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HOLLYWOOD INSIDER

Donald Glover, Chiwetel Ejiofor and director Jon Favreau share their reactions after seeing ‘The Lion King’


Los Angeles — One of the most anticipated summer movies this year is the live-action remake of Disney’s “The Lion King.”

Helmed by Jon Favreau, the photorealistic computer-animated musical remake stars the voices of Donald Glover (Simba), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Scar), Seth Rogen (Pumbaa), Billy Eichner (Timon), Beyonce Knowles-Carter (Nala), and James Earl Jones (Mufasa) among others.

We recently talked to director Jon Favreau, Donald Glover and Chiwetel Ejiofor and the three gave us more insights into the making of this magical film. Below are excerpts of our conversations with them:

Donald Glover

 

All photos courtesy of Janet Susan R. Nepales/HFPA
All photos courtesy of Janet Susan R. Nepales/HFPA

When you heard that a remake of “The Lion King” was being made, what did you think?

We were at some function when Jon asked me. And I immediately felt like it was a yes because he did such a good job on “The Jungle Book”, which is one of my favorites. I felt like he did the exact same story, but he was able to make it very relevant to right now. It didn’t feel like he was remaking it for the remake’s sake, it felt like this was a story that needed to be told.

I love that humans have tricks and try not to use your tricks and he turns into a man and realizes oh, that’s why I’m here is to use these tricks and to help people and I can help all the animals. I feel like he’s doing the exact same thing as this where we’re living in a time where it’s necessary to remember again that we all depend on each other.

I love that speech at the beginning where we turn into the grass and then the animals eat us, that’s an important thing right now. So I just feel like, it’s not broken don’t fix it but it’s not broken but I can show my son both films now and they both speak to different things in a way.

It was your first time to see the movie during the LA premiere. What was your reaction watching it with the audience?

The crowd reaction was great. I was really surprised because Jon seemed a little nervous yesterday, [and] he’s usually very relaxed. I was, are you nervous? And he’s, yeah, no one’s ever seen it before. And you don’t get to be in a lot of movies where they haven’t done test screenings and test audiences and whatever.

It felt so tight, people were laughing and also holding back because they wanted to hear more. People cried. I really loved the reaction; it felt so good to experience that with children around. It felt like we were all, as an audience, we’re not as innocent as we used to be so there’s not a lot of movies where everybody can go. I was sitting there and…this does seem like…is this ok? But I saw it when I was a kid and my son was able to see it. So yeah, I really liked the reaction.

What is your favorite song in the movie and why?

“Circle of Life” feels very relatable to me and I feel like it feels very relatable to the moment.

What’s really fascinating about you as a creative force is that you have created two distinct personalities, an actor, and the writer and director and on the music side. What was the motivation for having these two separate personalities and how advantageous has it been for you in being creative?

I didn’t think about it too hard when I did it, to be quite honest. I didn’t really give it a lot of thought. I think subconsciously it just gave me more freedom. I realize freedom is constantly untethering yourself to realize oh there’s a bigger tether, and you need boundaries in order to explore something, to feel safe enough to do it.

I just felt at that time I just needed that kind of boundary and it allowed also people to separate their feelings. I don’t feel like people necessarily, they feel good…I contain multitudes and I feel like people have a hard time seeing that even in themselves.

Even him talking about Scar, I love Scar. I think he’s so understandable to me, once you see the world and how people are…I should have that job or I should be doing that, that should be me, it’s like you’re really mad at yourself. And also the Sarabi thing in this movie is really dope that love triangle aspect, like I should have been chosen, it’s like, who cares, but it’s a very human thing. Going back to the other question, I just separated them because at the time it just felt like it was right.

Following up on that, having these two careers, can you talk about the challenges or the obstacles in maintaining these two amazing careers?

You get older and you can’t do it all the time. I was talking to Justin Timberlake years ago and he was, man it’s really hard to do both. I remember thinking, no it’s not, you can do both, you’ve just got to really go for it.

But now your body is going through a lot, and it’s a time constraint thing. I used to be able to do a lot of stuff and also, I love hanging out with my kids and you don’t ever feel like you’re shortchanging either of them because they’re both your babies. So yeah, that’s the hard part, the exploration is the fun part, and the hard part is as you get older deciding what deserves your energy, your love.

Would the music side be more exhausting because of the touring?

No, because acting is just as exhausting body-wise. I feel like I’ve broken my foot on stage performing, I’ve ripped up part of my thumb on “Star Wars”, it’s always a physical feat. It’s always something that you have to have great discipline and understanding for so they’re both equally as challenging.

Can you talk about working with Beyonce?

 

 

At the time we were doing this I was working on “Star Wars: Solo” so I was in London. So, I got to record it at Abbey Road Studios, and it was awesome, it was the highlight, it was really cool. We lived around the corner, so it was really beautiful.

Whe was getting ready for Coachella so we couldn’t really get together. It was a lot more organic than usually what it is. Most of the time in music, sometimes when you’re collaborating it’s just, here’s the verse and here’s my verse and boom, that’s it.

But we went back and forth a couple of times. I recorded it multiple times. Just listening to her, ok, maybe I’ll try something supporting that and it was like a dance. I recorded some at Abbey’s, sometimes I went to my studio and I recorded it, tried some with Hans at his studio. So, it was just a back and forth, but we didn’t actually get to be in the same room because we’re so busy.

The first time I met her it was backstage at a Jay Z concert and she was just hanging out. She was drinking a glass of wine  and we just talked about “The Lion King.” We hadn’t done anything yet but we had just gotten it and we were just talking about it.

She was really just sweet. The energy just changes whenever she’s in the room. Once you get that big, you have control over that feeling and I felt very at home but also very regal. She’s really cool.

When was the last time you cried watching a movie?

I cried last night. I’ve become an easier crier. The more you understand what’s happening as you get older and also, you become more ok with letting it go.

One of the earliest memories I have, I remember going to kindergarten and my dad telling me, don’t be afraid to cry. You can cry whenever you want. Don’t let anybody tell you it’s not ok to cry. I still didn’t cry a lot, pressures from outside a little bit, you don’t want to cry at school. There are other things going on. But now, I cry a little easier. Also, I watch a lot of movies on planes and you’re always emotional on planes. There’s something about the altitude.

So what was the biggest lesson you learned from your Dad?

To love yourself, I think. And I mean that as…all of this is a process. I think he taught me yeah, you’re going to make mistakes, you’re going to run away, you’re going to be hurt, all these things are the process of becoming who you are and you should love who that person is no matter what.

It took him…he lost his family at a young age. I think family is the most important thing, I think that’s probably the big thing he taught me. And you decide what that is at the end of the day.

Chiwetel Ejiofor

 


What was your reaction when you first saw the movie at the LA premiere?

I was really just a member of the audience. I just felt just part of it. I was clapping along with everyone else. And again, I hadn’t thought about that really, but the idea that there were moments in watching the film where I was laughing and then trying not to laugh because I wanted to hear what was coming. All of that stuff, it was just very alive and just a sense of real participation.

It’s fascinating to watch a character like Scar because obviously we all grew up with our relatives and there’s some who have our back and they try and nurture us and others who maybe have their own special interests. So, looking back on your life, who was the person who most motivated you and what if there is somebody in your circle of life who maybe didn’t have your best interests at heart?

Interesting. I’m probably not going to throw them under the bus right now. I would always credit, in a positive sense, my mother is the greatest influence in my life and has been and somebody who I absolutely credit with just the characteristics that have always helped me and continue to.

One of the things that I think is incredibly rich about this story is that it’s a story that is centered in family. It’s centered in two sides of the family — the family that you have and the family that you choose and that’s part of the journey that is undertaken.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Two weeks #lionking #disney ????

A post shared by Chiwetel Ejiofor???? (@chiwetelejiofor_) on

 

What’s interesting to me about Scar is that he represents in a lot of ways, parts of all of us, all of our natures. All of us are to some degree, obsessed with our status and are addicted to our status and how that relates to power and so on, when we lose those things, what that means for us.

I can see that and see elements of that in myself. I can see elements of that in people around me. I can see elements of that in family and friends. What I think is rich about “The Lion King” is all of those things have a place in the story and it also is instructive on how dangerous those things can be and how best dealt with they are.

What, for you, is the meaning of the circle of life?

One of the things that I was thinking about yesterday as I watched it was just how nourished I felt by watching this version of it as well. That idea of finding out who you are, of understanding the road either psychologically or physically leads home and reconciling yourself with home is an important part of life.

In that kind of circle, of leaving and coming back and places changing, people changing and that being a defining quality of your characteristic. And the friends that you make and the nature of the family you choose and the family you have, all of those cycles, all of those kinds of ideas as well as in the meta sense this idea of the circle of life, that way obviously is there.

But there’s so much about that, about how we travel, how we return, how we exist that was very meaningful to me actually yesterday as I was watching it. I felt very, very nourished by that.

When was the last time you cried while watching a movie?

I saw “Diving Bell and the Butterfly” on a plane. They almost had to land the flight. I was in pieces.

You already worked with Beyoncé and now also with Angelina Jolie in “Maleficent.” Can you talk about that?

Retirement can happen next. I’d actually worked with Angelina before; we made a film called “Salt” a few years ago. So, I’ve known Angelina for a while.

Obviously, she’s incredible and an extraordinary force as well in the world, as well as anything else, as well as being a terrific actress. I was really delighted to work on that film and to work with her again. I’m excited.

Jon Favreau

 


The level of photo-realism in this movie is so incredible. Was there any doubt when you first started this process that you could get it so precise that audiences wouldn’t question that what they were seeing wasn’t real?

We are all using essentially the same technology, all the movies. There’s not a special computer we have or a piece of software.  It’s the combination of people and it’s also creatively what we set out to do. 

What accounts for it, of course there were some breakthroughs technologically, but a lot of it was my learning curve. I knew what they could do well right now, they meaning people, the visual effects artists.  There are certain things that they can’t do well, or they can’t do as well as other things. 

So it’s almost like how a chef, you let the ingredients dictate your menu.  You don’t say I am going to make carrots and you go out and if the carrots look terrible you still make carrots.  You go and see what’s good.

I had just come off the experience of “The Jungle Book” and I knew there were certain things that we could do, great and certain things where because we were putting all the work with one vendor, with MPC out of London, I knew that we could say, hey look, we are committing to this much, let’s really figure out how to make the fur move differently now, or let’s put some money into R and D about particle and fluid dynamics, things that aren’t that interesting in an interview, but actually contribute to this photo real look that we are coming closer and closer to achieving.

Talk about your casting. How did you manage to cast everybody?

Casting has been something that I have been very fortunate to have in all the films I have done. It’s been an area that I have either gotten very lucky or smart about, but the cast has always been the strongest foundation of everything that I have worked on, even on the smallest films.

 

 

Maybe because I am a performer, I could appreciate talent in other people and I do everything I can to help highlight that. When I understand who is going to play what role, it makes me really understand how to tell that story.

My background isn’t film school, it’s performance. So to me it’s all about the people and the story comes from that combination.

Everybody in it are, especially in a film like this, where we are not changing the story significantly and it’s about a half hour longer and there’s a lot of scenes that weren’t in the original and we actually change more than people might think. 

But at the end of the day, we are hitting all the same story beats. We are not trying to reinvent “The Lion King.” But much like with when you take a stage production and you mount a new version of a classic, it’s the new cast that informs how it’s going to be different from what you remember last time you saw Hamlet performed or something.

So the cast was an integral part of making a case for why there was an opportunity to remake this classic. Part of it was their performance, but of course having the music reinterpreted was something else that creates interest and excitement around this one. 

So the very idea of Donald Glover doing a duet with Beyoncé of “Can You Feel the Love Tonight,” made that sequence an event. I remember when I first heard the recording, and when people would come in, it would just be pencils sometimes I would bring people in, and I was like do you want to hear what we are doing, and you just see people light up, because there’s something really exciting and satisfying about seeing a new generation interpret something that you already love.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A post shared by Beyoncé (@beyonce) on

 

And Beyoncé as your first choice for Nala?

Yeah, I mean I have two daughters and a wife, and they have been Beyoncé fans for many, many, many albums. I had a casual knowledge of her hits and her songs, but it really is from living in a house.

By the way, I was introduced to Childish Gambino through my son, so really grateful for, you have got to be, as you get older, you have to be open to new things, new people and you realize that new waves of creative talents are emerging and it’s very easy for us to withdraw to the things that we know and are comfortable with and that’s what is great about having young people in your life, is that they play it and at first you go oh is this going to be as good as the music that I like?

Then you listen to Beyoncé sing and you listen to a few of her albums once through and all of a sudden you have a deep respect for her talents. Now I also have a deep respect for her work ethic because she is not there in the position that she is in purely because of her God-given talents, she works incredibly hard and cares deeply.  She also has very good understanding of how everything fits together.

In a culture where everything overlaps into everything else, she has this interesting understanding of how fashion intersects with film, intersects with art, intersects with music, and cinema, so really wonderful to be able to spend time with so many smart, talented people.

So were you nervous at the premiere?

Well it’s just a surreal, I mean premieres are surreal at all.  And you are traveling, I live in Santa Monica, so you are spending a half-an-hour in rush hour traffic, in a suit in the back of an SUV, and you are in this little vacuum, you are nervous and you are there with your family and your family is dressed up and they are a little bit nervous 'cause they are going to something special and it’s a culmination of three years of work.

My wife, God bless her, I was squeezing her hand the whole time, because when the whole beginning of the movie, it’s very emotional and there’s some uplifting music.  But it wasn’t until Donald Glover and Billy and Seth come on screen and you get some of the comedy that you start to feel the audience reacting.

Then coming from a background, I was like a character actor and doing comedy, then you feel the room light up and then you understand the relationship, you are getting feedback from the room.

At that point, I relaxed, I laughed, I enjoyed myself, I opened up my popcorn, I got to enjoy myself.  But it’s funny, as many times as I have been through this experience, there’s a heightened reality about people gathering together to watch this thing that essentially you have been making in a dark room for years. 

Then you share it all at once with everybody.  It’s one of those things that you never forget.  Then you just have to pinch yourself also to say that I used to live three blocks away from that theater, back in the time when I was making “Swingers” and just hoping anybody would care at all to know if you knew what the Hell you were doing as a storyteller.  Now here I am 20 years later that was about the time when the first “Lion King” came out I was writing that movie. 

 

 

It’s just amazing what kind of a journey you go on and there I was, living alone in a tiny apartment and now here I was with three children and my father and my uncle and my wife and you just feel very grateful.

The real lesson is how do you really enjoy that and know that these experiences don’t come more than a few times in a lifetime.  Just to have that audience laugh and react and appreciate it and the cast feel proud to be in it and the Disney cast feel happy and the filmmakers from the previous production to be there and be part of it, it just felt a very complete night.

So was that one of the top three moments in your life?

Well I’ve got three kids so those are taken up right there.  But I would say that it’s definitely, if you were to make a list on a pad of paper of things that, nights you will never forget and experiences, because it’s a culmination of, you start to realize that when am I ever going to be in this position again with a property like this and a cast like that and music like that and an audience like that? 

At a moment like this, you just want to be mindful to when things like that happen, because it’s so easy to be nervous and not take it in. So I was happy to share it with the cast and people who I have been collaborating with and my family. — LA, GMA News

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