movie moment we rush from the right yeah .

he was crazy. Had had been working three years on wicket so far. And I already had two babies during wicked one. But when I got the job name ruby over the robby slipper's and another one while we were shooting, and so live IT getting all the way to the opening of the premier and were in a hotel room, my whole families has flown in, my wife families flown in. We're looking over the red carpet.

And four in the morning, I get a nudged from my wife and shes like my water broke all days of all that. And so we just left our suits there, left our clothes and went to the hospital. And my family went on the red carpet, which was was very scary for me because i'm usually the one managing how they talk to jeff.

A, ah, so they were off on their own. And a while the movie was a playing, the baby was bored. Little D, V, sky, uh.

you why that name?

Well, I I have some heroes, one of which is Steve jobs, one of which is Steven spielberg, one of which is Steve wonder, Steve nex, and maybe even a little Steven shorts on this round. But I so my wife said he was born on your premiere day. You get your name and well, you have to be OK with this. And I was fine with that. My mom did say that doesn't sound like a present united states president TV and as she's going to be a rockstar mom.

And okay, all right. So when your others to take to give to that that cause so you talk about your love of Steve jobs, I mean, I can see Stephen spielberg, obviously great director. Why Steve jobs, that you have a poster in your bedroom as a kid.

I had every poster in my, my, I had all the think different posters, like all paper on my thing. But but even before in the think different, IT was one. He was our hometown hero.

He was a guy who dream big, and we lived in out and a neighborhood that dreamed big and and valued engineers first. And he was the great story teller of that. He could connected.

I watched every mac world keynote. I would speak out of school and go to heart is go we fu in new york to go see IT. We rarely got actual tickets, but we get close enough. And I just love the way he talked about the tools and the and creativity and almost like he was just let you on a secret, he was never selling anything. And I and I was really drawn to that connection.

And the tools that I actually finally did get my hands on because of customers that should have choose, they would hear my dad story and give us computers, beta computers, was there was sort of the dawn of digital video editing. IT was video cards and think we're coming into play. And so I got this stuff very early, and I saw the power, I felt the power of what that was doing for me. So I just loved to him at somebody who .

did you meet him?

I did. I did. I'd met him.

Tell me about that. I knew him very well.

I'd i've watched all your into I watched all your interviews. I know everything. I've i've seen everything. Um I was a very lucky I I was that the new words um and not because of anything.

A dance company that I had was performing IT I was there early and he rolled in with bob egg into the to the VIP like bar area and I was like, oh my gosh, that Steve jobs, Steve jobs, I can't talk. I want to talk to me here. I thought I know that he probably wouldn't want to talk to me. I guess I wouldn't be able to live with him looking at me like he doesn't want me to be there.

I'm going to avoid that. And he can, he can do that. He could do that.

I know. And my body, who was in a bunch of ipod commercials, like, I don't care. So he went over and talk to him. And as he's talking, he grabbed my ARM and pulls me over so hey Steve, this is john. He really wants to meet you and I like um hi formula to and my family has a restaurant and I really love your stuff and and you really give me the tools and he's like that's quite he's like from us like we're neighbor's yeah say .

all I know chef choose I like yeah Green and he's like.

I think you know these tools really gave me a voice I didn't know what I was going to do. I had but the computers are allowed and now i'm making movies in hollywood and he's like that so great and I said, you know, even your commercial as a montreal, I say every day and I membership ed IT and he sort of leaned in and I was like, oh o okay, here's to the crazy ones, the mr. yeah.

Rebels, the trouble and I start doing IT and he just keeps leaning in every time I stop, like i'm gona stop and and I do the whole thing and by the end he's saying IT with me wow and he was the most amazing and he shook my hand. He said, thank you, john, that means so much. And bob bagger comes around.

He goes, Steve, you this john, he directed our step up movies. You heard of the step up movies in Steve jobs like, no and that. But laurin came over and she's like, our daughters love those movies and I was say yes and and then I left him a lot.

The first line of your member was, I grew up in the future, and as you said, you grew up in those altos. For people who don't know, it's a dead center of a silicon valley, one of the town's palo alto, los altos. And as they said, your parents have the the restaurant there.

You just talked about how IT shaped you as a filmmaker that you use these tools. Um you are also attacking a drama kid. You took tap dancing twelve years immersed in the theater.

Talk about these two twin things and how they fit together. I think very few filmmakers have a technology love. They just sort of accept IT. I mean, obviously you're all in IT now.

yeah. I think I think technology IT just was a lifestyle like growing up that was that was what you did. And there was new things all the time and change was just Normal.

And in fact, IT was encouraged. And and so for me, I always opened up a new window. So there was always discovering and with the camera itself um that technology was changing so fast because I did not have access to all this stuff.

So right, a film developing separate film was fit. You had to pay money. You had to get the thing. I had to have lights that was just not accessible, but that people at the restaurant would give me these cameras, these digital cameras, that three, twenty by two, forty six, forty five, four, eighty was like the big thing. And but IT IT gave me a leg up on all the people that, and I was Young, I was like.

Ten twelve years old um and and so those I made I already understood the power of technology or the accessibility that I gave me in the advantage that gave me even in school, I convince my teachers to not write papers but to make videos and and watching people react to what I was doing felt like I could be heard for the first time. And I so those two things were never separate, and I learned a lot of lessons doing that. By time I went to U.

S. They were not fully digital. I've got to learn film. I got to use sixteen millimeters on a flat bed with placing. And I finally understood like, oh, a real bin is like a place where you put the frames of the thing that actually flies, that you actually cut something in. And so I I was sort of on the edge of the digital takeover um and through my years of a film school, by the end IT was all digital. The beginning IT wasn't so .

but you started out as a tech enthusiast but your member seems you become more of a tech skep tech myself also throughout your career most like as i've gotten to know that I miss Steve jobs terribly, I have to say, and his spirit, at least in terms of the mentality, especially when IT comes, the idea that hollywood would you mean more like silicon valley? Um talk about when that happened for you. To me the death atif jobs was a very big moment. I remember IT to this day, but IT switch from think different to move fast and break things, which you know when I pay a lot of attention to words obviously talk a little bit about that shift for you.

Well, I remember the day Steve passed as well. I was shooting, I was shooting ji jo, and I was working with some actors, and I was a hard day. And my sister came in, whispered to me that he had passed and everything went away, that I excuse myself to the bathroom, and I just went on the floor. I met that guy once, but his effect army was so was so deep, because I think even his ideas, he he gave all the employees, he, he was changing the campaign, the thick, different, he give this book that had these poems of each of his heroes.

He said in that in the intro of like that is, say, about your purpose and about the soul of a company or not, just selling computer is, of course, we'll do the fastest computers and but like it's about what you're doing IT for and and that's the philosophy that I grew up in, that the physical that I loved. And honestly, I do believe that that is still true. I think it's more when the silicon valley mentality came to hollywood, I was all for IT.

It's digital. When I went there, he was film, film, film. Nothing will replace film.

I was like, you guys are idiots. It'll change. So so you could see IT coming in every time silk valley was right. And I guess I ve got more skeptical only more recently when they shifted from, uh, inspiration to data. Know you, hollywood used to be run by mavericks and artists and yes, it's a business.

But I was like you roll the dice to bet on culture that they are going to discover something new and when IT became about data, IT was like run over by the idea of using stories to just collect uh, your clicks and your attention. And art and stories aren't about your attention. There is a patience to go to a theater and sitting in the dark and not having the control to skip forward. And so that's where IT started to change for me, because everyone's mentality was different about what stories should be told or where the money was going to be told. Because money speaks so much, that is just everything shifted.

Yeah, what was interesting as they resisted IT forever, you know, they did resist IT for far too long and terms of their own updating of them allowed others to take control, one of which was netflix.

And that was was that part of your decision to turn down netflix offer for crazy victims? You took less money to stay and premiere of water brothers um how much money to leave on the table? Now that was a huge box office head IT grows two hundred and forty million dollars or White about that had been your metric for success with your previous films. Talk a little bit about that decision because you are tech forward as A I, but there's something wrong you agree with you. Something went in the calculation.

I think that's where the volt line hit for me. Is that decision because how do you ask me then? And is the argument of netflix, which by the way, I love netflix.

I watch netflix. It's great. It's a different medium though that I think movies are. So when they approached IT was .

I think .

I really thought about what their idea was. You you want everyone to see asian as as lead actors and beautiful, then you have to have as many eyeballs as possible. And we are worldwide and we're day and date, and everyone will see you on the same day and get IT for free or get IT for their subsequent tion.

But that is what your poses, and we fully that purpose. And I think what hit me was, yes, but and I talked about this with Kevin coon. The author was its movies, though, are in this.

It's like a museum, and people pay money to go see. The museum is the best of the best. And you go there and you get people's attention and the deal with the audience is different, the value is different. They're going to pay you money to sit in the dark and let you take that on a ride and they cannot leave. And that takes and someone's gonna pay hundreds of millions dollars or millions of dollars to market these things to get you to go in that has that part of the story beyond the movie.

And that that's what we were looking for always, is like, when is a giant company going to market movie stars as looking like this, heroes looking like this, and in a streaming platform? Again, this, this is at that time, and maybe shifting, but IT couldn't change culture. IT couldn't.

IT couldn't. In a weird wake, reviewers and pundits could always determine, oh, this movie is good, this movies bad, and and it's going to work. But what an audience can do, that no other thing is they just show up and their vote is in the money.

So movie is like, even open hymir. You're like, did you think open hammer was going to be a billion dollar movie? No, but audiences showed up and prove that, that could be I mean, that's a giant version of that.

But like and there's plenty of other movies that that you just don't think and the audience changes that. So I knew that in the real purpose of crazy actions was to change the habits of the world little bit and see IT differently. And so we took less money and show that we were in very privileged places in our lives where we could do that in the way we saw that as they sign that we had to do that.

Was there a lot of pressure? Not too.

Oh yeah, all the lawyers on that phone call were like because we had five minutes to decide. Everyone put down their offers at the same time, and Warner brothers had actually put less down than they did they're offer than they did the week before because I don't know they're being ask. But but that was hard to swallow.

That was really hard to swallow because I was like, they're gonna win off of, do IT trying to slight us yeah. But I need that thing and we we need to do this is why we're here. So I just think movies, there's a value.

You there someone something I saw, I hate where they're like, hey, you know when and IT comes in and you just think it's drunk value to that. But when a fedex envelope is in the room, that's never left unopened because the packaging is some sort of value that, you know something valuable is inside. So you pay more attention to IT. I really do think that movies have a framework that people pay more attention to and bring IT into their lives.

Now do you think that's true now because nef lix is only gotten bigger, it's lapping everybody else, although disney coming up with streaming is probably the number two player. Um how do you how do you calculate these things now? Uh, you used to have a lot of power production and distribution decisions. How do you think about that now? And I want to ask you about project popcorn and how .

IT impacted you. I I think that eyeballs and views don't um don't equate to attention OK.

I have to think about .

where the audience's position is whenever they're watching a movie or whenever they are watching. If we're doing something for TV, I have to understand like where there where they are so I could meet them there and bringing them in to my world. And I I often think that the in netflix, yes, the movies, the T, V shows are our high quality, great storyteller ers.

Serial storytelling, amazing, are like novels you can get dive into in those that its own medium and and they have some great cultural shifting series. But that's because there are serious, and you live with them for a while in terms of a movie in a two hour movie, I think a two hour movie in a streaming services like nothing, it's like your microwaving, your popcorn. Yeah exactly.

And I and I I see IT because I see IT in the movie theaters. We show wk, I see IT when everyone's cheering at the end in their standing up like that hasn't effect and they want to bring their friends and that takes effort and that becomes a part of their life. I mean, look at the marketing effort in itself that were really sorry about that. It's .

very good. I think it's bad. I think actually brilliant.

And with a streaming service, you just that's just not your business. And so I I think I think is still the same. I just think the quality of all these things are getting Better just in their own islands .

of how they have you consume, entertained. What was your experience within ganimed? The and IT was gonna streamed at the same time at the eta release.

Explain how that hit you. I found out fifty minutes before the world turned out we have been a very close contact with with warm brothers this whole time um of making the movie because we got shut down during coffee. We were in their final mix of IT which means we only had like two months before the movie was coming out.

And so we all got together with lan wa and and the executive and we decided we are going to hold and wait for theatre release until this thing is over. So when when I got the call out of nowhere saying, hey, we just want to let you know it's sort of over our heads. but.

They're doing this thing, releasing all movies on on streaming. There is part of my brain that understood this like I had. We had a conversation and they explain this.

Me of all people understand the situation we're at. We have a movie. This could be another year.

Is this will this movie be relevant in a year? That's a valid question, but they didn't ask us. They just did IT. And I also understand that decision making in terms of they couldn't be the spoke to everybody, but that doesn't take away how that takes away your trust for a studio that you have you've really fought for .

in in work with. This is James at the time.

correct? J, yeah, I never tell me he's a smart Y. I get him. I get him. I understand. I just think that the way they do IT is different when you're working with artists that we're ping our lives into these things and we understand we're not idiots.

We understand we're at and that really hurt me and that really made IT see like, oh, we're they're not in charge anymore. The people that I trust aren't in charge. There's somebody above them that is .

driving this, making the decisions. But how do that the way you make deals with studios? Wicked is, with universal done a langly who was back ble place, I would say, having a proper box office.

We kend release kicking off holiday season. How did IT change? And then I want to get into making a wicked and everything.

yeah, I mean, deal makings all different now. Now you gotta figure out, like, is this streaming is, is now. And you always have to know that there is a possibility whether you think is the art or that they could flip the switch on.

Right now we have like trauma against this thing, and some people don't want to deal with that part of those deals. And so they just take a little bit longer. But places like universal, who uh comcast in that company has a true investment in, uh, theatrical entertainment. I think the people who held on to this idea that you could trickle down in the value of property by presenting the story in movies and continue like I think that philosophy one in the end, i'm not sure, but but there is a sense of like, okay, that actually could exist instead of the way I was six months ago. I was like, oh, theatrical.

totally out that eventually go to peacock, for example. Yes, actually.

actually. And those do their interesting because they can go, people going, they sell, do IT to that in all these places. I think that's the way we're going. But I think people like Donald ingy um understand that and work.

I've known Donald engy for twenty years so a SHE can speak to me in those terms and and not some other not someone who's outside of the story telling business. And especially something like wicked where it's never it's an IP that's never been shot on stage or in in movies or animated. Those are the things i'm drawing to because I knew that we could make impact with this thing and we can make impact at a time that I needed to be told.

It's also a big movie, right? When I interviewed around, like there are going to be movies and then everybody else is going to be on streaming. So let's talk about wicked in ides.

Wicked both musicals crazy Richard ian at a similar over the top magical quality IT really did um and you said you wanted to create a delicious vizard of oz world. Talk about your films. They're connected creatively.

And again, wicked d could have been a different movie, all Green screen, N, C, G, I. But you build a set with a huge sound stage in england. Instead, in your book you said you want to find a about with cutting edge technology and old fashion craft between these things we're just been talking about. Talk a bit about how the how you move forward with these films and at the result in this one.

Well, when I first started in the business, I was doing like dance movies. And I was raised in two worlds. I was raised in silicon on value and came to hollywood and grew up in hollywood.

So I feel like I have a very, uh, good compass of which parts of each world work for what I do. So i'm always, I I will never bet against technology. I in technology, when it's coming IT, there's nothing you can stop.

I save seen IT, I witnessed beautiful things that can come from me. And I think of my first seven movie is that I made, I was sort of, I was really Young, learning how to make movies with a studio, with a giant company. These weren't independent moves or studio movies with franchise and and fan bases.

After I did crazy rituals, which was the one that I I the first time, I right before I figured out that I think I did my ten thousand hours, and I was like, I belong here. So I want to do something that makes me really scared. So I did crazy relations.

And when you witness something like crazy ation, how that can change a landscape and change a group of actors and change how people see lead actors, it's really hard to go back. You realize the power of the demon when that bet pays off, and right in front of your eyes, IT never goes away like, okay, this is where this is. This is the power of movies.

So with in the heights, we tried to do the same. And in wicked, even more so. This is sort of the pinacle of that.

If I thought those three movies as my new sort of view, is my new view trilogy, crazy decision in the hides, its new view of classic stories that sweep you away to other less, but bring you home and and again, redefining what beauty is, what family looks like, what a hero is, what a villain is, and and actually sort of kicks the tire on the american story, the americana thing that my parents grew me up on, which was very helpful. But now for a new generation, that, now that I have kids, may not be as helpful. And what's the new story that amErica is? And so that's what wiki deals with.

It's also perfectly time we'll get that for some reason politically, it's propaganda about misinformation. It's about the other. I'll be back in a minute.

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The dance scenes are amazing reminder sets on the second, especially the one of the library. Um I don't want have too many polish m movies coming to us sitters on friday, but talk about how you correct PH that scene for wicked fans. It's this .

one because when you 点心。

So talk about that scene and for people and he has is beautiful. You can see how much you loved dancing. Yeah, IT is a beautiful element to IT yeah, but it's it's .

called dancing through life. It's fear of the prince, the rebel prince who comes into the school. And he's sort of showing the other students who follow all the rules and follow the story of the wizard.

And she's university, that breaking the rules is kind of funny, sort of loosen them up. This is the beginning of what I call us. So the wakening up of of eyes is, is this place that has the wizard has told the story that you don't have to live in fear, you don't have to confront each other about anything.

Happiness is the number one thing followed the yellow bit road, and there's a wider that will give you your hearts desire. And then this is the first sort of, he comes in here and we have the spinning wheel, this giant spinning will, which sort of takes from like two thousand one, or from a royal wedding or things like that. We try to take images of american cinema, not just american musicals, but american cinema.

and put them in this movie that had a little buzz.

Tell a little bube berkely. There's even eighties, john. Huge thing as you roll into the school, like they are rolling into the parking lot, even E T, at the end with the drums.

So there are all these little pieces, because we are dissecting what the american story is and what that means to us. So in the scene, we have all these answers and and that spinning wheel, I mean, the insurance companies did not want this spinning wheel. And and I took a lot of engineering to build IT, and not just the tech of IT, but also to build IT into A, A, A natural set.

We built set seventeen stages. We built different sets. We built city. We built another land.

We built a sixty IT looks like yeah IT does not look like a and .

don't get me wrong, the effects is in this movie we have flag monkeys, we have animal imm animals. But the the effects people will tell us build as much as you can we with I am and frame store, that if you build as much as we can only make IT Better. And so that was really fun, just like thrown out in a way, when we had talked to universal, we knew we were doing a moonshot.

We're like, we need to define what the movie musical is necessary. Now, yeah, why you can you can only do this in this medium. They would not spend this money in a netflix ting. You couldn't get the scope and netflix ting. And this is, again, nothing against nef lix.

I love netlist. I wouldn't look as beautiful.

You just want shoot, you went go to the moon and that's like, this is a very specific things I I love reminding people. And a not the golden era of hollywood. I've been her Lawrence.

like I had a lot of those elements.

We can still do this. Hands have touched this and painted. All the walls in the dorm are painted, hand painted. It's it's pretty clear with the costumes, the hair and makeup getting three hundred and monkeys inherent makeup in the morning.

And they are arriving at two A M and and I get there six, and you have, you only have a portion of them ready, and each I have to be different. They can be the same. So IT was Normal test by a lot of people. This is this. This was going to.

yes. Then, of course, there's defying gravity. The main song of the show, although I would think there's a couple others I like Better, but is a fan favorite a really crucial scene um and you do IT a little differently. I saw the original broadway production with the denison uh Christian cHennai th um but alph e is flying and singing. Talk about how you did that.

Um yeah defying gravity was probably the hardest thing of IT in my life because IT IT required all departments. IT required our sets. When we're building IT um we had like three different sections. We had the the actual bottom of the staircase spitting up. We had the top, and then we had to have another top for the outside because we need a room for her, the rigging, because he was actually going to be of flown around and singing live. So you can't do this if you don't have since the arrival, right?

You say even a few over little later just for people .

know I know you can even do as back of options. I think, hey know we're going to be throwing wind at you like if you I want to just lip sink to change that. I can't I can't. So we spitting her asha to train for a year to learn how to do this stance on her own um and that's with visual effects, that's with costumes because her cape plays a big role in this.

Um and this is a huge emotional court to this because that you have to be as intimate as when he says come with me and blindness looking at her and without words is saying I can't and their silence in this. So as big as the number gets, we had to be very focused on what story we telling and that intimate story of the separation of these two. And because the end of the movie IT has to be emotionally satisfying.

has to be the thing.

yes, yes, but that we had to make you feel like this was the end of the movie. So if you don't know anything about wicket, I think you feel that always are in ten to feel emotionally satisfied that we are waiting for. And there's even her falling out the window, which isn't in the show, and that falling out the window is she's to earn her flies so that when he comes down, she's to figure out why she's flying.

And SHE seize her Young herself and SHE grabbed the room and he goes up. So when he says it's me, SHE really means it's me. It's just taking the words that we've heard over and over again and giving them real purpose and witnessing and living with that purpose so that the words become even stronger and we see in new ways.

Yeah, it's interesting also. She's the, she's the dead center. H I up thinking is always on a grand, is stealing this movie.

And then I realized, no, they are so critical together. The chemistry between them, it's really astonishing. Chemistry by the chemistry .

read between the two of them. We did. Chemistry is with them, with other people, and we never pays them, because I never thought they would pair. But when I realized that he was collided, that and he was alphabet, no question.

Then we sort of roll the dice because we knew that they both share this very rare power, their voice, this ability to do something that physically people can do and spiritless they can do. So they share that, but they're very different people on how they see the world. And when they came together, they actually, I think, kind of meeting together and said, let's let's on purpose, make this a beautiful experience. We have heard too many stories. And when you get two devices together, like what happens and and that has been something that we all have trusted.

Yeah, looks like a love fest on the P. R. Or no. So every episode we get a question from an outside expert. Have a listen OK.

Hi john. This is bark cheer. And I may, fellow director and I have a really one key directing question, as you are making wicked, what elements did you plan particular sly for? Did you work incredibly hard to go a certain way? And I ended up exactly the opposite of what you'd hope for, and was IT actually Better in the end? I hope that's okay. It's little monkey. But you know, one director to another.

For those who don't know, I recently interviewed a bar about a his play mickley was directing mcneil. He's executive producer of lincoln center theatre, currently working on the broadway and of the movie musical la land.

Wa, that's great. That's a good question. That's a really good question. That ended up the exact opposite and maybe even Better. I don't know, I got to the exact opposite, but there are areas that I didn't know where we were gone to end up and um how deep but could go.

There's a scene in the oddest ballroom where are the alphago comes in and she's wearing a hat that ginde told her was cool and actually is meant to humility. Her and in the show is this is emotional by the end but it's sort of a silly dance that he does. He does like a witch dance. Yes, because that's the can see of the show and in our movie that this doesn't work SHE even since is like i'm not a joke, i'm not going na come in there.

And when he felt the humiliation, I sent her and Christopher Scott amazing choose, and they worked out like, how does he find her space, her emotional space? And what they found is, as is just these little movements, and it's not a defiant like, and this is who I am and screw you IT was like, instead of the control that she's being asked to have of her emotions SHE surrender to her own powers and SHE just barely is there and she's and and the fact that it's silent, like I didn't think that could survive in this movie, in a movie like this, in the middle of a musical number and the way sync and R I play this, these two women finding each other in this humiliation and being totally vulnerable. And then ginde has to walk in and strip herself of all the things that he holds dear.

And they're both. They're not knowing what to do next. And when their hands touch, SHE offers know her hand out. And they touch to me that was the most beautiful. If like they're going to, she's going to teach her and they going to do this together. And I did not think that we could retain that kind, kind of silence and emotion in this movie for that long in IT really speaks to people.

right? That's something you plant.

not an we didn't plan at first. No, that's for sure is only when we sign and started to get that .

could have gone a number of different ways. So one of the things you also do, because that was a very human moment, right? That was an extraordinary human moment through the one of all these films, the importance of finding and pushing your own identity, which is what you're just talking about there, that has been smooth sAiling.

You said you regretted the depiction of sales and crazy rhegium, and there was criticism after the night that the aro community felt under represented. Have you changed your casting and preproduction process at all to address that? And we get as a very diverse cast, but it's quite effortless actually IT feels like an effortless ly IT doesn't feel like you're i'm seeing and happen if .

that makes sense. Yeah I mean, I think that that was the intent with wicked that IT was that. If you're retelling a timeless story, a story that feels like, I shouted, been there for all these years in hollywood, then IT should feel like all these iconic characters are is just Normalized that the kids in in the school are are all sorts of people and shapes and sizes and and the design is made for that.

That accessibility is just a part of a fanta, A C Y world. We might be the first fantasy movie where we have accessibility rams and suffer characters that exists there. And it's not a really a big part of the story.

It's just these people who live there. And I am really proud that we do that because that takes more thought in design. IT takes breaking out of the mode of thinking and casting.

Let's say, memorable can SHE be Michelle? Yo, a SHE can be and you're not compromising anything. I think that's the main thing is where this is not this is not some exercise to compromise. This is the way the world looks now in these classic fare tales. To actually imbue that is, is something that was very important to me.

Did you learn coming from the previous experience when you thought that that maybe you hadn't done IT? Quite right. yeah.

I mean, in crazy questions for association, it's hard because those are I think I don't know. The argument was like, do you have more south agents in in the scene? Yes, I would have. I didn't know singapore as much as I did eventually when I went in there.

I would have had all a lot more different, uh, people and cultures that were in some of the scenes, and I would have treated some of the characters in there a little different, give a little more human side to. The fact is the book itself doesn't have those characters, are hard to like to create characters out of nowhere. So there are things that are much more hyper aware of that.

I ask more, more questions because sometimes I think it's this blind spots that you just are learning at the same time. And what I really learned was you got to talk to everybody. But but also, like you ve gotta keep going, like if you're on the front lines of the stuff, there are things that are happening all the time that you're learning.

Oh, you call them like next or not like next. That debate was happening even to this day, and I don't still know what to say. And I being aware of, but being aware of that is really important to here in the conversation.

Thank you. Yeah but so those of things are are hard. But I but that's what I made for. I made a decision that if you're going to be on the front tand, you have to be able to take the the bullets and you have to be able to keep going. If you can't, then what you .

were doing? absolutely. So do you did full physical, but you steller still a tech fig. You, you, I read you edited wicked using vision pro, so editing virtual reality, did you really?

I mean, I did IT when I was remote. Yeah when I was wasn't going in because I usually like if I go remote, we made a whole little system at the house. I have all these kids now and and we built this whole system.

But once I got the vision pro, I found IT changed the game for me because I put IT on, I wasn't on a computer with my editor over is somewhere else, which feels very limiting. I don't get interactive with IT, my blood not pumping. But with a vision pro, I could make the screen as big as the room right? And I could walk around and pace the way doing the edit room.

I could lay on the couch the way doing the, and then I could bring IT close. We are doing visual facts on IT, as I could give notes and and use my fingers to like mark things. And this is people in the by area. This is people in london, this is people in canada, and forty people on this. And I on my couch and I can look at IT, what IT looks like twenty five wide, and what I would look like on an ipad.

And I love that. Do you see you doing that more?

I do see that. I mean, listen, being in person, nothing quite beats that yet. But I could see us eventually, if if we could see the same things in the same room.

I look at monitors, physical monitor, ors now, and am I, oh, that's going to go away. That's gonna go away. Yeah, as soon as these things are small and the are in contact land is like physical mother. Why do we even have the space for that? Is crazy.

Don't get yeah am a big proponent of vision for other people aren't like it's the future, doesn't matter directly. It's correct. Yeah so you played around with A A I in the past. I understand that there's no A I and wicked that's correct. How do you envision using A I in movie making?

Well, i'm learning everyday about AI and this is just for creativity like of course, A I and all other walks of lives are much bigger issue is bigger things that it's going to be doing but IT just our business alone. Um it's extremely powerfully. I think it's a new democratization of how you express yourself.

And just like you know, digital video editing or having programs, I can see three studio max or things like that IT. A kid in the bedroom like me would be creating stuff and that would be a medium of of something there. There's no doubt that, that is here.

I think when we think about how to tweet that and we don't know the answers of how you're going to tweet that to make IT, what we are actually thinking is, is really hard. So I I don't know exactly where IT goes. I do know it's really important for us to play with IT and understand IT because if we don't, we are the only ones who know what to protect or not to protect in right in our creative process.

And someone else is going to determine that like they did the last time, if we don't ARM fully immersed in that. So we can't be scared of IT. And this is happening at a rate that is wave faster than anything we've ever seen.

And we've walked we've seen a lot of technology. You know, this is this is the great, this is everything was built for this moment. The internet, the computers of flashy, all that stuff goes away because he was only made for connected connections that are happening right now. Yeah you no matter how many times we repeat that, people don't fully get that. So creativity like one little rock in that and we will figure this out and we put value on what we want to an audience .

ultimately puts value on what we think is valuable and .

be interesting as it's .

getting Better. But you're lean.

you're and when we're designing something, IT takes me two months with artists, a group of artists, to figure out kind of the zone that we're going in the two months to home now that I think we will get those two months out of the system. And I just here's hundred different things here, the five that I really like, let's start here and let's use these artists to start here.

Um I will say that when i'm working with CNN, I for instance, you cannot predict the things that they do in this movie even if you had all the information of what you've done in the past. No no could create the moments that happened, her wink at her when SHE tides, the thing or these are all things that happened in the moment. And that's what we mind in the movie.

Our editor, my current, very good at mining the things that you could not have thought of in your bedroom, you could not have thought of in a meeting, and that is actually the power of movies. And those things will always be sacred red. And I don't know how even make .

sure that back in a minute.

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What does IT look like when a majority of the company's board of directors is made up of women? Well, IT actually looks like alth beauty. Alf beauty is making the best of the accel every eye lip in phase, and they're changing the board game while they do IT out of about forty one hundred U.

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I cannot tell you in the many years i've covered corporate issues how unusual these statics s are. And to point IT out is critical. A company's board should reflect the company's customers.

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It's easy to start there. Visit elf beauty t com backlash change four game to learn more. I. Want to talk about the moment were in obviously, this is premium after the election, unusual timing for you but we can as deeply political messages and they actually dove tail with today.

Um she's obviously pushing back against technica rats who want to spy and control laws more in the middle a surveilLance economy. There's a huge misinformation campaign and you make that rather explicit. They were also, by the way, dreamers protests in the heights, but were obviously in pretty fought political times for immigrants, for women the day after election.

You know everyone was like, are you scared of elan? Must doesn't like, like, care, wish her. But they said, are you scared of him? And I wrote, no, whether or that there is or was, as ever, gonna ing a down.

And I said, and if you want to call us wicked, which is so bad, we look good in Green. And I really didn't feel that I was an important movie to see for me at the time, because what do you think the messages are? Because they do have tail.

You know, you can see elon musk is the wizard, someone who who became mutated in toxic when starting off. delightful. Perhaps he was never delightful.

But yes, jobs was delightful. I just tell you, save jobs would have hated elan mask today. Thank you.

I'm just thank you. One hundred and fifty. I love you. I love you.

I think it's all of us, first of why a old man, a gas lighting a whole nation, that this woman is wicked because she's confronting him about alienating a whole group of people in the society. Like it's pretty clear the issue that didn't exactly happen when we were making this movie or when I was written. Wicket was made in two thousand and two where we're coming out of nine eleven and we're about to go into war to amErica in transition.

Visit of ots came out of when amErica was in transition. Even the movie was made at this time where everything was in transition and and I think alphanet bomb always wanted to make the american fair to help with american parts in which I think he was saying IT was like optimism, self reliance and resilience. And so for me, uh, the real timelessness of IT is that this is something that, as a process that we go through and we get choices, which road are we gonna take? Do we rise, or do we go along with, keep walking on that road? I think we always rise, but we need, we need artists and we need people to then remind us of who we are. And I think, and I, because I grew up in this american feroe myself, I feel very, and having kids now feel very defensive, that these ideas are still on the table, that we do not have to go into a fear mode in order to get something done. And I think that this movie hits on that.

Yeah, I certainly does.

I think it's to be a tics, i'm sorry to tell you, but I think that is trumping of entry chinese sediment during covering before that, to lead attack on asian americans for example of about that in your book are you concerned and again, elon mosques anti immigrant um uh but he has a special relationship with china, largely financial um are you worried about that returning? Do you think about that? You're making crazy regions to, by the way, are developing .

and right.

helping. I read the, but do is that something you were you wrote about in the book itself?

Are you worried about? Yeah, I mean, I didn't think that would exist in my world until I did during coffee. I, I, I was shocking and in a weird way my remember my sister called me and and he was like, do you remember when we were walking across the street from the restaurant and that car pulled over and told us to go back to our country and records and I was like, no.

And he said he kept describing IT. And suddenly I was like, oh yeah, I remember IT. But I laughed that I didn't think he was, that I just thought I was.

These people ridiculous and and they hit me that there were all these moments that actually those things were happening all along, that I just sort ignored and yeah, i'm worried that that because I was just underneath the surface this whole time and seeing this election, you realize, oh yeah, it's all underneath the surface no matter what you have tried to paint over. It's just underneath there. In order to confront IT, we actually have to deal with the ugly parts, right?

That feels both scary and nobody wants to do this even in our movie, you know, we have the song, what is this feeling and it's not loading. We always decided it's not loading IT is you resist the person that's gonna change the rest of your life because nobody wants to change. And I think we have to get ready for the uncomfortable fight and the uncomfortable on the yelling at each other.

We are all roommates. All of us. Technology has made us roommates and we're like, you live here.

Yeah, I live here. You put the dishes away. No, that's what I I leave dishes there. And I think we're growing up in a way that now we have to look at our roommate in the eye and figure out how the buck we're going to live with each other.

right? Wish was charming indian, but only one silicon valley are now entertained more than ever. I was talking to turn a hosey coats about the role of writers and journalists last week, and he said, journalist, you to remember that risk taking is part of a job at the end of your booky, right? Considering what i've seen of silicon valley olly's ood, I don't feel usually optimistic about the future of that relationship.

I can imagine the famous old studios ending up as minor divisions of tech companies. Movies would act as a little bit of sugar to get your data for the benefit of advertisers, not just your credit card number, but your taste, your sense of humor, qualities that lie much closer to your soul. I don't like the look of that future, but IT becomes to pass.

IT becomes more important, not less, than we flood the system with our dreams and visions that we keep telling new stories about who we are and who we want to be. If feels most risky to me, calling out the tech rows, I like IT, and just like I do with all the time, and they do not like criticism. Are you concerned as this moves the kind of films you want to make? Many of the movies have require big cas, big sets, big money. Do you think filmmakers can continue to play a role of truth to power? And do you feel conflicted making sugar like for the state?

Well, um yes, I know. And all those things, I think that the storyteller has a role one hundred percent that we've always had IT. IT is what people need leadership.

People need something to head war. They need to horizon line. It's why people go to strong men is because when things are are not known, they they go to the person that's taking the lead.

And we need visionaries wide, wide, and we need those visionaries. Now, i'm selling a movie right now. So of course, it's like, oh yeah, movies 是 movies， movies. But the reality is between you and me and the year, this knows it's like I don't know where movies are going to go, but the number one thing that I always learned was on a storyteller and that storytelling can be done and sound IT can be done in the design of a fort IT can be done in words IT can be done in many different things in podcast.

And I think that um the story teller as as someone who embraces these mediums and owns these mediums and and is able to put in the dreams and hopes and the optimism of what we I think all want this world to stand for, the great experiment to still live. I think that's what we have to flood the gates on. IT may not be movies.

IT may just be the other things yeah but we have to know that that's what we're doing. Be conscious that we are story tells ers and all these mediums and and I believe that that the human spirit will will always live through those things. But we have to be clever.

You still live.

I am that he was .

he was always selling a phone too. I just say, you know, I said my very last question then you have part two weekend coming out. November twenty twenty five.

We talked about the development of crazy reasons to you. Also a musical add, dictation of crazy rotations on stage. Another movie, musical, Joseph, amazing, technically dream code, a doctor sues.

And I made a movie of Britney spears by the mic member, the woman in me. I'm tried to figure how that fits in, but I kind of see IT. Um how do these tie together? What do you want to make next? Because you're a maker and so is Steve jobs. And I really appreciated that about his life because IT was a maker. What do you want to make now, given all these different things.

what is your mood right now? I really appreciate you saying that about Steve, because I I feel that about him. I feel him whispering, make IT, make IT, figure out what next to make IT. And also, you don't have to plan so far ahead either. Like I listen, I always say we can plan as much as we want in this movie, but at some point the movie starts to speak back at us.

And will you Better be listening? Because when you hear IT that you can lean into those things and I am not A, I am not a destination person, there's not one movie that I am dream of making and that maybe we can was a piece of that IT wasn't like, once I make that i've done, I love process and I love starting with the idea, working with people, figuring that out. Interesting that where we're going, we're going to build the thing that we need and love that is precious to us, and I will be precious to others. And so that's what i've focused on, is maybe why I have so much in development because I like, I don't know, I could be this, I could be this. I'm going to work with these amazing people like pathogen paul r, amazing music writers and an Andrew loyd weber and and we will see what feels the right moment .

and what i'm supposed .

to be doing at that time.

It's hard, yes.

when my parents said to me was, you can do anything job because we have a restaurant, you'll never go hungry. We have a house, you'll never go homeless. So any decision you make do IT fearlessly.

And you have the biggest. You think you don't have any advantages. You don't know, people in hollywood, you have the biggest advantage. And I am really is true.

It's really is true. Well, in getting back to your dad when we started. What I think real artist ge, I shaft, anyway, what you've done here is a made of beautiful movie.

I recommend. I have never liked a movie more recently than this one is has a heart. It's really beautiful. Thank you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate IT, and I hope everyone goes and seize this movie and you make as the biddon dollars.

Thank you. And it's an honor to be speaking with.

Don't have to go home and .

at your parent either.

delicious. On with kerrs washers produced by Christian caster rotary welcome jolie Myers make in bernie and kyn lych a shot cura is vox media executive producer of audio special thanks to cake galactic and current rough, our engineers are record and fernando arra and our thi music is bike academics. If you already folding the show, you want to be popular and you are, if not, you are wicked.

But what does that actually mean? You'll find out if you see the movie, go wherever you listen a podcast, search for on with careless wisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to on with cris. Wish her from new york magazine. The box media podcast network and us will be back on monday with more.

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What I like about lingo is the ability to track a lot of different things in your day, whether it's the stress of dropping off your kid or putting too much sugar in your coffee. I do every day, and i'm going to continue to do IT. In any cases, knowing about the effect is really important.

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Hey, it's slim from decoder with new ipad top. We spent a lot of time talking about some of the most important people in taking business about what they're putting resources to and why they think it's so critical for the future. That's why we're doing this special series diving into summer, the most unique ways companies are spending money today.

For instance, what does that mean to start buying and using A I at work? How much is that costing companies? What products are they buy? And most importantly, what are they doing with IT and of course, podcasts? Yes, the thing you listening to right now, well, it's increasingly being produced directly by companies like venture capital firms, investment funds and a new crop of creators who one day want to be investors themselves.

And what is actually going on with these acquisitions this year, especially in the A I space, why are so many big players in tech and not to acquire and instead license tech and hire away cofounder? The answer, IT turns out, is a lot more complicated than that seems you'll hear all that and more this month. I'm decoder with your life by tell presented by strike. You can listen to decoder whatever you get your podcast.