Chatting With George Lucas & The Cast of @StrangeMagic! #StrangeMagic Opens Friday!

It was pretty awesome to have George Lucas walk in to the room and sit 10 feet away from me to discuss his new movie, Strange Magic. And the best part was, he was as down to Earth as could be.

His passion for this movie was immediately evident. Did you now it was 15 years in the making? For a long time George wanted to make a movie where music told the story. Finding the right songs to cohesively tell a story was a monumental task and as many songs as there are, they had to be whittled down so that they did not end up with a five hour movie!

The best and simplest question of the day came from the youngest member of the audience who asked quite simply, “Why did you make this movie?” Everyone had such intense, probing questions that no one thought to ask the obvious, and the answer was as simple as the question. George Lucas just wanted to have fun, and he wanted to listen to good music all day. Wow!

“Making this movie was more like a Rubik’s Cube than a jigsaw puzzle.” Once you see the movie and hear the music and see how the story flows with the music telling the tale, you will understand. I cannot imagine how one person’s head can work out this entire movie. Ten years to figure out the characters, five years to mix in the right music.

Originally, George wanted to make a movie for tween boys but since he had daughters, the movie is about the two Princess fairies. The fact that one doesn’t take the conventional route in life is a wonderful example of the way this story and some other recent movies are moving away from the traditional weak Princess marries handsome Prince and he takes care of her theme. I wish that were my story, but it is not: this story is more relatable to our real world.

George also felt that some lessons need to be taught to every new generation. This movie deals with the issue of infatuation versus real love. We are shown that infatuation doesn’t last, but true love is something that you have to fight for, true love is real. And more importantly, don’t judge a book by it’s cover. That was beautifully illustrated as the handsome Prince is contrasted with the ugly Bog King.

The trend towards more realistic relationships in animated movies, which Strange Magic wonderfully illustrates in two ways (sorry, the second illustration would be a spoiler if revealed!), is a great direction. The beautiful Princess marries the beautiful Prince and lives happily ever after was what I grew up with and doesn’t exist in the real world. This movie, and other recent ones, say that love has to be worked at, fought for, and the winning beau may not be beautiful on the outside, but fantastic on the inside. And by fantastic on the inside, that could mean exactly how George Lucas described his marriage. They are opposites at first glance. But they are the same person on the inside, same moral code, same beliefs, and they finish each others sentences! That is the real world fairy tale that I can achieve, and as Mr. Lucas ended, he said in some ways this movie mirrors his life, “Love is Strange!”

Part II of our interviews included:

Gary Rydstrom (Director)
Meredith Anne Bull (voice of “Dawn”)
Sam Palladio (voice of “Roland”)
Evan Rachel Wood (voice of “Marianne”)
Alan Cumming (voice of “Bog King”)
Elijah Kelly (voice of “Sunny”)
Marius De Vries (Musical Director)

Gary Rydstrom joined the movie just two years ago. As I said earlier, this movie was 15 years in the making, so there was quite a bit of work already completed. This was also his first animated movie. He was very funny sharing about how he had to voice many of the actors and actresses to help each of the cast get into and stay in character as they were alone in the sound booth.

Animated movies are usually done over the course of years. Alan Cumming said that sometimes it was difficult to get back into character after being away from the film for months at a time. He also added that once the dialogue started up, mostly with Director Gary Rydstrom voicing various characters, it was easy to get back into the mindset of the Bog King. Most actors and actresses doing the voices in an animated movie do not work together. They sit alone in a booth with the Director sometimes playing the other characters for script continuity. Alan has a wonderful singing voice and I loved the way he said the hoped there was no one filming him in the sound booth as he sang the various songs, as the Bog King. He must have really got into character with no one other than the crew watching. I can only pray that some of this gets onto the DVD when it is released!

Evan Rachel Wood spoke about being a tom boy growing up so she was happy to play the role of a hardened fairy. She also shared that most of the singing for the film was done when she was seven months pregnant! I love this inside information, because you would never know from hearing her beautiful singing renditions that this was the case.

Sam Palladio spoke about the weirdness of acting and singing alone. Taking cues from other actors and actresses as you are working together was always the way he had done it before, he quickly learned that wasn’t how working on an animated movie was!

Meredith Anne Bull was a sweetheart! She was the lovesick fairy and showed us all how true love wins out in the end.

Elijah Kelly was my friend from earlier in the day as we met at the front desk and then spoke in the elevator! His quote of the day was one of my favorites, “No matter how weird and strange you are, there is someone else out there just as weird and strange as you,” meaning there is someone for everyone! Hey, that is how I ended up getting married!

Lastly, Marius De Vries did the score for the movie and was very humble about his impact on the film. Any original music in the movie is credited to him.

Look for my review Friday!

STRANGE MAGIC opens in theatres everywhere on January 23rd!

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Disclosure: I attended the movie preview. All opinions are my own and 100% honest.

And the cast were super generous with letting us pose with them for pictures!