The Worst Idea Of All Time - CATS (2019) DirCom

Episode Date: February 21, 2022

Join this special Director's Commentary with SIR Andrew Lloyd Webber and visionary director Tom Hooper. There is simply so much to unpack from this cultural juggernaut bringing together to twin infallible (and ineffable?) worlds of confusing musicals and CGI-heavy film-making. Hold on to your Jellicle butts because we're going up, up, up to the Heaviside Layer. Together.TWIOAT Twitter / Instagram / Facebook / Website / PatreonGUY Twitter / Instagram / Facebook / WebsiteTIM Twitter / Instagram / Facebook / Website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Please begin your copy of Cats in 3, 2, 1, meow. Hello everybody, welcome to this Director's Commentary special presentation. A format which, for some of our listeners, will not even make sense. Back in the day, there used to be these things called DVDs, and on those DVDs, sometimes you would find a talk-along to the movie, which was conducted by the director and maybe some other key members of the cast and crew.

In this case, for Cats 2019, you are joined by myself, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber. And there's a lot of commotion going on here in the voicing booth as I'm joined by director, visionary, filmmaker extraordinaire, Tom Hooper. Well, thank you so much, Andrew. And it's a delight to be revisiting my greatest accomplishment, 2019's blockbuster smash hit, Cats, based on your own musical, which in turn was based on the poems of T.S. Eliot.

We've got this beautiful opening shot here, which is a showcase of what we really brought to the vision of CGI plus real shit plus confusing scale of cats. That was the first thing we wanted to emphasize, is what size is anything in this world? And I think we achieved that. Sometimes the cats are big, sometimes the cats are big sometimes the cats are small the important thing is that um we downloaded the cheapest sort of audio or

musical creation software available to uh play this music line through yes i had a music supervisor role on this and uh i didn't actually think this would make it in the final cut we were using a trial edition of a synth pack that someone had got off limewire and it sounded wretched but i thought it'd be quite funny to just say yeah you know it's great and then it wound up in the damn picture didn't it what we wanted to do andrew was bury the lead we knew we had a fantastic movie on our hands and to distract from that we wanted to start the movie you know wrong footing the audience we don't know what size the cats are we don't know the quality of the music i will say this it doesn't matter what you do to my music it still fucking

slaps you can play it through a dog shit Casio tone. It doesn't matter. A tune is a tune. Wow, that was, and we'll get to this, but obviously we're, of course, meeting the iconic Grizabella. This is a huge moment for, I mean, for everyone, everyone in the cinema, everyone at home, all of the actors. We're about to have the first words uttered in the film.

And I distinctly remember when the film was released, this was the moment when I thought to myself, what the hell have we made? This was the first moment when it really all came together. We are seeing human faces superimposed on confusingly scaled biped cat bodies. The scale is disorienting. The visuals are insane. The sound of it doesn't make sense to me. So here's something that...

It's acoustically confusing. Andrew, one of the most powerful moments I've had in my life was sitting in a... I can't actually remember the name of the theater, but I watched your presentation of Cats in 1982. West End? Broadway? One of the two. Or was it one of the international offshoots? My main sort of lasting memory was what in Christ's name is going on here. I was overwhelmed. Sure. And I wanted to recreate that experience for cinema guys of the 21st century. It's hard to recapture that feeling,

such as I am a multi-multi-millionaire landowner who has access to the most fantastic drugs in the world and a cursory interest in poetry. And you combine those two things yeah you get a stage version of this and then i give it to tom hooper and he makes this yeah say what you will about it and people have been pretty scathing i would describe this as a kaleidoscope of what the fuck moments i think it's going to be largely impossible to completely refrain from certain sing-along portions as well.

So I hope you join me for that, Tom. Because I don't care if I wrote the songs. They rock. They absolutely rock. Now this is the first moment, in my opinion opinion when the audience probably start tapping their toes and thinking i'm in for a good time here this this is you're right this is the turning moment this is we've finally released the idea that this movie doesn't know what it is and we're saying it does know what it is and it is deeply confusing that shot right there sorry just to interrupt you

tom i mean what what in god's name were you thinking we get this bird's eye view and we thought these cats were sort of cat sized but now they look like they're the size of mice yeah so that's a it's a great point and we pretty much shot four versions of this movie with every single different scale. Okay. So we had the cats as cats, the cats as humans, the cats as mice, and then the cats as something even bigger than humans.

And when we were formatting all of the files and screwing them away, they were all incorrectly labeled. And so what was going to be, you know, one consistent decision throughout the whole movie wound up incorporating all four different sizes into the one film. And that was just a basic labeling and formatting error.

It makes it a real feast for the mind. That's right. There is not just a feast for the eyes and the visuals and a feast for the ears and the music, but there's a feast for the mind and trying to keep track of what's happening. That was an accident, but also I feel like that was in honor

of the confusion I experienced when I first saw this on the stage, representing that for the audience at home. Now we've just had our introduction of Idris Elba as Macavity, which I thought was a stroke of casting genius. Yeah. That what was improvised by the way

is that right there wasn't on the page yeah that was his first time seeing everyone else in costume so that was a genuine response that we captured you just told him run to roll cameras roll sound yeah i want to see how he reacts to this we didn't rehearse this at all so everyone who sees a different character on screen that's the first time they're seeing them so what you'll see is when we introduce new characters, a lot of them are overwhelmed, confused. Some of them are disappointed. You can see some of them taking out their phones

to call their managers. And we edited out all the phones because we didn't want to break the world of the movie. And cats don't have phones. Cats don't have phones. That was one of the rules you wanted to make. That was a rule, yeah. That was a rule on set and in the movie. Cats don't have phones. That was one of the rules you wanted to make for this. That was a rule, yeah. That was a rule on set and in the

movie. Cats don't have phones. I remember us doing a season in the West End where we gave them phones just for one run. What kind of phones? Nokia 2280s. Oh, wow. Yeah. It was in 2003 and the audience

didn't take to it, but I thought it would be nice to put a modern spin. I think I read a review about that one because you gave them phones, but you said cats can't answer phones. And then throughout the show, you'd ring all the phones. I wanted to see.

Kick off and you're ringing phones. I wanted to test our actors who we had on the West End. Can you be a cat with a phone that can't answer a phone you don't have thumbs? The answer is yes. Does that make a good show? For some people, yes. For others, no.

Now I want to clear something up right at the outset. I made a lot of calls and money moves to get Idris Elba in this film. And that was appreciated. Is he an incredibly sexy man? Yes he is. Was that part of my decision making process? Absolutely not I said we'll have Idris Alba only if we can see him stark naked without a

cock Yeah that was your note on my initial suggestion which is we need to see Idris Elba stuck fucking naked. Yeah. And then you said, what if he didn't have a cock? And I said, unacceptable. We need him to feel naked.

Even though most cats are naked, because he wears a coat, when we see the coat taken off, he really feels naked. And that's what I'm going to look forward to later in the film. That was the middle ground that we settled on. That's right. Where you said, what about this? A mound. So it appears that he is naked. middle ground that we settled on that's right where you said what about this a mound so it

appears that he is naked if he didn't have a cock this is what yeah he would look like sort of like the mound tells you that we know genitalia exists but we've chosen not to represent them in graphic detail along with uh anuses now which i didn't expect to be one of the social media moments of the release of this film but the editing out of the buttholes from cats yeah i mean it cost a lot of money and a lot of people were baying for it yeah it's frustrating isn't it when you spend a lot of time and a lot of money editing all of the cats assholes out of the film and then as soon as people realize you've done that all they want to see is the cut of the film with the assholes. Actually, I'm just writing a new song now. This is what I do.

I write what I see. I write what is going on. They're baying for blood. They're baying for assholes. That's great. These people online, they want to see assholes. They're assholes online who want to see assholes. That's nice.

It's honestly such a delight to be experiencing this with you, Andrew. Obviously, you're hugely responsible for so much of what's on the screen. Yes, well, I hated the film. Thank you. And still do in a lot of ways. The bits that I get caught up in are my music, my songs, great decisions that I've made. I will give it to you though.

This shot here, quite beautiful. I like the lighting, the blue and the purple that's coming through the sky. It gives it quite a scary, a Ghostbusters feel to it. You know,

when the heavens open up and Zool comes down and the gatekeeper and the key master have found each other atop the, I think it's the Empire State Building. It sort of reminds me of that.

I'm a big Ghostbusters fan. I cannot emphasize to you, Andrew, how hard this movie was to shoot. Tell me a bit about that. It was all done on green screen. Everything you see is CGI. And basically, I refused to share my vision for the set with any of the designers, any of the actors. And so I was getting them to interact with, you know, what they saw.

In a green curtain. Yes. And that didn't always sync up with what I knew would be there. Yeah. But you didn't think it was your place to tell them? No, no, no. It was very important to me that that information was kept private during the production.

And this was so frustrating for the actors. They were becoming furious. And that in turn would make me really cross. But there was just no way around it. This is how I wanted to make the movie, and so that's what we did. But, you know, if you can imagine tension on set from the very first, that's the sort of thing we're talking about here. And these are not amateur actors that you've got here.

These are demanding actors of great repute. I mean, Jason Derulo is in this film. I couldn't believe the cast we got together. We've got Oscar-nominated actors, not performances. Must make that very clear. We're just meeting Mr. Mistoffelees. Of course,

Mr. Mistoffelees. Yeah. So who is the close up magic cat that I created? One of my most beloved creations. You know what people love Tom? What do they love? Close up magic. It's true. You know what else they, Tom? What do they love? Close-up magic.

That's true. You know what else they love? What? Cats. Can I ask you a question, Andrew? Bang them together? And this is something I wasn't sure about for the entirety of production. What is a Jellicle cat? It's a cute little kitty cat.

It's any cat. It's a cute cat. A good-looking cat. Jellicle cat. It's a cute cat. A good looking cat. Jellicle cat. And what's an ugly cat? Oh, it's a hideous, it's a yucky cat. The opposite of a Jellicle cat is a yucky cat. Wow.

A lot of people spend a lot of time trying to figure that out. It was really as simple as what you see. It's so easy. I don't know why people spend so much time on these things. You just write whatever comes into your head. Yeah. People don't understand this concept. You don't know why people spend so much time on these things You just write whatever comes into your head Yeah People don't understand this concept You don't need boundaries or obstacles

Just ref Yeah, vibe it Do you know how much land I own? No, I don't I've got a helicopter You want to know how I got a helicopter? Just fucking write it down Whatever's there, you just write it down

Does this make a lot of sense to you, Tom? I tried to Even at this point You've been with the material for years I tried to make it make sense And that was one of the big challenges Comes into your head, write it down Get someone to produce it, put it on Someone else's issue, I've written it down for you

That is the Andrew Lloyd Webber way Write it down Write it down. Write it down. It's someone else's problem. That's a great. I've done my bit. Okay.

Now this is, again, this was a polarizing performance from Rebel Wilson. I love this. I mean, I love this. So this is one of the few instances where I said, this is set inside of a building. And they said, what kind of building? What sort of room? I said, that's for you to think and me to know. And they said, well, if you know, can you tell us? And I said, no, that's not how we're doing this.

I guess upon revisiting, I've only seen this movie, this is my second time. I saw it once at the launch event. Big red curtain. That was an awkward day, wasn't it? My God. Everyone knew, Tom. Everyone knew what was happening.

From that first note, I mean, you could hear a pin drop in the cinema. Yeah, it's incredible to silence a room. And it's interesting the shades of silence there are, isn't it? And there was a room that came very specifically to enjoy this movie. Well, not all silences are built the same. And obviously opening night for anyone is a very tense moment. It's very nerve-wracking.

And if you're doing a stage show, that's a different kind of nerves because you can conquer those and you can sweep people up in the energy of performance. But when you're presenting a video that's mixed down, finished. Which I believe you were doing sort of 12 hours before. Yeah, right up to the finish line. Yeah. You were like a high school kid handing in their homework at the very last

minute after getting an extension, after refusing to do the work. And one of the big mistakes I've made, and I'll say it to you, you know, I've said it a thousand times is trying to make sense of the materials. And those last 12 hours were moving a lot of the logic bridges. A lot of the stuff I'd put in to try and,

you know, create some sort of through line or semblance of the logic bridges, a lot of the stuff I'd put in to try and create some sort of through line or semblance of meaning. Had I started doing that a month, two months, six months before then, I feel like I would have presented a much more confident film. Can't win them all, Tom.

No, I did Les Mis. People loved that. Well done, thank you I guess my biggest issue with Jenny Any Dots Is that the movements she's chosen to make This Rebel Wilson person you speak of They're very un-feline Well, this is a deliberate choice by revel in myself

because the song is about a gumby cat i guess they don't call her rebel for nothing truly she is fighting against the material instead of embracing it andrew a gumby cat is a is a slightly uncoordinated sort of house don't tell me like i don't know i wrote the thing because it came into my head so i wrote it down yeah but i think that she's as a slightly uncoordinated sort of house cat. Don't tell me like I don't know. I wrote the thing because it came into my head, so I wrote it down. Yeah, but I think that she's been very faithful to the materials. This is great.

Now, this is a huge reveal. Yes. Now, I did want to ask you about this, and I'm glad we've got the opportunity to be in the same room now she is revealing a beetle tattoo yeah we then pan down to reveal a bunch of cockroaches tom you understand that a beetle is not a cockroach cockroach is just a beetle that's not true that's true so the thing about this is obviously there's a huge amount of now this is a very disorienting okay now that is yeah a legitimately terrifying shot do you want to tell our visually impaired joiners what's just happened rebel wilson who is jenny any dots the gumbie cat in question is just parading around as a cat, normal style.

And you're like, okay, I guess this is what the cat looks like. Fair enough. And after the reveal of the beetle tattoo, as if we don't have enough going on, because all of a sudden with an entirely different anthropomorphic CGI species, Jenny Antidots removes what turned out to be a cat fursuit to unveil her actual body, which is dressed in a sort of can-can dancer outfit. But what has now been revealed to be a suit, which we were told was her skin.

It is her skin. It's the exact same layer underneath the dress. So it's like she's killed another cat that looks like her and made a flesh suit out of them. It's all synthetic. We don't know that, Tom. Well, I didn't think people would get so caught up on it. Sorry.

But we've just been joined by Jason Derulo. And I have to say it like that because I'm a music man. Yeah. It was very difficult to get Jason to perform a song without saying his name beforehand.

Is that right? How much film did you go through to... We spent three days. Really? Just for him to not say, Jason Derulo. That's right. You know, muscle memory is a hell of a thing, Tim.

I guess so. Tom, you're Andrew. I'm not Andrew. I'm Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber. Sorry, Sir. Now, this is one of my least favorite songs in the whole movie. Why didn't you cut it? This movie's two hours long, Tom.

I'm not going to. Give the people what they want. People want... My ideas that I've thought of and written down and given to piano men to turn into beautiful compositions. People want the Rum Tum Tugger. I don't think they wanted this. That's right.

So Mr. Mistoffelees is sort of a Surrogate for my own thoughts Announcing that the Rum Tum Tiger Is a terrible bore True words never spoken It's incredible to think isn't it That I had so much creative direction and control over this Yet I'm still including parts that I don't believe in And you hope that that doesn't show for the critics

Or the people watching along But it's pretty easy to tell It's the inevitable journey of an artist To constantly be wrestling with A certain bravado to bring your work to life in front of an audience. And the crippling self-doubt that what you are making is going to be hated by everyone. Unfortunately, every now and then, the work proves the latter correct. And this was one of those times. You cannot let self-doubt creep in at any point

during a production like this because it will honestly kneecap the entire production now i've heard a lot of rumors because i did refuse to join join you on set uh for the filming of this but i heard a lot of rumors as to how you were keeping those thoughts at bay uh let's just say it sounded like chemicals were involved, Tom? Well, non-prescription, but certainly powerful. Yeah, because what doctor is going to prescribe cocaine?

It's not the 1800s anymore. However, true to form, that's how I wrote most of this. So I feel like we were channeling that same creative white tiger Just riding it for all she was worth Getting on her back, being bucked Trying to figure out how big are these cats Doesn't matter, someone else's problem

It's not important, we'll shoot it four ways and we'll decide in post And sometimes not making a decision is a decision have you seen hamlet that's what the whole thing's about so the inspiration for this was sort of those late 90s early 2000s hip-hop style videos that all look like they were filmed inside of a cheese grater inside of a what cheese grater okay this sort of strikes me as a 1950s american diner sort of oh the the setting is yeah but the visual style and language we wanted for jason was very much in the vein of those uh music videos and of course hip- hop. As I've mentioned earlier,

none of the performers knew that. What do you mean by filmed in a cheese grater? I'm interested in this visual style. It's like, if you take a photo, if you put a camera inside of a cheese grater, it sort of looks like this endless metal room with interesting steel walls.

Like a lot of chrome. Yeah. I'll show you after we i'll show you after we record okay and i think you'll understand what i mean then as it was that your approach to this movie as well you're like i've got an idea i'll have to tell you about it after you've seen the movie but just just watch it i'll have a chat to you afterwards and it'll i didn't want to share the particulars of my vision with the actors because I didn't want their creative input to dilute

my creative vision and basically I shut myself off from everyone, I wouldn't actually physically be represented on set, I had two way glass all around the green screen. This is pre-pandemic too, so this has nothing to do with personal safety.

No, no, there were no restrictions at all. And I'd just sort of bark like a dog, the enemy of the cat. I would bark my directions at the performers. I've got a lot of respect for that. We're at a pivotal point in the story now where we've met the Rum Tum Tugger, which is a real building block for story now where we've met the Rum Tum Tugger, which is a real building block for the adventure that we're on. But now sadness.

We've had a lot of fun. We've had a lot of dancing, had a lot of revelry. But now it's time to be reminded that things aren't always good when you're a cat. I've just realized I called the lead Grizabella, but I believe that this is Grizabella. Jennifer Hudson is Grizabella. Because they very mournfully call her Grizabella the alley cat, perhaps. It's undeniably a great vocal performer. This is the thing jason derulo is a professional singer yes a lot of the other performers are not professional singers rebel wilson i was

shocked to found out was it was not a singer okay but jennifer hudson brings a level of vocal intensity that while brilliant honestly is misplaced and kind of distracts from the visual style and the language of the film. You're so right about that because I remember seeing this on opening night and this was, we're 20 minutes into the film. It feels like we're in the hot bath, but we've just normalized the temperature enough

to accept our surroundings and context and we have reset where the bar is. And then you bring an incredible performance into the fray just to blow that out of the water and remind us that in fact we're watching something well very bad i mean because greatness is possible the challenge exists in the world here's a taste of it the challenge andrew was getting a professional singer like jennifer hudson to bring the level of you know who's performing an iconic musical role as written by yourself obviously she's got moonlight to look forward to later in the film to try and tell her in that context to perform worse a professional will not respond to that feedback kindly and when you're

communicating exclusively in barks from behind what appears to her to be a mirror, that's going to drive them nuts. And we do get a lot of footage of these cats going absolutely nuts. Hell of a way to make a film, Tom. Was Grizabella

a clammer? Oh, dear. Poor Grizabella. Okay. I thought you were reflecting on what you'd made again. No, no. I'm proud of this.

Are you? Yeah. I'm so enamored and ensconced and immersed in the world I've created that I'm currently feeling deep empathy for grizzabella this shot right here so we've got all of the cats lightly or heavily mocking grizzabella somewhere on that spectrum and the real coming at her is a pack and so we see a lot of grizzabella but then we do an over the shoulder and we see the pack coming towards us. Yes. And there is nothing that has haunted my dreams more than seeing my beautiful stage creation depicted in this manner.

And all of these, this pack of CGI, confusingly sized human cats, eyeballing me advancing every time I shut my eyes. That's all I say. Well, this, this cavalcade of sub par performances, haunting my eyes. That's all I see. Well. This cavalcade of subpar performances haunting my dreams.

You might have picked up the fucking phone once in a while when I was making this, Andrew. I was busy writing the next one, wasn't I? It's called Cats 2. And it picks up exactly where this movie ends. Now, I'd just like to say, working with James Corden was an absolute nightmare. This guy is a real piece of shit. Yeah? Tell me some on-set stories about James Corden.

What was this fellow up to? He was a fellow British entertainer of the highest regard. Deep in character. He wouldn't talk to anyone else on set. Deep in character as himself? Yeah. Or as the cat? It was hard to tell.

All he did was eat sardines and fling cans at other people. That sounds awful. He had a huge warehouse truck filled with tins of sardines that followed him around the set. He brought that himself? Yeah. And he'd just peel open a lid, eat them all in one fell swoop, and then hiff the can at whoever was nearby.

I can see it. You know what I mean? He's wearing it on his performance. Yeah. That is a sardine-laden performance. But do you know what the thing is? I don't like the guy personally, but I feel like he actually turned in a fairly strong performance

as Bustopher Jones. I think you should maybe give a little more credit to the synthesized flutes, because I think that's what's supporting him. They are the scaffolding holding up his performance. It's a general rule of mine that I do not congratulate, accommodate any sort of praise or time for the instrumentalists. I don't respect those who have committed

to learning musical instruments. God, this song just makes it so evident to me that my songs are indestructible. It doesn't matter what you throw at them. You could throw James Corden at one of my songs. It'll still stand up. That's an incredible thing.

That's right. See, what am I even talking about here? Well, you don't want to give yourself too much credit. Remember, T.S. Elliott's responsible for a huge amount of the... His poem made sense. I don't know what I've written. yourself too much credit remember t.s elliott's responsible for a huge amount of the his poem made sense i don't know what i've written cocaine is a hell of a drug andrew you know what's an even more powerful drug millions of dollars and becoming a land baron that's where real creativity kicks in

the kind of creativity that lends you to claim you are a resident of the cayman islands no longer a british subject and i'll tell you why the tax applications are delicious fantastic comic moment from James Corden there After I watched several years worth of his talk show appearances As the host of the late show with James Corden Yes I knew he was a performer to be avoided at all costs But he was insistent and I buckled Not every day that you get a Hollywood D-lister

Bringing their own sardines to the set. Can't bark at that. Well, I mean, you did, but. Oh, he insisted that we had a nut-crushing joke in there. Yeah, it doesn't really. And I knew Jackass Forever was in production. I said, James, that's going to be covered in another film. And he said, people getting hit in the nuts is funny. Again,

it's like the Jennifer Hudson thing. It's you've reminded us that genitals exist in the world. We've just made a decision to not include them in our work. But then, guess what? A nut shot. It's very hard to remain on the film.

Even trying to take the film for what the film is presenting to you. It's hard to remain on the film. Even trying to take the film for what the film is presenting to you. It's like it's mocking you for trying to love it. And I respect the hell out of it, Tom. That was a take where he was chewing sardines. I said, can you get rid of the sardines? He said, absolutely not now this is always an exciting time in the film because you actually got to cover james corden and trash right there were so many i heard about this day

on set the version i heard tom was that every single member of the crew turned up that day whether they were scheduled or not and they were just keen to help out well it was the first day where i actually told people what was going to be on screen and that was because i couldn't hide it this is not cgi trash we built a twoscale tremendous trash can and filled it with two-scale genuine food runoff, scraps. Human effluent. Yeah. And honestly, it stank out the set for the rest of – well, the soundstage, I should say, for the rest of the movie. I mean, it's a legitimate biohazard.

Yeah. But you talk to people who work on the James Corden show, apparently he still emanates the smell that we put on him this very day. Wow. Puss in Spats. It's line deliveries like that that make Idris Elba the hero of this film. Yeah. He's sort of doing his own thing yeah he really is sort of bringing a mcu villain energy yeah to this nightmarish nonsensical world you've invented

i mean god you want to talk scary. We've been introduced to a lot of different concepts so far in our 30-odd minutes of the film. Cats are real. They have big whole lives. They walk on two legs. No one knows how big they are. They're in love with each other.

They dance. They sing. Some of them were glamour pusses and now they're not and also one of them is a fucking dark wizard that's right mungo jerry and rumple teaser these guys it's hard to say what they represent Or what they're meant to do Is it comic relief? It's sort of just fun to have a couple of Outwardly, deliberately, exclusively mischievous figures

After you've just had James Corden on screen For four minutes You need some comic relief That's for sure Yeah, so this is You're really, I mean, this is kind of a... These two cats, to me, Reid, is a sort of Ocean's Eleven flavour

where it's a comedy action doubleheader. Yeah, there's a caperish element to it. Yeah. Really can't place that accent, though. Wow. Sort of like Ireland by way of Ukraine. I insisted that these cats were performed as international students, people who grew up in a wide variety of places and whose accent didn't quite land on any one place of origin.

Right. And so, as always, it's not context provided to the performers. It's not context provided to the audience. It's frustrating for a lot of people, but I know what I'm doing. Okay. You put on your vision board, English is a second language.

Not necessarily. Not even I know what their first language was. Right, okay. So it could be English, but just from somewhere else, maybe. That's right. Maybe they learned on cassettes. I don't know how old these cats are.

Also, what I think people forget during these films, and it's important to remember, humans exist in this world. They do? They're in a human's bedroom right now. It's just a bigger cat's bedroom, I thought. Well, I have also left that deliberately slightly open to interpretation,

but in my mind's eye humans exist when the first thing we see is a human throwing a bag with a cat out of their car when i wrote cats i always thought there was a cat it was just a dressed up bigger cat when i wrote cats in my head there's a world that exists just beyond the stage you know there's all the activity you see happening in front of you from the performers but the wider world of cats exists in a world where there are human type characters but they're just bigger cats and they're sort of in charge these cats are like the rats Of the cat world We've got multiple different kinds of cats That's what I'm saying

So there are Human like figures But they are also cats They're cats They're big human sized cats But you wouldn't say that because humans don't exist in that world You say they're big cats So they're just big cats walking around.

Big cats like lions, tigers, etc. Bigger. Bigger still than big cats. Bigger as a person, if you can believe that. But people don't exist, so that scale's worthless to us. Exactly. So they're big cats. Elephant size, could we say?

I wouldn't say they're as big as an elephant. Do elephants exist in this world? Yeah. Elephants are real. Come on. If we go through the animal kingdom, is it all animals except people? I don't know if I made this super duper clear when the stage show came out, but cats are set in a post-human world. Yeah, the year 2050.

That's quite soon. Yeah. This is just after all the humans have gone. That was me, that dog barking. We took that. That was an offline. I was actually barking at James Corden, who was up to his balls in another tin of sardines.

And we spliced the audio from that, put it into this scene. Nice. James Corden, who was up to his balls in another tin of sardines. And we spliced the audio from that, put it into this scene. Nice. Great offer from you. So those shoes that Mr. Mistoffelees is wearing, in the world of the film, are those for a big cat? A person? They were made for a person, but now they are owned by a big cat because there are no people.

The people have died. They're all dead. Cats is based on a world where 8 billion people have died. Wow. Recently. Okay. But importantly, we gloss over that because it would be distracting from the Meat of the movie It's just not the story I'm telling is it

Well it's a pretty huge thing to inform what you've written That it goes completely unmentioned Or unreferenced I refuse to be given notes By the man who made this film Well I was just doing my best with the materials I was given. And it turns out that me doing my best wasn't perfect.

And I'm sorry for that. Cats is probably the most celebrated musical that has ever graced the stage. It is the longest running show on Broadway. This isn't even the first time someone's made a picture out of it It's just the worst version Agree to disagree Oh now here's a bit of fun This What I heard

Wasn't in the script No It certainly wasn't in the vision of the script that I okayed. But the crew, I heard, was mutinying. And you decided on the fly, what if we chained up James Corden? Basically, he was... Is it irascible, the word I'm looking for? Yes.

He was a menace. He was only meant to be on set for one day. He wasn't going to leave until he'd finished those sardines. He's walking around, eating sardines, flinging the tins around. He's causing a lot of trouble. At some point we had to chain him up. You cannot just chain up James Corden if

it doesn't have a place or context within the film. Otherwise you've taken James Corden prisoner. So we wrote it into the movie what if he's chained up on a boat what if we get just some guy off the street to come and sing a song yeah Yeah. So this is the character Growl Tiger who, depending on how far he can extend his cat's claws, like if we sort of just take relative measures

to how normal cats operate, he has placed a nail into the brain of James Corden's character. He's just given him a cat lobotomy on the fly for informing him That you can't call it the river The river Thames Can you hear the woodwind in the background?

Yeah Do you know what that means? Time for the old jute Judy Dench How did you trick The UK's most precious jewel After Her Majesty the Queen to be involved in this.

She's getting on and basically if you catch her at the right time of the day she'll say yes to anything. Oh really? Yeah. Oh that's sad. Sad?

She turns in one of the performances of her career. Oh I would not agree with that. The great Dame Judi Dench finally in fur representing old Deuteronomy. It's one of those moments that you never thought your life was leading up to until it happens. And rightly so, you built in a lot of build up to this moment. Well, that's right.

I've got to say, quite difficult to do with this moment. Well, that's right. I've got to say, quite difficult to do with this song. Slow, plodding. Languid. Fairly ordinary. Yeah. But we're trying to build tension. Excitement.

Odd Robbie No Nuts, though. I've got to say, for a man I haven't seen at the Flicks before, he does a pretty passable job in this moment. Do you know what? Yeah. He carries himself well. He does.

And I think of all the performers. Yes. He came out of this looking pretty good. Yeah. Hats off to you, Robbie. No nuts. You're a hell of a cat.

But I, I believe that it's his old Deuteronomy. Can it be real? Yes, no, oh my, oh my eyes. My mind may be wandering, but I confess, I believe that it is Dame Judi Dench. Jennifer. Now, Dame Judi Dench is against CGI in all forms. So she spent a huge amount of time in hair and makeup getting that mane put on.

Yeah. These are all very, very high-end prosthetics. You can tell. it just looks better uh we've got a little teaser shot of skimble shanks in the back there as well just to sprinkle a little foreshadowing in nice work tom i have never been as high on cocaine as i was when i was directing the skimble shank sequence i i a lot of the night of opening night of seeing this film before is erased from my memory but i remember the skimble shanks number oh sorry his name judy dench was her first words that's right oh you can hear the years on her can't you well it's not a voice with a lot of

power you would say but that's the magic of the role old deuteronomy is oh that's how i cast it old who's old to my eyes judy dench a match made in heaven nice clue was right there in the name was all right cat maiden pervin yeah yeah we didn't cast Sir Ian McKellen He just follows Dame Judi Dench around everywhere It's crazy He splits his time between following Patrick Stewart and Dame Judi Dench

I've heard he doesn't sleep So he does it in shifts We had to make it work But luckily We had some of the off cuts From Dameame judy dentures quite gorgeous fair coat so we just glued a bunch of that to sir ian mckellen he was quite compliant he said do i get to stick around and i just sort of trail judy around and we said absolutely as long as we can put this these whiskers on you mate just got to glue some of these offcuts to you Sir Ian McKellen and you can tell that he wasn't cast

a fellow knight of the realm and why I ask for his stirring rendition of comic books Magneto he brings disgrace to the whole title of Sir I've always loved Judy's performance

of Jellicle's wash behind their ears. It's sort of high-end. It's sort of... It's campy. It's catch. It's fun. There's a real confidence to it. Yeah, so this is the Jellicle reprise.

These cats are about to go ballistic. According to your vision, where are we right now? Now, as always, important to bear in mind mind these cats didn't know where they were i understand they were in front of a green screen without context the whole time seeing the finished product and i don't know so they're in the ball room of the hms titanic wow yeah not a lot of people know that I haven't said that to anyone before But they are very much on the Titanic right now Like Underwater?

Or this is before it launched? Or is this some sort of haunted version of the ship? This is Before it's launch The day before it's launch Wow I wrote into the musical that Robbie Fairchild wants to fuck the moon

Nice Thank you That is undeniably what I'm seeing and now they all want to fuck the moon Wow, when Robbie does something as Robbie goes so too do the other cats There's that trial version synth pack again It sticks out, doesn't it?

Wow, the thing is we downloaded Someone downloaded the package off LimeWire and we're going to not use it? Yeah, I mean, I was convinced it was just going to take us over and bring a crypto scam or something, shut down operation. That computer still goes very slow. Yeah, a lot of pop-ups. You can see Skimble there in the red pants I'll give you this Tom

It's an incredibly brave move to put Basically A 14 hander interpretive dance In the middle of what was supposed to be A pretty mainstream motion picture That cost 100 million dollars to produce By the time we were filming this scene I think everyone realised that we were in over our heads.

Yeah. You included? Yeah. Basically it was. Much like the Titanic itself. Let's do what we want. Let's have some fun with it. Yeah.

And whatever happens, happens. We go down with the ship. That's right. And in a lot of ways, this movie is like the Titanic, isn't it? This is the. Too big to fail. It's the unsinkable concept. Yeah.

A beloved movie, a cavalcade of stars, an experienced film director who has respect and reverence for the source material. What could go wrong? I'll tell you what could go wrong. A fucking iceberg. Could go wrong. I'll tell you what could go wrong.

A fucking iceberg. In our case, I guess that iceberg would be your talents as a director. Why don't you shut the fuck up? One of the things about this movie is I'd watched the Uncanny Valley Disney remake of The Lion King. Uh-huh. And I found it to be quite disorienting watching a lot of the performances by the actors because their faces were completely buried. They were rendered as pure animals. This pissed me off

so much, by the way. Derulo showed up. He's asking Judi Dench's permission. I'll tell you his permission. He didn't ask to be on set this day. Tom Hooper's. Right. I could not edit this out of the movie but i mean when a breakdown circle yeah forms there's no getting in the way i didn't like him

showing up but he was responsible for this little bit as well and i like what the music's doing here because the everyone's getting slow and low yeah and all of a sudden we're watching a musical there's energy it's like yes we're on Titanic. Yes, we are doomed to sink. But you know what? In this moment, let the band play. Yeah. Let us dance one more number. About half the songs in this movie are up.

They take you up. And when you get a chance to dig into them and inject their energy into the audience, you take it. Yeah, I think that's a really good call. The chorus line on jellicle cats is an undeniable piece of magic oh here are the twins i think you found these guys off tiktok or something yeah i just don't understand why there's only one set of characters wearing sneakers like we've we're introducing sneakers to the...

You're shaking your head at me like it's a stupid thing to even bring up. I'll tell you why those cats are wearing sneakers. Because those twins have super glued those sneakers onto their feet. They were stark naked except for those shoes. We could not scrub them out in post. Oh, shit. That's hard. That's tough tough it's a

wide variety of dance styles on display you've got ballet you've got break you've got contemporary jazz movement going on I also and you can't see them but I put in a few shit dancers just so that everyone's represented on screen you're all shit dancers. What did you say?

Shit. Shit dancers, yeah. Oh. Now, a lot of people on opening night thought this was the end of the movie and started to give this a standing ovation. It wouldn't be a terrible place to wrap it up at 49 minutes. But, oh, how wrong they were. I put in another hour, yeah. nine minutes but um oh how wrong another hour yeah i guess if i was putting this on in its current form as a stage play this would probably i guess be my second act break when we all go and

buy a coca-cola for eight euro the euro of course the currency of all playhouses, theatres that's right you wouldn't know if you hadn't been to the west end but within an ocean of pounds sterling

we've just got this one stretch of the economy that operates on the euro and that is the West End. There we go. And they've all come to the moon. Good comes everyone. Well done cats.

Except old Jute who was in charge of making them all come using the moon. Am I reading that right you got it judy dench does not come on camera and that is an ironclad rule doesn't matter how much you negotiate you got her to do a lot of other stuff yeah i think it's important that she has some lines in the sand oh moonlight this is probably the most famous song i've ever written i'd say it's beautiful it stirs uh a lot of feelings for people and i am yet to hear a rendition of this in which i don't

experience goosebumps i will be interested to see as we revisit this performance by jennifer hudson whether or not the hairs on the backs of my neck stand on end once more. And again, I mean, we've just seen the most batshit insane dance sequence on board the unsinkable ship.

And now it's a reminder great art exists. What's important to me... I should have said this to audiences before they watch the movie fuck you i'm making it anyway basically if you what i would love here's what i would love tom hooper's face rendered in beautiful 4k imax extreme close-up you see his whole face and the tippy top of his head is gone and it's just above his chin and he says

fuck you I made it anyway and then we open sorry you were saying something it's just the energy that I feel like you've brought to the production what I was saying and this was my way of trying to communicate that through the movie,

is if you spend the whole film trying to connect the dots from scene to scene or character to character, you're going to drive yourself insane. Take every moment on its own merits. Whatever you're watching doesn't have to correlate to what's come before, and it's certainly not going to correlate

to what comes after. Every moment is precious. We're in the world of cats. We're in the mind of a cat. How does a cat experience the world? I don't know. Why don't I try this bag of cocaine and see if I can find out? I might be right.

I might be wrong. But the important thing is, I'm on cocaine. So essentially, vignettes. This movie is a collection of vignette tell you what you do a bag of pure cocaine at 4 a.m nothing will harsh your buzz like jennifer hudson plowing through this song for the 15th time it's got a fantastic but she's got no sense of timing. It was infuriating. I'm trying to get a buzz on here. So when you say timing, you don't mean sort of like rhythmically keeping up with the tempo or anything.

You just mean this isn't the time to be singing Moonlight, despite the fact that you put it on the call sheet for that. On the call sheet it was, but at that point, what is a call sheet? It's a serving suggestion, isn't it? It's the picture on the packet of two minute noodles that features chopped up chives no one's putting chives on it my man i'm hammered oh now this song i didn't even write i don't know what you were up to here this is a little fucking little bit of well you You take it out with Taylor Swift.

And if you can do a fight with her, I guarantee you'll be on her next album and you're not going to come out looking too good. Jesus. You want to know how old I am? I think I co-wrote the song with her now that I think about it. I've got a vague memory of being at a piano with Taylor Swift. Exactly how old you are. I think

maybe I did the words. She did the melody, perhaps. I don't know. Maybe the other way around. Hard to remember. This is a genuine footage. I think her dad was there. Does that make a lot of sense to anyone?

Her dad was there. Yeah. Why was that? Why did Taylor Swift bring her dad? Because it looked good in the promotional materials. It's Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber What am I going to do? I'm not a threat to anyone I'm just a multi-multi-millionaire

From the Cayman Islands Who has a helicopter A lot of ideas I want to get out and produce Did I support The Leave campaign? Yeah, because it was a good idea Like cats Was a good idea

They're all good ideas, Tom To be honest with you In retrospect This song kind of makes Too much sense to be in Cats. You can tell it was written on a different bender. 100%. The emotional metaphors are too direct. They're too tied to actual human emotion.

And all of the other songs I'd written from the perspective of these post-apocalyptic cats rolling around, high on a combination of power and catnip. I couldn't agree more. And when you use this song as the tent pole, like the center point of the film, it makes the journey to and from it even more confusing. It's like you don't get Taylor Swift to come in. And that's what I wanted to achieve. Disorientment for the crowd.

Look, this movie is a metaphor for cocaine the dizzying highs the plummeting lows the bits in between where you can't tell if you want more or less an ultimately destructive force that in the moment feels so fucking good yeah i guess that's a great thing to take inspiration from So you were trying to create a cinematic Sort of journey Through A cocaine experience

Using cats as sort of a light motif Basically I was trying not to get fired And so if I said that All the cocaine I was doing was For the movie I'm insulated from that In my contract You know what else is good about that I said that all the cocaine I was doing was for the movie. I'm insulated from that in my contract. You know what else is good about that?

If you say that your movie is about the cocaine experience, all the cocaine that you buy is a tax write-off. That's a business expense. It's the studio to worry about. They don't even mind money at that point and this stuff was pure wasn't cut with anything it's crazy man yeah see now we're back to my fantastic barely sensical ts ellS. Eliot infused. Yeah. I mean, nonsense is a strong word, but let's go with poetry.

Because poetry doesn't always have to make direct sense. I keep telling Taylor Swift this. I was like, you need to get more esoteric. And she just kept dragging it back to these old boyfriends and her experiences with breaking up with Jake Gyllenhaal. And I was like, I need you to get away from that. Have you ever been to the Galapagos Islands and looked at a tortoise and thought what would it be like to kiss you? She said, what are you talking about?

And I said, exactly. Put that in the song. Tell you, I didn't get on with her dad I love I love these horns Can you hear them? Can you hear those horns? Oh they're so subtle in the background there Yeah

I got a marching band To walk at half pace That's how we got them sounding that far away. Wow. Serean McKellen. Now this, I heard you shot for a behind-the-scenes documentary featurette, but you ended up including it in the movie. If you've got Serean McKellen following Judi Dench around,

who's dressed as a cat on set, you're gonna not film it okay yeah so this was just meant to be a little sort of online documentary about the state of sirian mckellen what he's up to these days yeah and it turned out contextually as anything would have yeah it fit into the film. It did because he knows the music that I wrote. Like, he knows the stage show really well. So he just threw it. It was incredible, really, wasn't it? You put a camera in front of him and he just started doing one of the scenes. It's hard to tell who won here because we didn't want him in the movie.

He muscled his way in. God, it's just so visible that you have glued a bunch of off cuts to him. It's no getting around that you have glued a bunch of offcuts to him. It's no getting around that. That's right. Oh, now he's actually going to do a whole number for us, isn't he? I forgot this was in the picture. This was for free, which is why I'm saying it's difficult to know who won the battle for power. Because on one hand, we didn't want him.

On the other hand, we got him for free. Oh yeah, I forgot I wrote that. He's got a really fun voice, doesn't he? He does have a beautiful voice. He's got a really fun voice, doesn't he? He does have a beautiful voice He's got a great granddad voice And there's a real His name's Gus But his actual name is Asparagus

Why? I'll never tell you Asparagus Well, you know, a cat has three different names I think, is that right? That's what I wrote down That's one of the rules Felt like a good idea at the time James, I think. Is that right? That's what I wrote down. That's one of the rules. Felt like a good idea at the time.

The thing is, like, the pace of the film is confusing because it's sort of, it's like being in the passenger seat while someone learns to drive a manual or a stick shift car. There's no fluid momentum the upwards and downward trajectory of the movie or the vehicle uh you feel in your entire body yeah you feel surges of energy and sort of slumps of confusion and uh this isn't to criticize ian's performance or anyone's performance. This is just a fact of life. Sometimes you think this movie's rocketing along,

and other times you think, how long have I been watching this movie? Because, you know, the time is telling me it's just over an hour, but I could swear to God I've been here for five to six. Yeah. Swear to God, I've been here for five to six. I'll never not enjoy seeing Serena McKellen on screen, though. It doesn't matter what he's doing, whether he's portraying a Shakespearean character,

a comic book villain, or a sort of obsessive fan of Dame Judi Dench who we glued some offcuts to. He always looks good. He's a very filmable face. Yeah.

It's a tremendous compliment to the way the man carries himself. He's really battling against a lot here, you know? Wow. There was a hostile energy towards him that we did not hide. From who? From you?

Yeah. Why? I've said it before. I didn't want him on the set. I didn't want him in the movie. I kind of got the impression that once the ball was in motion, you just sort of got him behind. But you weren't okay with that. I sort of let it happen. But I didn't,'t like stand in the way of the cameras or push him

or anything but i was emanating a hostile energy right for the very reasons that you're saying it's not dissimilar to when i realized that jennifer hudson was going to be singing her best in the whole film i want to I want to control the way that this is disorienting for people. I don't want the performers and the different pitches of, you know, competence or professionalism to be the thing that confuses people.

I want to be confusing people on my terms. Oh, now this is just, this is brilliant. I remember writing this. When I wrote this, I was inspired by an old English actor called Thomas Middledick. It was once a star and then on the wane, trying to recapture his glory. And it just never fucking happened. And I was trying to communicate that feeling of impotence. Of a man trying to escape his own impotence.

You know? And it just doesn't work. And then you added lightning, which I like. That was Mistoffelees, man. I had nothing to do with it. Wow. Yeah, so I just said you don't actually have to learn magic, but I don't even remember the dude's name.

He took it super serious. Cool. Oh, yeah, Idris Elba's back Thank God Because my boner was on the wane But no longer James Corden said he was going to file a police report Unless I chained up Ian McKellen with him So I did it

Idris Elba's Line read Right there Macavity The second greatest part of the movie The greatest part of the movie This part The cat on the railway train

Oh wow Now we're having fun So this is what I'm talking about with those energy shifts Yes This is a stirring Song Performance Everything about what's happening right now

This is a like genetically altering Powerful moment of Song and dance This is the peak of the cocaine hit. That's right. Even though we're over halfway through the film, this is when you get your hands on a fresh bag, blast it up your nose, and feel genuinely invincible.

This is pure euphoria. Skimble shanks is a metaphor for a new bag of cocaine. The greatest gift that God could give a man, a fresh bag of nose candy Look at those pants Look at those buttons He has a cute little moustache And the song absolutely fucking rips

That's right The pants represent a deviated septum And the blood that will inevitably come with that bag Grim In our moment of pure ecstasy is Skimbleshanks beautiful tapping shoes take the spotlight

we start off slow like a talented lover would getting us just warmed up and intrigued not giving us too much at once refraining start them slow gently a little bit faster proving what you can do with your physical form and then working us into a sexual frenzy using

nothing more than your feet i will make you come i will make you come to tap dancing. I'm a big cat or a little cat on the HMS Titanic, and it's my job to make you orgasm. That's right. The confidence of breaking the momentum of the best song in the musical for a tap solo that literally no one asked for is sensational. And now he's little, we've made him big and now he's really little.

And don't ask questions about how that room just transitioned into a railway track. Well, that's, I imagine that's exactly where the Hms titanic would be before it set sail in a big shipyards you know there's a railway station brother i always get those two things confused once tried to catch a train to the

countryside for Christmas ended up missing my dear mother's last ever Christmas and New Year's period because it turns out I was at the bloody shipyards wasn't I how big are these cats? Because in silhouette, they're pretty big. That's right.

But then we see them, and on the track, they're about insect size, I would say, on the train track. But now here we are inside a cabin, and they're roughly cat size. Do I have to pick anything? Look, I've said it before, I'll say it again. We shot four versions of the movie. They became one

i know you keep glossing over it like that's gonna make it right but it's just a we're trying to get involved in the journey we're trying to buy into the world that you've created and it's so difficult all right if you want to talk about the world that i've created Andrew what the fuck are the stakes of this movie right now well Tom I took a beautiful poem about a beautiful creature did a beautiful substance called cocaine wrote down some beautiful ideas and then someone wrote some beautiful

music to it we turned that into the most successful Broadway show there's ever been brother and I love it you want to talk about making stuff turn that into the most successful Broadway show there's ever been. Brother. And I love it. You want to talk about making stuff? I've made stuff.

If you want to poke holes in my interpretation of cats, when you're telling me you made it. Railway train. Railway train. This was not my stage show. Skimble Shanks delivering the performance of anyone's lifetime and then being evaporated by Macavity? Yeah, it's not clear how Macavity pulled that one off, but we trust that he did. I will say this, Tom.

I like your use of magic in the picture. Yeah. There's sort of no real rules to it. It's hard to grapple with and that's what I imagine magic is like. I was wrong. There is one other cat that has shoes in this movie. None other.

Stiletto wearing Taylor Swift. And the great Taylor Swift Now while you didn't get along Particularly well with her dad He and I had a hell of a time That man has one of the deepest noses I've seen in my life Good for him

Taylor Swift insisted That she has tits in this movie We begged off We said no one else does. And Taylor said, better yet. I mean, God, the conversations that I overheard between Jason Derulo. Yeah, he was obsessed with. In the studio.

He wanted to stick in this movie so badly. And then when we took it out, he kept telling everyone it's because it was too big. It had nothing to do with it. It was just a rule we created for the film. Just goes to show, though, if you're Taylor Swift, you make the rules. Truly. We were lucky to have her. And she was lucky to have us.

A lot of people say that this was responsible for the success of Taylor Swift. Yeah, I have heard that. She's obviously a woman who's struggled with a lot of the creative decisions she's made throughout her career. To find an audience, find a voice. That's right. She was sort of an indie darling. Yeah. A critic's pick, which is another way of saying a commercial failure.

But all of a sudden, 2019, Tom Hooper's Cats. Let's thrust her into the spotlight. She's the talk of the town. How did you find her? How did you find this? YouTube. Here to for unseen Taylor Swift. How'd you find her?

How'd you find this? YouTube. Heretofore unseen Taylor Swift. What was she? Just one of those sort of singer-songwriters putting up iPhone videos of themselves? No, no, she was just commenting on a lot of the same videos as me. Oh, you didn't even see a video. You just saw her comment on stuff.

I didn't know she was a singer. Wow. I just thought she had a good vibe. True. Was she quite positive on the comment section? No, no, no. What sort of stuff was she commenting? She just kept hanging shit on old Jewel music videos.

Really? Yeah. Wow. How do you follow Jewel? She's a sweetheart. She was particularly critical of Save Your Soul. Really? Yeah. What was her beef with save your soul

she said i don't care and those are the sorts of comments for you and i'm going to put this youtube commenter in my i just thought what an interesting thing to write on a jewel music video anytime you log on to say you don't care i'm interested what's informing that decision yes the moral of the story is keep commenting everyone yeah keep commenting on jewel music videos and other stuff too online engagement is the currency on which this world operates and every now and then you might just find yourself with a star on the rise as a result of being put in a movie. Yeah. So after she was in this, she retroactively released a lot of hugely successful country pop albums. Uh-huh.

It's actually really nice to introduce a sort of big band number at this point because we've experimented with a lot of different instruments and a lot of different instruments and a lot of different you know layers of instrumentation but to hear a full section like a full band is percussion yeah yeah you're right there's a lot of like teasy wispy strings and yeah woodwinds and things but to have have the full orchestra is a real treat even a fucking electric guitar my god how modern that's right so here is some sort of attempt at um creating a through line for the characters or there we go idris elba in the nude as promised that is the one creative decision

that I insisted on I think it's because we see sort of the essence of human muscles on his cat body as part of why he feels so naked that and the removal of the coat he's been wearing the whole time I lost a tremendous amount of money on this

movie, not just the opportunity cost of it not performing well but as one of the producers i footed the bill for a lot of enacting your vision and you want to know something tom hooper you wouldn't change a thing i would do it again to see this much edris alba i would do it in a heartbeat i wouldn't even think about it I would do it in a heartbeat I wouldn't even think about it It means a lot Taking a lot of slings and arrows Over a lot of the decisions I made in this film

It was all worth it I'd set fire to my own 100 million dollars Just to see that rippling torso on set again I mean your set I wasn't there But luckily you filmed it for me you call it a set it was just a floor with green screens around it

it was a set in my mind and I was set on not sharing that set with anyone oh I can't even remember Writing this bit in the stage show Oh that's right We've got the whole background story of

We're sending one cat to be Sacrificed to the cat gods in heaven Yeah but it's framed as a good thing For the cats Well it is a good thing Cultures all around the world have been celebrating sacrifice to gods. He took old Dukes.

Oh, James Corden's back. Oh no, Skimbleshanks is with him. That's right. What a terrible fate. It's a veritable who's who of performers on the boat. It's quite weird having them talk in the middle of the movie, you know, just a bunch of dialogue. Well, we've abandoned story for so long. Yeah.

It's honestly almost an affront to the leap that audiences have made so far to then be like, by the way, I hope you've been following the story we've been threading through these songs yeah yeah yeah if you told me in 2016 that I would hear Dame Judi Dench say to Idris Elba

you will never be my jellicle choice in a $100 million movie that lost money. I wouldn't have believed it. Anything's possible when you try hard enough. Anything's possible when you have enough cocaine in the mix. Yes, we can. I mean, it's your direction, Tom. enough cocaine in the mix. Yes, we can. I mean, it's your direction, Tom.

You've got to take some. Are you annoyed by that line read? I love it. That's why I repeated it. That's right. There is a magic cat. Yeah, but magicians aren't real, you dumb fucking alley cat. I love how invested you get in your

own story wow i mean my story your vision it's interesting just to to retrace the dizzying highs and lows i um i will always love this film and while re-watching it and re-reading criticisms of it will always stir up a mixed bag of feelings, the fact of the matter is I'm never upset to be in its company. It might be destabilizing, confusing, in some ways triggering for what was an incredibly conflicting and challenging part of my life. But the fact of the matter is we finished it.

We made something. Have you ever talked to a therapist about these things? Absolutely not. Not everyone's going to take the same thing away from great art. Think of the Mona Lisa. Widely agreed upon to be a triumph of the form. But any different people could look at that painting and take away a different interpretation, a different feeling.

It means different things to different people. If you create a piece of art that is so confounding, no two people can look at it and take away the same message. Is that not an artistic triumph? Are you comparing the confusing nature of cats to the confusing nature of the Mona Lisa? I'm comparing... An incredibly accurate portrait of a woman?

I'm comparing it to the confusing nature of all art and saying, if the purpose of art is to create the most confusion and the most people, this is a pinnacle of the form. Whose goal was that? Tom Hooper's Oh fair enough We've all got our Our own journeys For example Mr Mistoffelees journey

Is to win the heart of Our lead cat And turn this into a romcom Was there ever a cat so clever as Magical Mr. Mistoffelees? And he's going to have a crack.

But it isn't going to work. Because magic's not real. Sorry, kiddos. The reality of the situation is this is a failed illusionist. Sorry, kiddos. Yeah. The reality of the situation is this is a failed illusionist. Basically, if Mistoffelees wants this to work, he's going to need to get all of the other cats singing the chorus.

And that's something I realized and I made happen. In the movie, Mistoffelees will get the credit, but that was all me. Tom Hooper. I actually didn't direct this scene. Total honesty, I was having a barking fit. You were having a barking fit? You just got too into the

dog noises? I went too deep as a dog, yeah. Shit. That's when I came up with the idea of adapting Clifford the Big Red Dog for the big red screen. Tell me more. Well, I sold the rights. To say I'm interested would be an understatement. I sold the rights to a. Tell me more. Well, I sold the rights. To say I'm interested would be an understatement. I sold the rights to a different director.

Fuck. So, Mr. Mistoffelees has just accidentally conjured three mice from under his hat. But the mice are in size to the cats what mice would be to humans. So they must be the size of like a thumbnail?

It's important to remember, humans don't exist in this world, Andrew, so we don't need to worry about that sort of thing. But they exist in the world that I talk in. There is a world outside this voicing booth that we've been locked inside of and commanded to do a director's commentary of this film.

It also seems insane to be doing this in 2022. I think it's a good time to remind people it exists. It really took up the conversation For a couple of weeks there And then it dropped right off But like the drug it's based on itself Some things Never go out of fashion

Cats and cocaine Cocaine and cats Oh yeah Yeah we all say Robbie Fairchild You fucking hunk Cat's so clever as magical I've watched this movie seven times Since opening night

Seven times in the trot in one week And this will never not stir me I feel like I'm hearing my own national anthem It's because it is Mr Mistoffelees is you. Some idiot who has donned the clothing of a director surrounded himself with people who believed in him. Hope against hope, cheering him on,

funneling him money, giving him a cast, a crew, an Ari, lighting equipment, and then the greatest music ever written, my show, Cats. And yet, from that, you can't make magic. You are Mr. Mistoffelees. You will always be Mr. Mistoffelees. Every now and then, you trip over yourself and accidentally produce three rats under a hat,

and everyone's like, what a curiosity. But you never do the thing you set out to do Tom Hooper Luckily Judy Dench is here to save your ass Guess who's back And really isn't the story of us all You know Aren't we all trying to achieve

Something And failing constantly And just need one Dame Judy Dench in our life to believe in us trying to know trying to create because my name is sir andrew lloyd weber and fueled on a mountain of cocaine i produce nothing but great ideas Well, I never Is a river A cat so clever as Magical Mr. Mr. Feliz

Look at you, Tom, you're doing it You're dancing with the romantic Lead of the film You're producing flowers From your wrists like some sort of Floral Spider-Man. This is bringing up a lot of positive memories for me. I hope they never release the behind-the-scenes documentary

of this film. What would people see, Tom? They'd see... See a lot of sardines. They'd see a lot of sardines. They'd see a lot of sardines. They'd see a man reduced to a dog that has found the biggest mountain of cocaine you can imagine in your life. They'd see a soundstage surrounded by green screen

and disgruntled actors who have been shut out from their phones because they're not allowed to use their phones because cats can't use phones. They would see so many breaches of union law that I would be locked up for an incredibly long time. But instead, what they get to see is this visual cacophony, a wide variety of ideas and performance styles

slapped together in a wide variety of scales and sizes. The fact that the main criticism level at this movie, it was a box office flop, is a PR triumph. So you escaping merely with a- A couple of years off from making movies. A critical disaster and a financial Titanic at all from making the critical disaster and, and a financial Titanic at all senses of the word. That was the best way this could have gone for you.

You've, you've avoided jail time. Basically. Yeah. Good on you. Never, ever not be funny to see a septuagenarian. Sir Ian McKellen, say fie, foe, fiddle and approach a man menacingly. Hell yeah, Sir Ian McKellen.

Hell yeah, everyone involved. This is a positive turn for the film, but on set this was a dark day because James Corden was released from his chains, and he was so upset he stopped opening and eating the sardines. He was just hiffing around full tins of sardines. He knocked out our DOP for a week. He was comatose. We had to contact his family. They traveled to the set. They were surrounding his bed.

He came to, but he was no longer communicating verbally. Honestly, what do you expect if you arm a man like James Corden with a truck full of sardines? He armed himself, okay? That's what I mean, like no one disarmed him though, you know what I mean? You try and separate Corden from his sardines. I mean, it didn't actually happen,

but if you give Saddam Hussein a nuke, it's not going to end well. Yeah, what you want to do is say that Saddam Hussein has a nuke. Exactly. You want to disarm James Corden before he gets the truck full of sardines. You've got to get a coalition of the willing to take the truck away from James Corden and make sure he doesn't have access to any other trucks. Is that what the convoy's about?

When I say the DOP was nonverbal. Are they getting all the trucks away from James Corden? He could still make noises. He was just mewing. Meow. Pretty good James Corden. This is a beautiful moment of, you know, the old and young Teaming up to fight Evil

This is one of the last things we need At this point is another strong vocal performance It's like Everything All the information and clues being given to me On screen suggest that we're in a moment of Tension we've got pensive strings. We've got a lot of sad-looking cats.

I don't know what's going on at this point, but I know how to feel about it. Whose responsibility is it for you or any audience member to know what's going on at this point? Is it on Andrew Lloyd Webber's, the creator of the musical? Is it on Tom Hooper's, the director of this adaptation of the musical? Is it on the audience to find their own way? Without question, it's on Tom Hooper.

You directed the movie. And I just can't make heads or tails. I mean, I wrote this. I did the best with the materials I was given. Both with respect to the script and the drugs and the actors. But what if your best isn't enough? There are things I would do differently. For example?

I would tell different actors different things about the set in which they're performing in front of. That's a fun idea. Tell James Corden that he's performing on the moon. Don't tell anyone else that. No. Tell Rebel Wilson that she's performing under the sea. That's right. Tell Jennifer Hudson.

She's performing on the set of Sex and the City 1. As an imaginary friend of Carrie Bradshaw. Grizabella, the glamour cat. Carrie Bradshaw Grizabella The Glamour Cat Carrie Bradshaw's personal assistant Grizabella It would make sense for Carrie Bradshaw To have a sort of retired glamour puss As her PA, wouldn't it?

It would What did you think Obviously you'll have heard a lot of actors Perform this song a lot of different ways What did you think of Jennifer'll have heard a lot of actors Perform this song a lot of different ways What did you think of Jennifer Hudson's performance Of Memories I thought it was awesome And I thought you went to so much trouble

To CGI cat fur to everyone You couldn't help out This incredible actor Get rid of a little bit of nose mucus She's giving her all to the performance And she's got snot running down her face. Help her out, man. Cats have snot too.

You've got the equivalent of a nuclear arsenal of CGI technicians. Just take the shine off it. Something. Put a little matte filter on the snot, just so it's not quite so obvious.

But then again I have pushed some of my actors To the extreme But that's the theatre, it's a different thing That's where you really want to see the bile Hit the floor You want an audience to know That the actors are giving their all Sometimes

That'll involve Pu puke piss and shit hitting the deck once did a production of um phantom of the Opera where I worked the actors so hard that we were rehearsing for 72 hours continuously before the curtain on opening night. That sounds incredibly reckless. How was the show? Patchy

Enough said It's a big ask to get her to sing against Jennifer Hudson In the same song wasn't it She's not a singer Where did you find her Because she's a famous ballerina I believe YouTube Comment section or videos this time singer where did you find her because she's a famous ballerina i believe youtube comment

section or videos this time she was posting a lot of comments on sarah mcclaughlin videos okay what sort of energy was she bringing to the youtube comment section she's a huge fan of sar McLachlan's Angel Ah So you'll get positive and negative people Was Francesca Hayward using her real name Or does she have a screen name? Fran123 Makes sense Wow

That's just such a powerful performance So listen Okay you go ahead No you go I was just going to say that this moment on set Yeah And I'm welling up now, this is the one moment when all the actors thought,

Surely the movie's over. We can save this thing. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. This was the one unified moment where everyone allowed themselves just to spark a flicker of belief that what we're making is not going to be a cataclysmic disaster. And it just brings a tear to my eye to think about how wrong they were it's it's really important when you are and you know

we have occupied the same chair um in different times which is that of the director that of the captain of the creative ship of this hms titanic and the important thing is full confidence the whole time and to constantly dangle the threat of success above your cast and crew like some sort of horse chasing a carrot that is tied to its forest i just want to concentrate on some of the language you chose there andrew it is called the threat of success yeah it's a great turn of phrase. And it's actually an exciting title for our collaborative autobiography, The Stories of Tom Hooper and Andrew Lloyd Webber, Inextricably Intertwined, The Threat of Success. This book promises to be one of the most disastrous

simultaneously told co-autobiographies in the history of literature. And it'll be coming to all good bookstores and a few bad ones in the spring of 2023. How could you not buy that book? A Tale of Two Directors. It was the best of directors.

Me. And it was the worst of directors. Tom Hooper. That's right The interesting thing about the book is Our stories don't really sync up at any point It is an incredibly Well it all leads up to this really

Cats 2019 This was another edition right? I didn't write this one Yeah Crazy stuff Well this is the beautiful ghost'srise oh right taylor swift strikes again as i called it it's interesting because if you go on the youtube video of beautiful ghosts you were asking a lot of dame judy dench to sort of join the sorry sorry if i go online tom

well there's a there's a video of the song, and Taylor Swift is just going ballistic in the comments section. Really? Supporting her own work. No, no, no. Bad-mouthing Jewel. Hear that? Little muted B-flat trumpet there.

That was my idea. Well, this is one of my favorite parts about musicals. Don't you think? Medleys and reprisals. If there's a tune that you and the audience like, there's no rule against you just putting it in again. How do you feel about a coda? Similarly?

Anything that repeats you're on board with. Absolutely. Congratulations to Grizabella. You've won the opportunity to be sacrificed. I don't understand how this isn't the end well before I even start it's like that other scene

every piece of emotional information is leading me to believe this is like a crescendo this is an end point, this is us we're done here any semblance of a story has been about sending a cat to the heavyside lair, we're doing it

the whole cast is singing in unison our one tragic fallen character Jennifer Hudson is being hitched into a hot air balloon and drifted away

wait is this the end? it represents the idea of the movie ending but in strictly speaking terms it's not the end I knew before I started this film that it had to end with Judi Dench

breaking the fourth wall. And so basically everything you see before that is, well, it's just a bit of filler. Ah, yes. Ah yes More Idris Elba To remind us that hot people exist too Whoa it was important to get the word ineffable in the film again A beautiful scene As James Corden has fed various bits of rubbish

From around London town scene as James Gordon has fed various bits of rubbish from around London town as the sun rises on a brand new day and with it another opportunity for Tom Hooper to grab an acclaimed work an incredible amount

of funding and destroy the careers of many heroes of the silver screen I would like everyone to prepare themselves for the following announcement Tom Hooper and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber will be co-directing

Annie the Musical 2023. We saw it was done recently. It was not to our tastes. And now I would like to cede the floor to the great Dame Judi Dench. This breaks so many rules of good filmmaking It's just incredible Why don't you shove it up your ass Andrew I mean the single long

Unbroken take forces The players next to her To sit and react For a really uncomfortably long time You're asking so much of them It was important that I framed them in. And generally speaking, when you get even a powerful star like Dame Judi Dench in years as advanced as hers, you don't want to go close up for three minutes On their face It feels Unfair When you're next to a

23 year old ballet dancer That's all I'm saying They're in the same shot I don't come to the theatre and tell you how to do your job You do You've been doing that so much I don't remember coming to the theatre And telling you how to do your job

I'll have you know though On the theatre This is a closer People love it People get it They understand it It wraps up all the loose ends this is a closer. People love it. People get it. They understand it. It wraps up all the loose ends.

It's like, hey, I paid 300 euro to go and see cats in the West End. I better leave knowing how to look after a cat. That's the thing. A lot of people buy tickets because they just want to know how to address and look after a cat. And even then, the way that we frame the feedback, it's as though you're going to get actual practical information, but vitally, the ass kind of falls out and it becomes this vague collection of ideas about how to treat a cat

that don't quite add up to anything you could apply in the real world. a cat that don't quite add up to anything you could apply in the real world. Well, broad rules of treating a cat with respect doesn't go, if you'll excuse the pun, astray when it comes to pet ownership. I mean, this makes a lot of sense to me even hearing it back now 40 plus years after I wrote the thing what do you need to know cats eat stuff

they eat different stuff call the cat what it's name is treat that cat like a cat what more do you need to know you would be frustrated if you spent 300 euros trying to learn about the inner workings of cats and left the theatre thinking treat the cat like a cat

and feed it I knew that coming in I could have googled that but pretty uplifting wrapper around that advice isn't it oh absolutely it's interesting there's a but pretty uplifting rapper around that advice, isn't it? Oh, absolutely. It's interesting. There's a sort of a mournful relief, I feel,

as I see this movie finish. On the one hand, I'm upset the journey's over. On the other hand, I'm relieved I no longer have to helm this picture. On the one hand, I'm grateful to see what I accomplished On the other hand, a lot of it stings A lot of the notes people were giving me at the time of release held some validity

If you could change one thing in retrospect, what would it be? I wouldn't have unchained James Corden He'd still be on that boat I hear that brother To this day you mean Yeah Oh right I thought you were going to start listing things you wouldn't change Like you would continue

To chain him in the same way you did But you were saying you would never have taken the chains off of him Yeah it'd still be on the boat Wowee i would have made sure taylor swift's dad couldn't have and then studio with us that dop wouldn't think he's a dog now or a cat sorry well there you have it my name up in lights and then mine somewhere oh and then a nice a nice reminder for the particular regionality that we're in uh that you can only watch this movie the way in which we watched it for one more week so get on that yeah you need to that's really important to check everybody it's critical that you check if you're watching

this on a streaming platform that it's it's actually going to stick around because it might suddenly be really like adding to a different streaming

platform or not yeah upon the order of the creator of the original musical it might be being taken down from all streaming platforms we hope you've

enjoyed our director's commentary. It's been an emotional rollercoaster to revisit the creative accomplishment that was basically getting something that vaguely resembled a movie out into the world. Andrew, I don't say this to everyone I come across, but if you will follow me to my car,

there is a hessian sack full of the highest grade of Colombian cocaine that these nostrils have ever touched and uh i'm gonna go bury my face in that and come up with some ideas for an exciting new movie let's make a movie about an orphan shall we