- How much of the incentive of doing something like this
is like, I'm going to score my own puppet at some point?
- I said at the start of the process can I have a puppet?
And there was a resounding "no" that came back.
- I think it's so funny that
you asked that - They're not cheap.
- I said I'd really love to be involved.
Can I have a puppet?
And they went, "No."
I was like, "Okay, I'll still do it."
It was naive of me because they are works of art
and they're very, very expensive to make
so it was my misplaced actor's vanity there.
You don't walk onto a film set and go,
"Can I keep one of the cameras?"
So I don't know what I was thinking.
- Everybody at Comic Con knows and loves 'Dark Crystal'.
You're in the right place, obviously.
Are you sensing the love, are you excited to
finally expose people
to a little bit more footage from this?
Give me a sense of where you're head's at
right now as you sit here.
- I think, as you say, it just feels like the perfect place.
'The Dark Crystal' has a very very loyal, devoted following.
I am one of those fans, which is why I'm here,
and it's exciting to be in a place where the fans are
of utmost importance, and the passion that people bring here
for these properties is incredible.
I came here for the first time when I was 25
so four or five years ago, and it does just feel like
the perfect place, doesn't it,
to have our first footage screening?
- I will say, I want to hear your perspective
of course, Louis, but you were minus seven
when this movie came out, I did the math.
- Excellent mathematics.
- English is not my strong suit,
- That's why he's here.
- but math is pretty good.
- I don't think I was even a twinkle in my father's eye
at that point.
- So how were you exposed to it?
Is it just something that like--
- My dad actually showed me it.
My dad had a real thing for great '80s movies
so at the same time that I was falling in love
with Luke Skywalker, I was also
♪ Who I'm seeing today ♪
I was also being shown 'The Dark Crystal' and 'Labyrinth',
'Labyrinth' is where I found my love for David Bowie
and so I was a real kind of Henson kid.
- Love it, and for you guys, I got a chance to see you guys
at New York Comic Con, when you first unveiled
some stuff from this.
There's something intangible about the magic of
'The Dark Crystal', about those puppets.
Just give me a sense of your approach to this
and how much you wanted to mimic as much as possible
the original, as opposed to going the CGI route.
Why was that part and parcel of this?
- I feel like that one's for you
because you're such a huge puppetry fan.
- Absolutely, but it starts in the family, that's why
I was wondering if you wanted to say, so
I'm a huge puppet fan, but I'm a huge fan of Jim Henson.
Jim Henson has touched me like he's touched
so many people around the world.
Obviously I'm French, and Taron's English
and Jim Henson was part of our life.
He was our father just like your father.
And just gave us so much love, so much emotion
the scope of his work is massive,
and 'The Dark Crystal' was this one thing that was for us
and obviously I'm older than Taron,
I saw it as a kid and I was pretty freaked out by it.
- Mind-blowing to any child when they first see it.
- Exactly and it shocked me, and for me
when I grew up to be a director, these movies in the '80s
it feels like every weekend there was an important movie
coming out in the '80s.
And these movies had something in common,
they were like "How did they do this?" kind of movies.
'Star Wars' was one of them
but 'Dark Crystal' was really this
because there was no human that you could see.
Everything was real, it felt real,
the world was big, was new, it was different.
Three suns in the sky, three moons in the sky.
And I was like how, yeah, yeah. How, how how how?
When I became a director, and I was looking
to make big movies, then they said, "Who do you
want to meet in Hollywood?"
I said I want to meet Lisa Henson.
I want to meet Jim Henson's daughter and I want to
talk to her about 'The Dark Crystal'.
- Amazing.
I want to talk to you guys about this amazing cast.
Taron is of course one of many that are a part of this.
And it speaks to the love of this material.
It might be the most eclectic amazing cast I've seen
associated with a project.
Do you even know who all your co-stars are in this Taron?
- I would occasionally get a text from Louis going,
"Simon Pegg signed up."
And then there was one that "Mark Hamill signed up."
It's amazing, although in some respects
for me not surprising.
It was a no-brainer for me and I think for anyone
who had that experience of watching 'The Dark Crystal'
and being enchanted by it in a way that
I've never really been enchanted by anything else
is so unique. It's not surprising that
such an incredible cast signed on to be involved.
- For you Lisa, is there anything from your dad's
drawings, writings, et cetera that you draw upon for this?
Or is it that you go back to the original film
as your bedrock?
- We go back to the original film
but we also had Brian Froud, who is very much alive,
very vibrant active artist. He and his whole family.
Wendy Froud, his son Toby Froud, they all worked on the show
and so we had the direct input of the original
designer of the show, and so because he personally designed
every character, every costume, it's all very consistent
with the original movie, but it's largely maybe
75% new characters. But they all feel consistent
with the original characters.
In some cases we were actually copying
the original puppets, and that was fun.
It was our starting point as we copied puppets,
the set builders copied the Crystal Chamber,
and then we branched out into the new things
that would build on to the things that
we were just copying from, the originals.
But even with the original Skeksis characters
who were alive back in this prequel period,
we have all new voices for them
so even they are reinvented, but not too differently.
But the quality of the voices and the cast
for those characters is outstanding.
- I assume Rian is not a big singer in 'The Dark Crystal'.
- No, it's one of the few jobs where
singing hasn't come up, I sing! I do sing!
- Are you crazy, there's so much singing.
- I sing in it.
- Really?
- I've got to stop doing that.
- Can you preview what can we expect?
What's the ditty?
- It's a funeral song so it's a bit of a mood killer.
So to be honest--
- I think it's also in a made-up language.
- Yeah, I can't remember it, I think of
harmonizing with myself.
- Harmonizing, that's how he gets the girl.
- I can't remember it.
I do sing in it. I'm lying. I do sing in it.
- You're just getting typecast now.
- Everybody sings, they're Gelfling, they fly and sing.
- Forgive me, but do you cast the voice actors
before you shot any of this?
- No, but Taron was the exception.
Taron was the first person we came to
and the immediate yes answer.
It was incredible, we said, "What about Taron"
and at the end of "Egerton?" he said yes.
(laughing)
- "I get a puppet, right?"
- Yeah. "Can I have a puppet?"
- Embarrassingly uncool about it.
- Got to play it cooler, man, come on.
- No it was incredible, having him on board
really defined our cast.
Defined the level, the quality of actors we wanted to get.
- Very flattering.
- No, it's true, with next generation
and really you helped us so much.
And it was interesting because Taron being cast
he came on set, met his puppeteer,
the puppeteer knew he was Taron's, he was
looking at Taron's movies, understanding how Taron,
it's very difficult, you have to work in symbiosis,
the two performers, Taron and his puppeteer Neil Sterenberg.
- So when you see your character in this,
see clips or episodes, do you see yourself a little bit?
- It's interesting, it really is
the symbiotic nature of it is a lovely way of putting it
because Neil, who animates and brings the character to life
has his own rhythm, so on other voice projects I've done
the character is animated to my syncopation
whereas I have to match Neil's
and that's a lovely challenge.
It adds a different dimension to things.
But over time you do start to feel a sense of ownership
and it's a really lovely thing.
- Dogs look like their owners,
puppets look like their actors.
- You're going to eventually like this dude, right?
- It does happen.
- Probably soon, within a couple of--
- The puppet has a very boyish quality.
His beard game is about as strong as mine.
- One of the rumors heading into Comic Con this year
was about you and Wolverine.
Mark Millar, no less.
- I think you need better beard game for Wolverine.
- Come on, man, don't sell yourself short.
I think you've got it.
Could you imagine yourself doing that, and would it be
surreal knowing Hugh as well as you do
to eventually play that character?
- Look, there's no grounding for the rumor.
I know that that's probably in the pipeline at some point
at Marvel but I imagine it's a little way off.
If I was asked it would be incredible
but I have to confess, sometimes I think
there's better candidates, actually who knows
if it was in five years maybe I'd be grizzly enough.
- The world will wear you down and then you'll be ready.
- I'm a great admirer of those films and it's
very, very flattering to even be mentioned.