Julie Taymor

And it's all dramatic.

And then I think, I bet Julie Taymor is not out here behaving like this.

Well, you know what? It takes a village.

There you go.

It was frowned upon and she didn't care.

What did you think of Julie Taymor's movie? Have you seen it?

You know, I saw it when it first came out and I think it's very beautiful.

I think Julie Taymor is, you know, a genius.

But I've stayed away from it.

So, you know, it's been 20 years since I've seen it.

And I haven't revisited it because I wanted my connection with Frida to be my version of her and not Selma Hayek's and not Julie Taymor's.

So I remember it being beautiful, but I've not leaned on any of it.

I look forward to watching it and really delving deep into it.

There was a revival a few years ago directed by Julie Taymor that did not do well, and it was unclear if it was that the play wasn't as successful as it once was or if that Julie Taymor was the wrong match for it.

But the original production was considered a really... transgressive and illuminating and exciting piece of theater and announced Hwang as a major voice in commercial theater.

And to the point that when Miss Saigon came to Broadway two years later, David Henry Hwang was perhaps the most celebrity actor vocal opponent of all the people who were against Miss Saigon coming in to the point that he then wrote two different plays about that situation.

Y'all go watch Titus if you've never seen it.

Julie Newmar directed that thing.

Taymor.

Julie Taymor.

Julie Newmar.

Jesus Christ.

I haven't drank any of the whiskey that I brought home from 7-3 Distilling.

i

think she like i think she liked me and literally had the suitcase in my bag my suitcase in my hand and we were getting in the car to get to the airport and my phone rang and it was the associate director who I know quite well and he said I've got someone on the line for you and I knew they'd just finished the audition and I went hello and it was like this is Julie Taymor just like to say we're very delighted to offer you we want you to be the next Scar on Broadway and I was like No way.

Me and my wife instantly cried.

And I said goodbye to her.

Really? Yeah, yeah.

So when I got the job and I had my rehearsal time, I was like, really? Do I need four weeks? You know, because my career has been a lot of song and dance, so a lot of dancing and singing, which obviously learning choreography takes longer than just learning script.

So I was like, do I need four weeks? In the end, I'm really pleased I had those four weeks because the whole Scar costume and the whole mask and learning that Julie Taymor really likes the character to come through that mask.

She loves her designs, which are brilliant.

Not so

much of that with The Lion King, because Julie Taymor, who designed all the costumes, as she directed the show, it's her concept.

She really wanted the audience to see that we were actors working puppets.

So even though all I wear is a mask here on top of my head that I have batteries and cables going down the inside of my costumes and a hand lever that makes this mask sort of swoop down and up.

And luckily, because of my connection with Disney, they said, for your first audition, you can just come to London and the London production creatives will audition you.

And they obviously, I did that and they gave me a thumbs up and said, yes, you can have a callback.

But that callback was gonna be with Julie Taymor, the director and Anthony Lynn, the associate director in New York.

And by utter luck, I had a week off from Les Mis in Europe and I happened to be home.

So I'm in my final semester of my final year at the University of Victoria in the acting program, and I'm nervously pacing back and forth in a hallway about to go into my audition for the worst play of all time.

Do you guys remember that Julie Taymor production of Spider-Man the musical that was universally panned and lost millions of dollars? Well, this play would make that look like The Importance of Being Earnest, which is delightful if you've never seen it.

This play that I was auditioning for had been written 15 years earlier by a Quebec City novelist, and upon reading it for the first time, I quickly understood why it had never seen the light of day, had never been produced, had never even been workshopped.

It was bad in an obvious kind of way.