Hey, Erica. How you doing?
Hey. Um, well, how are you?
I'm good, thank you. I'm good.
Yes. All the better for seeing your film the other day.
I was just telling Peter [Dinklage] and Joe [Wright] and Haley [Bennett] that I cried and had my mask on,
and it wasn't a good look, but a darkroom is a good place to do that.
Isn't that? Let's be honest,
Congratulations on on the film.
It's. It's wonderful.
I wanted to ask you about some entry point into Cyrano./////////////
I was actually Roxanne because I'm a huge Steve Martin film, and then kind of,
you know, I read the story afterwards and found out what it was kind of based on
because I was like, Steve
Martin doing a wacky thing with a big nose and I'm not sure what that is.
So for you, what was your entry point?
How did you come across not just Cyrano in the first instance,
but then want to tell the story the way that you've you've told it?
Well, I originally read the [Edmond] Rostand
play and fell in love with it, and I saw some stage versions of it.
And the thing that struck me was that
usually you have this
typically handsome, always wonderful acclaimed actor who puts on a large
fake nose and spends almost 3 hours talking about how hideous his nose is.
And in the audience, you're sort of in a conspiracy with him.
You think, yeah, it's pretty hideous.
And then at the end of the day, he takes that off and goes home.
And I just thought that there's something there's something underneath that that
obviously that makes it so timeless and relatable that we all have that
hideous nose that we feel
is is within us, and that makes us unlovable.
And so I just wondered what it would be if that if the nose was removed
and if if Cyrano, the character never spoke about what it was that he felt made him unlovable.
So that was really my way in.
And then also the character of Roxanne in the original Rostand.
And she
finds out that after 15 years
she's essentially been catfish, that she, you know, that it's all been a lie.
And she doesn't she doesn't protest but she doesn't say anything.
And then Serena walks off and fights his demons, you know.
And I just thought that she should be able
to speak her mind, that she should say, what about the life we could have had?
And then what would zero say if she said that?
So those those are my ways.
And I really wanted to condense to condense the piece and make it intimate
and and sort of use the original Rostand structure
that's so strong and and talk about what was the underbelly of it, I guess.
Yeah. And you start it in a.
I only found this out today talking to talking to your amazing cast
in the small theater where you started doing it.
And then obviously it's kind of expanded into this into this movie.
Did you anticipate that this would maybe become a movie again
or was it was you focused solely on the theater production?
Because I guess if Joe hadn't seen it, you might not have got to this this point.
I guess if Joe hadn't seen it, we definitely never
would have gotten to this point.
I, I really I work in theater.
I love theater. I conceived it for theater.
And ironically, I conceived it to be cinematic in the theater.
I wanted it to be through composed.
We almost letterboxd the set so that it would feel like, like a movie.
And also the intimacy of the piece was designed to feel almost like a Close-Up
that you that I could have removed the extra 40 characters and reduced it
down to ten so that it would feel really, really intimate.
But I absolutely never thought that it would become a film.
I mean, it's been a film, you know, at least 34 times that are all wonderful.
So when Joe had the idea to make it into a film,
I was really kind of incredulous and a nervous and
it was totally unexpected.
Yeah.
And was there was there ever a point where
Joe had said that maybe you get fresh people to do this?
Obviously, and I think
all of the three leads have done it at some point over the course of its time.
I hope I'm correct in that.
or at least Haley and Kelvin, I just want
when Joe originally called me, he said, I want to make a film of yours Cyrano.
I will direct it. You will write the screenplay.
And it would be it would be Peter and Haley.
So that was from that was from that was the original idea.
From from Joe. Yeah.
Kelvin is not a bad addition.
There is a let's be honest, Kelvin is so wonderful.
I love him.
So much.
He's so he's so beautiful in the role.
Yeah, I saw him in it.
Was it waves last year? Oh, yes.
Absolutely. Broke my heart.
Absolutely loose. He's so yeah.
I mean, if I can do that in my book, I agree you're releasing it.
You know, there's a
there's this whole wave
of kind of musicals at the minute, but it seems like there's space
for all of them, particularly at this this time where, you know,
these kind of films kind of resonate even more so given, you know, current
climates around the world.
Yes. And I really think that our film is different because a lot of
those films
like Tick, Tick, Boom and West Side Story, they're they're based on
successful musicals that kind of
follow the traditional musical theater structure.
And our show was never conceived to be that.
The songs are not theater, musical theater songs.
They're really kind of interior ballads that reflects the characters souls.
And so when they translate to those to the film version,
there's so much that happens on top of the songs that
it's almost like music video, which Joe would hate me saying,
but I think that it's more successful in the film version than it was on stage
because of the nature of the music, which is so different than
you know, Les Mis or,
you know, one of those sort of big blockbuster stage musicals.
I wish you were the best for the release.
Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you.