Mike’s 5 Favorite Interviews of 2022: The Creator of Lilo and Stitch, Sean Astin on Lord of the Rings, Amy Brown + More!

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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to Movie Mix Movie Podcast. I am your host Movie Mike, and today we are taking a look back at the top five interviews of what a year it's been for movies and what a year it's been for you guys supporting this podcast and seeing this podcast grow, and I just want to say thank you, and I also want to say that together we have really built something special here and with the growth of this podcast comes interviews that I get to do now that I never thought would have been possible. And there were some really great moments throughout this year. So I wanted to share these top five with you, and if you missed any of these episodes, I encourage you to go back in the feed and check out these full interviews. So let's get into it. At number five is James chin Land, who is a name you may not know, but you definitely are familiar with his work. He is a production designer and this year he worked on The Batman, which is one of my favorite movies of the year, and I like getting to learn about the behind the scenes of what go is into making a movie, and that is exactly what his job is as a production designer. It's creating the look and the field and the aesthetic in the movie, and that's very important. And he has one of the most important jobs on The Batman, which would be creating the look of the Batmobile. So that was really cool to get to talk to him about that. Really interesting guy. So at number five is James Chinlin, production designer on The Batman. I obviously want to get into the creation of the Batmobile and the feeling of Gotham. But when you meet somebody for the first time, how do you describe what you do? The quick one is we're responsible for everything you see in the film other than people and um, what they're wearing, you know, I think you know. We're responsible for um, the set, the location, UM, the props, the vehicles, the all of the feelings, basically all the space, the biography of the film. And that also entails like a ton of um logistical stuff like working with the cinematographer figuring out, you know, is there room for the camera, how would this shot work? So it really the thing I love most about my job is it touches all departments that basically we're sort of like the the u N for the film. We have to go around and talk to each department and make sure their needs are being met and simultaneously also deliver like a cohesive piece of design for the movie. Um that is, you know, in step and hopefully amplifying the narrative ambitions of the the director. So starting with the Batmobile and the design and the look of it, does it start with like a sketch from Matt Reeves? Do you go back and research like all the Batmobiles that have been featured in other movies, Like where does the content begin? Well? I think in in our case, I think we were all led by Matt's take on Bruce and the fact that Bruce was a um sort of a do it yourself sort of guy who had like turned his back on way in industries and sort of doing it all with his own hands. So I think we knew that the car needed to be something that you felt his hand on and and hopefully as an audience member you looked at him said you know, if I had the right skill set, I could probably build that car in my garage. That was sort of like what we were hoping for. So the idea that maybe he would use pieces of other cars and sort of kit bash them together, you know, sort of just taking what he needed and and assembling it. So we really wanted you to see the way it was built and make sure that was a part of it. And in terms of the access to that design, I think, you know, we were literally looking at fragments of cars and different pieces and details that we that we liked, and we sort of we knew the mission and what we wanted it to do. And then we leaned into some amazing illustrators, UM into and and got their help as we sort of started to hone it together into into a cohesive hole. And the Batmobile we see in the movie is it a fully functional vehicle. That's what we're most proud of. I mean, we built four the team I should say built for Batmobile is one fully electric um and then three combustion engine cars. And they perform like crazy. I mean, all those stunts you see, you're actually seeing that car do it. You know, UM and UM. We're just no other Batmobile in history has performed the way our car did, you know. And the stunt guys were so excited to get their hands on it, you know, put it through its spaces, and I think it really shows in the chase. It's one of the most visceral car chases I've ever experienced, and uh yeah, I mean Dom Toy, the special effects um coordinator and his team just did an amazing job, um, you know, bringing that kind of raw, visceral physicality to it. I think that's one of the most pivotal parts of the entire movie that chase and got me the most high while watching the movie and knowing that now that actually happened and actually went down, just add so much more to it. And I think a lot of that it's from Robert Pattinson's performance. How much did he actually get to drive the Batmobile before and how much did he actually do during the filming of the movie. I mean, he's in the car a lot, whether he's actually controlling it or not. There was a there was a um, the guy's built a what's called the pod car, so Rob's at the wheel and then there's a stunt driver like in a in a pod on the top on the roof who's actually doing it. But you know, in a way, I think that even speaks more to Rob's bravery and intensity. Tobay actually like driving in this car while someone else is actually putting you through all that stuff. So um, but he drove it a bit and um, he certainly put it through his paces himself. So and I think all of those things come through. I think you feel that in the film. You feel the sort of sweat and and um burning rubber and rain and all those things. I think it really comes through in the final product. Did you get your driving at all? I did? I did dream come true? That's amazing. Yeah, I know, I know. I was so excited. So the other thing about this movie that really just kind of grabbed me is that I feel like it's the best iteration of all the characters. But the character that I feel sometimes people don't really talk about is the city of Gotham itself. It has a presence in this movie that feels like like it did its own driving force. And I think a lot of that is due to the technology you guys use I believe it's the led volume screens. Yes, Like, how how did that tech work to help the actors feel like they were more like involved in the scene and in that environment aside from just being behind like a green screen or a blue screen. It's fairly obvious, Like, um, the difference between you know, um staring at a piece of fabric and then looking out into a you know, a city that's fully realized for you, with like wind blowing and helicopters flying by and traffic. It was so exciting to be able to, Um, you know, often as a designer will design something and then hope that it comes together and post and we're at the premiere and we sort of see it all come together. But this was, you know the first time in my career where I had actually been able to design something and see it fully realized on camera during the shoot, and um, yeah, it was just so so exciting to be able to bring all that together. Greg was obviously, you know, really leaning into the tools and making sure that you know, the scene we shot sunset and dusk and dawn, you know, taking advantage of those low light opportunities, and I think the actors really felt it, you know, and I think it really came through in their performance. You also worked on The Avengers, which you've worked in DC and Marvel, and I believe you grew up in New York City. I did, so getting to design something like the Stark Tower having growing up there and you know, knowing exactly like what the city layout is how was that process of like, Okay, I'm gonna create something that's not actually here, but make it feel like it is in New York City. It's just like I pinched myself at the dream dream come true of it all, you know, Stark Tower. For me as a kid, I'd always looked at the Panama Building, and Um, I feel like what we did, whether we actually realized it or not, is going to live forever in the history of New York as a piece of architecture that will always be at least a footnote to that building's history that people will say, and it was used in Avengers and in this way. And so I think, you know, I mean, we're building architecture and worlds that live forever in people's imagine sations, you know. And so I think in the same token like going into Gotham and figuring out, you know, like I have this opportunity to carve out sort of a new space for the fans of Batman to dream and and and um, you know, it's as a designer, it's it's the greatest gift to be able to touch people in that way. And what is the next project you're working on? I don't know. I'm just working on getting through these interviews today. Um. Yeah, I don't know what's coming next. Are you always just like designing and making notes in your head of like you go out in public and maybe you see like a landscape or you see like a skyline that speaks to you. Do you always just keep like record of all those things? Take pictures? Yeah, I mean I think that's that's that's um, that's a designer's greatest resource is you know, just um, the more you design, the more you are able to see in the world and details that you notice that maybe other people might cruise through. I think, you know, we tried to bring all that to the development of Gotham. You know, I think there's so much, so many things you don't see that are hidden in the shadows. But the team, you know, the level of detail that we brought to those sets, every square into the back lot and Riddler's apartment, you know, I mean we went so deep. Any book you opened, you know, it was fully relevant to his past. So I think, yeah, we try. As a designer, you try and just you know, catalog the world and and bring those feelings back to the film. Well, it's a great talking to you. James really appreciate it too, Thanks Mike, Thank you. At number four is Amy Brown of Holiday Harmony. And I've known Amy for a long time, back to my days of interning on The Bobby Bones Show and now working with her as the head writer over there. We see each other every day, but this is the first time we've sat down to do an episode of this podcast and I got to interview her as an actor. She got to make her acting debut, and her movie is out now on HBO Max Holiday Harmony if you haven't seen yet. But it was cool getting to learn and hear about my friend's dream come true. So here at number four is Amy Brown of Holiday Harmony. I am in studio now with Amy from Holiday Harmony. How are you doing. Oh? I'm Amy from Holiday Heart. That is who you are, not Amy Brown or Amy from the Bobby Bone Show or Amy from Four Things. You're here as an actress today. I know it's kind of crazy. So well, I am an actress, but in the movie I'm playing myself, but you still act in the movie. That is true. I did have to act. I'm nervous because well, you've seen it and you're going to give a review, And I have to be honest with that. I have the same link that you have for pre screening, and I can't bring myself to watch it. You haven't watched it yet, No, I can't decide if I just want to experience a Thanksgiving day like everybody else and watch it with my kids and everybody be there, and then, you know, probably close my eyes whenever my scenes come on. Why do you think that is that you're so nervous to watch yourself back? Is it that you don't feel like you did a good job. You just cringe at the thought of seeing yourself on screen. I think it's new to me. I have not ever done anything like this, and with the movie role, I was very nervous but also excited. So I don't know if I'll be one of those people that just can't watch themselves on screen. Maybe I think part of it is, Mike. I wish I would have taken some acting lessons before, and then I would have gone in with a little more confidence. So you're saying you're used to being on a stage, Yes, You're used to talking to a microphone in the radio show, yes, So for you, I feel like you're a natural performer, like you can just walk into your room, you can start a conversation with anybody. You have that about you. When you felt and you were on set doing this movie, do you feel like that came out? There was like a switch in your brain. I tried to turn it on. I definitely told myself, Okay, you're here. This is something that you've dreamt about but never really thought would ever happen. That's what being in a Christmas movie is, something that I just said I would enjoy one day, like that would be cool. But would I ever really do it? I don't know, And it would come up casually here on the show or in talking with friends. Oh, I would love to be the barista at the coffee shop where the two main characters fall in love or whatever in the small mountain town and it's snowing outside, and I would have a small role, just because those Christmas movies make me feel good. I love everything about them. I have since it's sort of they gained notoriety on Hallmark and then Lifetime I think started making some and then now they're everywhere. Netflix coops them up. Yeah, h Ours is on HBO Max, which is one of the coolest of the coolest places. I think that there is to stream something so there's more and more of them out there, which is awesome. But I have always loved them, and I know a lot of people have. But I think it's because how they make me feel, and they just feel they're feel good stories. I love the holidays, I love the coziness. I love the same storyline over and over and over. It's so predictable, but I don't care. Although Holiday Harmony took a different twist, especially with like the singing and her career and kind of where she would is going. I know bits and pieces because I read some of the script, haven't watched it yet, but I obviously know where she's coming from. What my what my job was as her guide in a way in the bathroom, that was my job. I had that one scene that was a pivotal moment for her, so I knew I had to turn it on and show up and do my job. Even though it was exciting, I just still was nervous too. It's just all the things, Mike, all the things. I want to get back to your scene here in a bit. But you said this was always a dream of yours. Was it an instant yes, when the role was offered to you, when this opportunity came with it an instant yes, instant. I was over the moon. I don't I didn't even know many details at all, whatsoever I think I heard would you ever be interested in doing a Christmas Yes? Yes I would. I don't even think so before you knew that, like how much it paid, how much time committed it was going to be. It was just automatic, yes, automatic, Yes, that's it, like I mean there are Yeah, you didn't have to twist my arm. I just was thankful that it worked out with the show. Obviously, Bobby always works with us if we've got something cool going on, like he'll figure it out. But this was interesting too because it was part of My Heart Radio and one of our bosses in New York, Tom Pullman, was the one that was given the script, and so I guess I was probably shocked too that he read the script and then thought, oh, would Amy Brown be interested in this? And then Sissony from Ryan Seacrest Show, she's also considered. I think they wanted two females in radio, but that my name made the shortlist or the list, or that I came to mind for him. But I was totally flattered and honored and said yes right away. So you get the part. How intimidating is it once you get your lines and you see how much you have to learn? Oh, I was studying it. I got out highlighters and pins, and they said, you know, we'll have you'll have freedom to make it your own, but this is what we would like to see happen. But also when the cameras are rolling, if other things come out, that's okay. Don't feel like you have to stick just to this script. And there was some things where I was like, oh, I don't know that I would say it this way, and so I would start just practicing it and the way that I felt most comfortable with, but also was still in their parameters. I didn't want to go completely row well, I actually think that the story line or the scene or my part of the script should go like this. I didn't deviate too much, but I tried to make sure, especially since I was playing myself, that it sounded like something I would authentically say. I think that is what came across in your scene. And when you came on screen, I got really excited. And then when you started acting. I was like, I know, she is being Amy Brown right now, but I felt there was some genuine acting there and I could see that. So that I wondered if all that was like the lines like you said, or it was some of you adding in like how you would say it, because that came across like perfectly. Well. So they needed my character to have an agent and to have an experience of having other people tried to tell you who you're supposed to be in the spotlight, and that felt a little weird to me because I don't have an agent, and so that's where I struggled. So that part was the acting. The I don't really think are my position on the Bobby Bones Show. No one's ever forced me to be anything that I'm not. So I felt very fortunate in that because I know that's not the case for a lot of people that have jobs, whether they're an on air personality, they're on TV, they're on stage performers, you know, they sometimes are put in really crazy positions where they're altering a lot about themselves or they feel like they have to change in a certain way. And so I was trying to tap into that of what would it really feel like if someone had ever told me I couldn't be who I was. And ultimately, that's what's happening with Gail. You know, she's suddenly doesn't even recognize herself and she doesn't feel good in her skin because she she wants to be Gail. Trevor is up there, and she's not able to be because of the label. And so that was that was what I had to tap into. That was the acting because you know, you know, you've worked with me for years. We're not told you, oh, you need to be more country, less country, more girly, less girly, which was my line and I had, but I had to say to her, Hey, I get it. I've been where you are. But I also know other pressures. So I tried to just think of those and what I would genuinely say to a coworker or anybody here on the show if I ran into them in the bathroom, what what would I say to them? And that's sort of what that that scene was. I mean, we were literally in the I Heart Radio bathroom. Well, I thought that scene was great, and like you said, it was a pivotal moment in the entire movie. There was no way they could cut you out. No. I mean that I think was was my saving grace. Just in case I ended up being terrible. They would have to completely reshoot the scene with somebody else because the it changes the trajectory of what she does. So I'm curious about the filming process and all the different roles of the people on the movie. So when you get on set, what exactly does the director do? Do you get to meet with him? I do. He came up and introduced himself to me right away, and I I don't know if this is on every set. It can't be, because you know, you hear horror stories. But every single person was so cool, and I was I was a little bit shocked that multiple producers, directors, writers came up, shook my hand, knew my name, knew exactly what I was going to be doing. That it was. It was set up that way even before I met them in l A. Because they were all on the emails. They could just tell they were very involved, and I'd be like, Wow, I can't believe they're taking the time to email me right now. You would think they would have an assistance assistant or somebody doing it. I don't know. I just had this Hollywood image in my mind of what communication would look like. But it couldn't have been more personal. And so yeah, super friendly staff everyone, even you know, Laurence Swickard she pulled me aside, is one of the writers on it and a producer. She even has a few scenes in it as well. But she pulled me aside outside the bathroom before I went in, and she said, just say it to me, now, how you plan on saying it once you get in the bathroom. And I have to say, to let me back up walking into the bathroom, the acting of just casually walking into the bathroom because I followed her, that's I struggled with that. That's not even words. You're just having to walk in a room. It's supposed to be natural, but sometimes doing something natural and camera like totally amplified because there's sound guys, there's camera guys. You're you know. I I tried to be like, okay, just be cool'll be like you're walking into a bathroom. But I also was sort of putting myself in a situation. Nobody invited me to the bathroom, so I knew I needed to be hesitant in my approach because it's not like I was just walking into the bathroom with a friend. I was walking in the bathroom as someone that picked up on something. My intuition picked up on something, and I went into to be a guide, and so I had to kind of cautiously walk in. It's not like she's my best friend either, you know, I'm more of someone that she's just working with in the movie. So anyway, that walking was acting, so we'll see. I don't know if you picked up on any weirdness with my walking. I don't think it looked weird at all. Okay, Well, my bathrooms lines outside of their outside of the bathroom, Lawrence Swickard went over them with me and she said, Sam, Sam, how you plan on saying them? And so I did it and she said, okay, that's good, but I want you to think about it this way, and I want you to try to use this tone. And then she would voice the tone to me of what like softer, like almost you know, less country, more country, more a whisper. It's more like I was just talking them because I was talking the lines out with a with a friend, and she's like, you need to be more. I don't know, I can't even remember the words she used to describe it, but whatever she told me in that moment was so helpful. And having her mimic it like her do it and then me mimic her was incredibly helpful. And that was right before we went into film and we filmed it probably you know, four or five takes, and I don't know which ones they ended up going with or if they patched certain ones together. I don't know how it came together because again still haven't seen it. Well again, I think the scene was great. I think a lot of what I picked up on from your acting is that sometimes when I see early actors doing their work, it's very apparent that they're reading lines. And with you, it felt very natural, like it was like you being you, and they came across. My jaw just dropped. Because you watching critique movies well for a living, but even before you had this podcast, you did it for fun. This is your path, like movies or your thing, and so that really means a lot coming from you, because you watch a lot of things, and you're watching for things that I maybe wouldn't even never see. I watched for that and I just wanted to see how you would do. And I was really surprised and really happy for you, Like I got excited, And so now I wonder what is next for you? Like what do you want to do with this? I know you've had this kind of moment of your taking acting classes now, and you had this kind of struggle of like who am I? Like? What am I doing taking acting classes? Where is that going? Now? So I left l A. It was a whirlwind of a day, every little experience on set, from the trailer to the makeup to the lunch time, which I'm sure some of that would die die off the more you do it, but for me, it got it. We were not supposed to be there that long. I think it was supposed to be a four or five hour day, and we were there for so long. And when I left there, I was energized, and I went to bed with just this extra pep in my step when I should have been exhausted. And so I just sat with that for a while, and what does that mean? And what could this mean? And and the first thing that popped in my head when I was asking myself that is, well, maybe it means this is something that you would actually really enjoy doing and that would fill your cup up and bring you joy. Then that thought was immediately followed with another angel devil. I don't know what you want to call it, but like the counterpart of my brain that's like, oh, but you could never do that, and why would you even think you can do that? And you're forty one years old? And but when I got into radio, I had never done radio either. And now here we are, almost seventeen years later, and I didn't want to keep myself from that. What if twenty years from now and I'm sixty one, I maybe have a few movies under my belt and not I don't I don't know that. I have this vision of me being some main character in any way, but just being a part of the process and that being another layer to creativity and something that I like to do. And I thought so, I thought about that. I thought about how I'd never done radio, but I gave it a go and it just took Bobby believing in me. And I feel like the Lauren Swickard in particular, she was on my podcast. The episode will go up this week on Thanksgiving Day, when when the movie comes out, it'll be on four Things. But she I feel as though she was genuine when she said, you you do have something so and apparently my name has come up in some meetings that they've had for other films. I don't know for what because she didn't elaborate, but I don't think she would have said that out of nowhere, but it just gave me that extra little piece of validation. So anyway, all that to say, I wanted to be able to know that when I'm sixty, at least I gave it a try. Maybe it works out, maybe it doesn't, and I don't have a few movies under my belt, but at least I'll know that I tried. And so that's when I decided to book acting lessons. Well, I can see it in you, and I hope you do another movie. Well, thank you Amy for being on the podcast. Thank you for having me. I could talk to you all day long. If you can't tell I think you've tried to wrap me up like three times, and I'm like so much. I'm talking about we'll see you next time you do your next movie. Okay, Yeah, happy to come back because we're thinking positively, we're manifesting that. Let's go at Number three is David Silverman, who is the director of the Simpsons Movie, which is celebrating its fifteenth anniverse red this year, and he was there from the very beginning, worked on the design and the look of the Simpsons back when it started on the Tracy Ullman Show in the eighties. And I am a huge Simpsons fan, have been watching the show in my entire life, continue to watch it regularly. So this was a really cool opportunity for me to get to talk to somebody who actually works on the show and who directed the movie. So we got into all of the nerdy stuff I wanted to know about. And I think you guys found it pretty interesting too, because it was one of the most downloaded episodes of the year, So thank you for that. Number Three, here is David Silverman, director of the Simpsons Movie. David Silverman, how are you. I'm great. How are you doing today? I'm doing pretty good. It's an honor to get to talk to you. You're just so much of an influence on the Simpsons and the design and the look. And I'm a huge Simpsons fan. And we want to get into talking about the fifteenth anniversary of the Simpsons Movie. So looking at the show now, how long does a single episode of the Simpsons take from when it's written to when it's comes to you, like, how did it come to you? Well, it comes to us as a generally, it comes to us on the table read. That's the first time we get it. And I remember in the very beginning to that was my first experience. There was a table read for Bart the Genius. That was the first show I direct, and I remember saying, this is the funniest thing ever written for animation. At the time, I just thought this was this is genius. So table read it's about it's about nine months one episode. There are a lot but what you have, you have we we it's meticulous. You have the table read, and then you have the storyboard process and then notes on storyboard, and then we do an automatic process. And that's the number of weeks of doing all the drawings for the automatic we should lay out the entire show basically before you decided to story real the entire show. Save a lot of time and money that way, and then comes you know, the finished animation and timing it and then going out to our Korean studio either a come or rough draft Korea, and they take like ten weeks to animate, finish, fill in the mostly and we we actually do a lot of animation. We do all those key posing, heavily key posed our shows. Uh and um uh. But it takes some ten weeks to finish it up and paint. It used to be painted on seals, you know, and uh, but now it's digitally painted, but still takes the same line at the time. It's still time consuming. You're saying nine months from one episode, but you're working on several different episodes, I mean, the whole season. How in the world do you get an entire season done like that? All I can tell you it takes a chunk of time. Yeah, and it is. It is like, okay, here's this timeline for let's say the first episode of the season, right, and then here's the next episode, and here's the next episode. Here's the next episode. So they're staggered, right, So one director is working on this, and our second director is working on this with his you know, animation team and so forth. And then we have you know, we have designers that work on all the shows basically at all the times. So there's imagine it. It's like it with different moving trains, you know, but they're all a week apart and they leave the station and then the film arrives here and then when they come back on a weekly basis. But that's why we start in March. So we start the process of storyboarding in March to make our times for the next you know, for for the fall season. Uhh. And we have like seven episodes, six seven episodes for the previous schedule to sort of give us a head start onto the next season as as we went through in a season after season we started building up. Oh, we have two additional episodes, so that gives more of a a a break to get to you know, to allow the process to continue. And then it then somehow and I can't remember how we got it up to, but we had like like six what we called hold over episodes. So we do twenty two episodes a year, and like seventeen is usually the last show that will be broadcast that year in May, and the following you know, uh, six of seven episodes will be for the following season and they'll had the beginning of the season then, you know, so forth and zone. It keeps rolling on. Man. So looking now back at the movie, it's been fifteen years since the Simpsons movie, which you directed. The movie. How does that process begin of going from justin all right, we're gonna make this one episode to making this full feature that's never been done before. People often asked us, why didn't you do another one? Well, the Simpson movie, damn, damn, near killed us because we had another team of people. We didn't expand to some extent, you know, for the movie. But we had a lot of the people that work on the show also working on the movie simultaneously. Now some some kind of like I had I had four um sequence directors too, were not on the show over what that had been on the show, Rich Moore, Lauren McMullen had been on the show previously. Rich had been working on Futurama at the time. I think, yeah, it's it's hard to like put everything together. But in any event, and then we had two other who were working on the show, Mike Anderson and uh Steve Bore and there was there were my four sequence directors because we were that was one ray way we got it done so fast. Is I had I had, you know, I had field generals because it was we had to do everything and once all in a great big box. So I had to delegate quite a bit in that respect, but it still look and still make it look like it was dealt from one hand, because you know, it's a movie. But we started the writing started. I think they really got started in like two thousand and three, and by two thousand five there was a table read in the summer of two thousand five, and we really got it started story boarding in two thousand six. We did it rather fast when you think about it, because we started in the production in January of two thousand and six and we basically got it done under like fifteen months, you know, which is pretty fast considering into the feature and pretty fast because a lot of stuff we did was thrown out the window. We start over a lot of Act one but um, I don't know. I guess we all had you know, um they're all pretty seasoned people, and we got other people uh involved to uh uh uh Steve Markowski, who did a great job. He was almost like a like a fifth uh sequence director. He did a lot of great board work for me. I mean that's how we got things done. We just kind of plowed through it and uh we were still drawing on paper at the time. We hadn't gone digital, although I started, um working on cintique tablet, you know the Wacom cintique tablet where you take a stylist and you draw directly onto the screen, and that kind of got the attention of our US president of Gracie Films, Richard skais like, this is the way to go, and I say, absolutely, this is where. This is the where to go. We started boarding when he started buying cintiques for the board artists, which made things very much go faster because the story was mercurial and many respects of these things kept changing, particularly uh character of Cargo. Originally he was like this kind of kind of like a sad sack, you know, uh, head of the e P A who was like, you know, miserable because he was so was not respected. And then this thing happened in Springfield and he's given all this power and resources. That storyline wasn't working because you know, we were like, we're doing Simpsons movie, it should be about the Simpsons, and we're concerning this character. We've never heard it before, voiced by Albert Brooks, who's like kind of a semi regular in the Simpsons, but still not very entertaining. So that's when we kind of pitched that all out and said, okay, for a hot second, we actually thought Hank Scorpion would be the head of the e p A. And that was and tost out rather quickly. Uh. And Albert Brooks actually he was. He was one of people said that doesn't work for me. And you know, Albert Brooks, though doing the voice, is also you know, a very accomplished comic uh director, so his his instincts are worth listening to. But he basically did a Scorpio type of character, you know, and aggressive. It says if Donald Rumsfeld ran the e p A, you know, and that was sort of like the the the the idea behind it. So you're saying, the first movie almost killed you guys. So should we not expect a sequel anytime like ever in our lifetime? Oh? I think that. I never say never. You know. It's like one of these things that that will that will, that will happen. Possibly. I can't go work and saying it's gonna happen and it's not. I can't go work saying it's not gonna happen because I can't go and record saying anything. I can't give you no scoop because you know, what. I don't know. So I was rewatching the movie, and obviously you're able to do now in this movie things you couldn't do on TV. But I wonder, was there a meeting about how to draw Bart Simpson's wiener. Yeah, I don't think there was a meaning of meeting about that, but I sort of did it. I went forward tastefully enough so we would get away with it, you know, let's put it that way. And we were really, really, really worried that that was going to be a problem from the sensors. I mean, we didn't know what we're gonna do. We figured we'd get away with it with the European audiences, but we just did not know how it was going to react. And to this day, I'm grateful for the Ratings Board for apparently actually their rating was I think it was it was a PG or PG thirteen, I think rating PG thirteen for adult humor throughout. I think that was their rating, which was like almost a mini review, which was very flattering to us. Yeah, it was. It was a lot of work, let's put it that way. It was. It was a lot of work. But I remember at one point it's like, this is a lot of work, but hey, you wanted to do this, let's let's enjoy it. So I did it. Throughout all the work and the and stressful times. I did enjoy myself, I think, and I think at the end of the day, everybody else, even though it was a lot of work, enjoying themselves to Certainly we enjoyed the way it came out, and certainly enjoyed the way it was responded to. Well, thank you so much. Hope we have a great rest of your thank you, thanks very much. I have a good one. At number two was one of the warmest people I've ever talked to over zoom. It is Sean Asten. You would know him as Rudy, you would know him from the Goonies. You would know him as Sam and the Lord of the Rings, and that is what he was on to talk about the twentieth anniversary of that movie. He's an actor who's been a part of all of these iconic movies, so getting to speak to him about one of the biggest movies of all time was a real treat. So at number two, here is Shawn Aston. Mike, how's it going good. It's so great to talk to you. I feel like I've been watching you my entire life. And now the Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring celebrating his twentieth anniversary. What does it feel like to be a part of a franchise that'll just be viewed for generations and generations to come. Mike, It's good to see you. Finally our moment has come. It's like to be part of the general It is, um well, it just feels like there's something no one can ever take away from you that really special, you know. I mean I got a degree, and when when I got my undergrad degree before making this movie, and that feeling when you're when they hand you the diploma and you know you're wearing the cap and gown and you're like, man, this is even if I totally fail in life, at least I accomplish this. That's what it feels like. It feels like there is you know, when it really capped off when it won the Best Picture, when The Return of the King won Best Picture in the in two thousands four whatever it was, and uh, you just felt like, you know, world culture will forever recognize this as an important contribution and and I have a you know, meaningful part of it. And it just feels like, you know, immortality is that over I overreach with immortality. I didn't mean to overreach. You're gonna live forever through this movie now, well and tell somebody figures out how to scrub all the digital bites. But but no, yeah, it definitely it definitely feels like, um, you know, there's don't know what permanence is in this world anymore. You know, my love for my wife and my children is permanent. Uh, you know, no matter what happens to me, no matter where I go, it's permanent. And there there's something about inhabiting this world of Middle Earth that just transcends normal. Normal, just transcends normal. It's more, you know, it's like in uh, it's like it's final tap, It's it's eleven. It's eleven. So what was the most grueling part about filming that movie? The first one being fat I had to I was, I was a hundred pounds. I just run the l A marathon and I get this. You know, you're going into place you to read for Sandwise Gamg and I get the books out and I'm reading through and it's like, you know, fat portly Hobbits, but not to it, and I'm like, what all it took me to get in shape? So of course it's not very difficult to when your weight goes up and down to get back into the fat road. And I don't mean to be just you know, disrespectful, but it's it's hard. It's really hard to be to be heavy. And in my life my weight goes up and down and kind of like were to six month cycles, so six months of being I'm not kidding this, you want to know, That's what the hardest part was for me. I mean the hours were hard, the the you know, carrying that stupid backpack around, you know, the shaping your neck and getting cut. A loom fell in my head and knocked me out. I got a big cut on my foot. I you know, there was there was a lot of stuff, but like I honestly think I suffered, like real I suffered. Um you know, I suffered so with with that, and I remember looking in the mirror and being like, oh my god, I can't get back in shape right now. And at one point I just my makeup artist and I, Jeremy and I we went to the tennis club. There's like a tennis jim you could go to and we got into it. We were like playing every day for a week or something. You're just having so much fun and just that your neurons when you wake up after not being physically active for a while. And then somebody from the news, the Wellington whatever, the national newspapers took a picture of me coming out of the say this is before the internet, this is before we had really the movies were known by anybody. And on the front page of the National newspaper is me like with a towel over my shoulder coming out of the gym. And when I and my heart sank when I saw it. And I walked into the set the next day and Peter Jackson is there with the paper open and he does the slow turn and he looks at me, and I look at him, and he's like, they call candy lollies and more lollies from Mr Aston, please, And he's lonely, partly kidding, so like having to maintain fat Sam and so like when Gollum says, stupid fat Hobbits, you know, I'm like, f you, dude. So your book club at Fable is also celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the movie and you can go to fable dot co slash on Aston to be a part of that. Have any of your original Lord of the Rings costar still not read the original books? Well, there's a major publication today. I believe it's Vanity Fair with my colleague Elijah Wood on it and the the cat. The banner is I still haven't read the books. So he still has and did the whole I feel now like I used to joke. And the amazing thing is, he has a better command of the story than I do. And I've read them three times. That's not a joke, he I every time I read them. So here's this is This is the version. I'm gonna you can read it digitally on fable dot com, but I'm gonna read this one. And I was reading it on the plane back for Atlanta last night, and uh, Billy boyd, he he's gonna. I think he came in on her zoom yesterday. I think he's gonna join the journey. So I'm gonna text Elijah after our interview and I'm just gonna be like, hey man, we're doing a chapter week. Of course, he's gonna be a new father for the second time. He'll probably like I will read two words in fal asleep, but but yeah, you know, what can I say? What can I say? He's um, I was always asking. I would finish. I read the books cover to cover three times while we're filming, and I didn't really enjoy it in the sense of like disappearing into the world. I was just like data mining. I was just plumbing it for like what can I know? What can I know? And I would I finished, you know, like a big chunk of it and beautiful News Zealand with the countryside, you know, the mountains or whatever. And we go to the set and I look at the script. I had to ask Elijah to explain what was happening, and he would not. He would be like, well, this is what's going on. He would so, yeah, he gets to get out of Joffree Cark for me, Well, I appreciate the time. It's great to talk to you, Mike, you bwall brother. All right, have a good one. And at number one is Chris Sanders, who was at the creator of Lelo and Stitch and the voice of Stitch and Lelo and Stitch is my all time favorite Disney movie. And this all came together because I saw him do a TikTok where he was talking about how he created the movie, and I knew once that twentieth anniversary was up, I had to get him on the podcast. And not only was this my favorite interview of two, but my favorite interview out of this entire time that I've been doing this podcast. And I think that's because it is my favorite Disney movie. But he's just a really easy guy to talk to and had a lot of great stories. So at number one, the creator of Lee Lowen Stitch and the voice of Stitch here is Chris Sanders. So you're working at Marble and I saw that you said that you had the first drawing of Stitch in N one. What about that story? What about that sketch made you come back to it years later when you finally get this opportunity to create this story for Disney. I had worked a little bit on it in private. I wanted us to do with children's book. And what I realized after working on it for a while in private, you know, on my own time, was that the story was too big to fit into a normally formatted children's book. I didn't think I could boil this thing down to say seventeen pages or thirty two pages. It just seemed too big. Um So the idea was bigger than the book. Um. So years later, I was in the waning days of the production of Mulan. We made that film at the Florida Studio. So I was out in Florida, and the president of Feature Animation at that time, Tom Schumacher, was out visiting, and um, he and I and everybody had gone through a lot making this film. It had been quite the adventure. I think that my performance on that film had earned me, had earned me a certain amount of I guess latitude to maybe do my own movie. And Tom was out visiting Florida and he said, is there anything that you would want to do next? And pretty much right there at dinner, I said, no, no, not well wait a minute, okay, you know, there is this one thing. There was this story, right, and so I was able to think about it for a little bit. And the next time he visited, he said, well, and I was trying to work up a pitch for it, you know, and and uh, and he said, well, go ahead, just tell me about it. And I said, well, I'm not really ready, and he goes, no, just come on, just do it. You know what, I thought, here goes my idea. I mean, I like, it's it's gonna be all over the next like in the next three minutes. And I pitched it, just verbally threw it out there, and I really got my very first and biggest note of all, which was the story that I had concocted was all about this strange little creature who was living in a forest and he didn't he had come from. He was a mystery to everything around him, but he was also a bit of a mystery to himself, and the story was all about how he was figuring out who he was. And he was frightening looking a bit of a monster, right, And Tom said, I like this story, but I would have a suggestion. The animal world is in a sense already alien to us, so placing this alien being in the animal world doesn't get you the kind of contrast that you might want. I would suggest you placed this monster in the human world. Boom, there it was. I thought that was a great idea. So that was the first biggest note that Lelo and Stitch ever got. Now this is before it was Lelo and Stitch, before they were in Hawaii. That was when I left and started working on the idea once I returned to California, and that's where I got. I got this uh motel room out in Palm Springs at this resort, and I locked on myself in this room for three days and all I did was draw and write because I wanted to create a bit of a document because it was going to be about an alien. And I thought, you know what, those are the days where people were making a lot of monstery kind of alien movies. And I thought, if you say the word alien in a development meeting or a pitch, a lot of people are going to get this instant idea of what an alien is. And I thought, Okay, if I don't draw this, they're gonna get maybe the wrong idea. So if I draw this whole thing out and they say no to it, at least they're saying no to the idea that was my idea, so it's a legitimate no. So um So, after those three days, what occurred to me was that, in a sense, I had finally created that children's book that I had tried to create so many years before and had abandoned. That's really interesting to me because I was rewatching it, and I realized how hard it must have been to pitch an idea about this alien creature doesn't really say a whole lot of words. So to hear you say that you took that idea, placed it into Hawaii and suddenly it made sense. You know, this is where you've really got to understand, like how important the producer and ahead of a studio are to your future. They can make or break an idea, and in this case, Tom Schumacher, he wanted to make this film and he that was the next big thing was that it's a It's the thing I'm going to put on a TikTok really soon, and I'm working on that one right now. He told me after the development department looked at it that they all like universally liked the idea. And he said I watched into his office, into his office, and he said, I will make this film on one condition that it looked like you drew it. And that was, you know, very exciting and flattering. But at that point I didn't even know what to do because I thought, well, what do I even draw? Like? I just draw like everybody else. A girl who was working at the studios to Nichols, who was an amazing artist. She also came from cal Arts. She did a two week analysis of my art style and she created two documents called Surfing the Sanders Style, and it explained how I drew well. Nobody was more interested to read these than I was, and I was absolutely fascinated. It turns out there were things that were governing my style that existed that I didn't really even realize that I was doing. But she saw them and she had like dissected the whole thing. So that began. And that's one of the reasons that Lelo and Stitch is a highly unusual film. It is more unusual than people really, I think may may realize, because it is not only a very Miyazaki style story that is extremely hard to mail down. You know, it's a smaller story, and it's really kind of strange, based very very much on quirky, unusual characters. Really, you know, these personalities are the are the whole movie. But also that it's in an individual artist's style, and that's I don't think there's anything that has happened really before or since, at least with an artist inside the studio. They've based films on, say like Isaac Isaac Ivan Girl. Sleeping Beauty is based very much on Ivan Girl, for example. Um but he was an outside creator. So it's one of the reasons that that's such an unusual film. So when do you sit down to create what is going to be Lelo and Stitch, You have to create Lilo. When did it get that title? When did they get that art? It was Lelo and Stitch by the time it was in that first pitch book. So when I went away to Palm Springs, by that point I had made the decision to place the film in Hawaii. I had named the characters Lelo and Stitch, and I had no connections to Hawaii at that point. So I pulled Lelo's name off of a roadmap that I had from Hawaii. There's a Lil Lane and I saw that. So this is one of the strange things. I didn't know what that word meant. It sounded like a name. It turns out it's not a name, but it's the It's the word for lost. So in a really strange way, I found the right word to make that her name. The same with Nanny, I just again I looked around for names on a roadmap. Later on in the making of the film. We did engage as many people as we could from Hawaii because we're toughing about it. We're trotting into a culture that we are not part of, and if you're going to do that, you really have to connect with people that know what the deal is that no what they're doing for the music, for the culture, for the dialogue, for your voices, as much as you can so um and so we did. We met a huge number of people who became our guides to making the film. Be respectful going into the start of making this movie, at what point did you become the voice of Stitch? Were you always going to be Stitch? Or was that a voice that just existed in your head? Where did that come from? It's sort of both. It was it was a voice I had used this up to that point to call people on the telephone with and annoy them. Um and it was actually Dean, my co director. So along the lines of your last question, one of the first things you do is you find a co director that you trust, and I had learned to trust Dean into partment, into partner with Dean during the making of Mulan and Dean was extremely smart and amazing, a natural and it came to storytelling, he was a natural storyteller, a great writer, a wonderful story artist. UM, and he has very good structural knowledge and structural instincts. So so I partnered with him immediately. UM as soon as we decided to do the project, I saw out and we agreed to codirect on the film. Dean's suggested that I be the voice of Stitch. One of the main reasons was that we wanted. Originally we didn't want Stitch to even speak. We were like, oh, it's gonna be like dumb, will do the whole film and he will just be a character that works in pandomime. Later on, it became obvious that he was going to have to speak, and in fact, he would have some key lines during the film. Well, at that point we thought, okay, we're gonna we're gonna have to get a voice, but you don't want to necessarily hire somebody like Robert Redford or Danny DeVito and then worry about like, well, how's the studio going to react when they realized this character only says like fifteen things and will They then start to push for like, well, if you know, if we're gonna hire Robert Redford. We wanted, you know, we want Robert Redford. We want like a lot of lines. And we were afraid that that might begin to really be the tail that wagged the dog as far as the making of the film. So Dean suggested, He's like, you know what, why didn't you just do the voice? You used that voice when you pitch your boards. So what you just do it and then we'll avoid any problem because you know you're not a real actor. Noways, no one's going to ask for more of you. Right. So we didn't do that, and there came up a moment. There was only one moment that I felt a little stressed about it, and that was when we realized that near the very end of the film, Stitch would have this one very important line where he talks about this family that he found. And it was little and it was broken, but it was still good and that verged on real acting, and so I thought, I don't know if I can do this. On that day, I came to Dean and I said, today, I'm an actor, and you're going to be the director, the only director, and I'm going to go in that booth and you tell me what to do, and I'll do it. And if I can't pull this off, then we'll find somebody else to do the voice. And so we did. Like Dean directed me, I did everything he asked, and before long he said, Okay, I think we got it. And I said, are you sure? And he said, yeah, I think we got it. And it worked. Okay, you brought up my favorite scene in the entire movie. I think it's because of that. It's that moment in the movie where everything kind of hits me emotionally, and I remember watching it as a kid and having that same kind of feeling of stitch, of being that person who was filled with rage in a place that he didn't understand, didn't understand himself, but all of a sudden he had this family. Now I think that's the most perfect scene in any Disney movie I've seen. So it's cool how that came together. And now you had to go dig out your acting abilities in that. I did my best. I really tried hard that day. I still remember that day. This this is my family. I found it on my own. That's little and broken, but still good. Yeah, still good. So when people find out you're the voice of stitch do they immediately ask you to do it. I get asked to do it a lot. They had some surgery on my neck at one point period of time about a year, I couldn't do it, but then I got back to doing it, and I still do it. I get called up about at least once a month to come in and do I do voices for toys and for like raids, things for cruise ships, all Disney stuff. It's fun. I told myself if I ever had you on the podcast, I would show you my voice. And it's actually that scene that I do. So I would like to let you hear this and then judge my abilities afterwards and let me know how I can make it better. All right, okay, alright, So it's that scene this lis my family. I found it all on my own. It's little. I'm broken, but still good. Yeah, still good. How's that? That's really good? That's very nice. How do you get the laugh though? Because I've been trying this impression for a while, but that laugh is and like it's hard to do. The big laugh is painful. That that is one. If you're doing a recording specion, you save that for the very end, like Okay, we'll save all the screaming and the laughs for the end, and then we'll do Then you can just take it to the wall and if you blow your voice to out, you're fine. Back to the being the twentieth anniversary of the movie. When you go back and remember the entire making of them movie, what moment sticks out to you as being like that was the most fun part of the entire process. I mean, the part of the process that I've always loved is music. Dean and I and Leoo and Stitch was a big part of this. Have really I've always loved music, and and I listened to music. I have never written a scene in a movie without listening to music while I worked on that scene. I have also boarded pieces of movies to music. And there are still there are still pieces of music that if you play them while you watch a piece of a Disney movie, it lines up pretty much exactly. Um, Like, if you go to the soundtrack for a movie called The Mission, there's a there's a track from that. I believe it. I believe the track is The Mission. And um, if you listen to that while you watch the scene where Moue Foster's ghost speaks to Simba. It works really, really well because that's the that's the music I I listened to when I boarded the scene and I pitched that scene to the directors with that music. There are scenes in Beauty and the Beast. I can show you the music that the as we're done too. So anyway, so same with leland Stitch. I would listen to music because I write these scenes. And nothing was more exciting to us than we would when we would partner with somebody like Allen Sylvestri who is going to be writing a score. And one of the things that Leland Stitch was made for a lower budget than movies were being made for at the time. We felt we could buy our story freedom by lowering the budget, which is exactly what happened. But one of the things that both you and I told the producers going to ask the studio carve off enough money to buy the best score money can buy, and we will make the film for whatever is left over. And that's exactly what they did. So we got Allen Sylvestr and it was this really important day um where we were looking at the boards and Allen Sylvester was looking at the whole film on boards and looking at the outline, and he said, I really like this movie, and he had a few suggestions, but he said, there's one thing I didn't see. I didn't see the moment we're Stitch turns from bad to good, because Stitch is a villain that becomes a hero, and that was what the baseis. That was really the basis of the whole story is the first and I think at this point still the only Disney villain who then becomes the hero of the story. And Alan was like, well, where does that happen? And both Dean and I at that point we're like, oh, well, yeah, we tried to write it. We couldn't really figure it out, and it sort of happens here kind of between these two shots, and suddenly both did and I think were confronted with the reality that we hadn't really been able to put it up there on the boards. And I'll never forget what Allen said. We we basically told Alan we didn't know how to do it, and he said, put her on screen and I'll do it. And I guess we were saying we couldn't, we didn't know how to say it, and he said, put it on screen and I'll say it, and he said it with music. And so there's a moment where Nannie realizes that they can't retrieve Lilo, and she's crying and Stitches watching her, and if you listen, there's a subtle change in the music and Stitch walks up to her and he speaks to her, and that's the moment of change. And what we realized at that point was that music does the heaviest lifting of all when it comes to story, and music is unassailable. No one's going to laugh at music. You can. You can throw an awkward line in or an awkward shot and it gets an inadvertent laugh and you've kind of blown it. But nobody laughs at music. And um, so Alan just like taught us such an incredibly important lesson that day, and we really took that to heart. So later on, when Dan and I were working on How to Train Your Dragon, one of the first things we do now is we carve out a house for music in different places in the film. So in How to Train Your Dragon, in that scene where Hiccup is going to um bond and and and and um, he's going to cross this divide and form a connection to this dragon. No dialogue, it's all music and we just the characters shut up. All the characters shut up and music takes over. And that's just something that Dina and I really believe in now and we learned that on Levean Stitch. It's amazing to see that all come together and I can't wait to see what comes next and hopefully to talk to you again once that comes around. I really appreciate the time absolutely. If you ever wanted to a follow up, I'm so sorry we were late on this because but yeah, let's do that. That would be fantastic. I really enjoyed chatting with you so much. Thanks Chris, have a good day you too. I'll talk to you soon, all right, talk to you soon. And there you have it. Those are the top five interviews for Movie Mix Movie Podcast for two. Thank you for being a part of this podcast. Thank you for being a part of the Monday Morning movie crew. This has been a really great year for the podcast. As we continue to grow here and go into another year, I have some actors and some directors on my list as bucket list interviews. There are a lot of great movies coming out in three so there's a possibility, some of those happen. I'm always working hard to bring you guys the best content, so thank you for being so supportive. And if you haven't at this point, please subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, tag me in your Instagram stories. I love reposting you guys over the there, so just thank you for another awesome year. I will talk to you next week here on the podcast, and until then, go out and watch good movies. Later m