This week on 'Off the Record,' we're playing special tribute to Jim Henson's 1986 film 'Labyrinth,' the beloved cult classic that introduced David Bowie to generations of kids. We're kicking off the festivities with conceptual designer Brian Froud, the man who imagined world of 'Labyrinth.' A legendary illustrator and painter, the movie began with Brian’s drawings of goblins, monsters and surreal landscapes. These visions formed the basis for the film’s script, written by Monty Python veteran Terry Jones. Brian helped oversee the construction of elaborate character puppets along with his wife Wendy, a famed sculptor and puppet maker perhaps best known for fabricating Yoda for the Star Wars series. And they were also joined on the set by their baby son Toby, the child abducted by Jareth the Goblin King (aka David Bowie). Brian put his heart, soul and firstborn into this film, so it seemed only write that we kick off 'Labyrinth' Week with him.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Off the Record is a production of I Heart Radio.
Hello and welcome to Off the Record, the show that
goes beyond the songs and into the hearts and minds
of rocks greatest legends. I'm your host, Jordan Runtug. Thanks
so much for listening. Over the last few months you've
joined me. Is I've explored different eras in the life
of David Bowie and talked with key figures from these
(00:22):
many periods. But now we're gonna do something a little different.
From the moment I started this project, I've had friends
and loved ones say, what are you gonna do on Labyrinth?
You have to do something on Labyrinth. The passion for
this movie is immense, and I get it. I was
born a year after the film was released. I guess
that would make me a millennial. Try not to hold
(00:43):
it against me. A lot of my friends are the
same age, and for us, Labyrinthe was our introduction to
the man and the mystery that is David Bowie. The style,
the swagger, the sass, the pants. First impressions are powerful,
especially a first impression like this. To this day, there's
a part of me that truly believes that David Bowie
really is jarref the Goblin King. Like so many, Labyrinth
(01:08):
was a favorite movie growing up. It was only years
later that I discovered it was considered something of a
disaster for director Jim Henson, the legendary Lord of the Muppets.
It earned just half of its twenty five million dollar
budget in the States and garnered mixed reviews, many from
those who felt it was too mature for children and
too fantastical for adults. It was just before Henson's death
(01:30):
in the film began to enjoy new life on home video.
Since then, it's become a cult classic, beloved by generations
of kids thanks to the innovative designs and of course
David's unforgettable performance and unforgettable hair. So with this in mind,
I'd like to welcome you to the start of Labyrinth Week,
a celebration of this oft overlooked Bowie treasure. Over the
(01:53):
next few days, I'll share interviews with several people who
helped bring Labyrinth to life, and today we're starting with
the perfect person, conceptual designer Brian Froud, the man who
imagined the world of Labyrinthe. Brian is a legendary illustrator
and painter who works in the realm, commonly referred to
as fantasy. Those you'll see he personally objects to the word.
(02:16):
His paintings breathed life into ancient folklore and oral history,
depicting the spiritual side of the natural world through fairies
and mythological figures. The rich imagery attracted the attention of
Jim Henson, and in nineteen seventy seven they began work
on a different cinematic saga, The Dark Crystal. The film
took them five years to complete and left them both exhausted.
(02:38):
As soon as it was done, they dove headlong into Labyrinthe.
It began with Brian's drawings of goblins and monsters and
surreal landscapes. His visions formed the basis for the film's script,
written by Monty Python veteran Terry Jones. Brian helped oversee
the construction of elaborate character puppets, another multi year process.
(02:59):
The auction was something of a family affair. Also at
the workshop was his wife, Wendy, a legendary sculptor and
puppet maker, perhaps best known for fabricating Yoda for the
Star Wars series, and they were also joined on the
set by their son Toby as in Baby Toby abducted
by Jared. The Goblin. King Brian put his heart, soul, imagination,
(03:21):
and firstborn into this film, so it seemed only right
that we kick off Labyrinth Week with him. I hope
you enjoy our conversation. To start, there was a wonderful
quote you gave where you said, everything you need to
know is in a tree, and it seemed like a
great place to start. I wanted to ask you more
about that and the role that that nature plays in
(03:43):
your work. It all seems to sort of flow from there. Yes.
I remember when I was working in England and I
was creating my paintings, which well, I guess sort of organic,
and I was really inspired by an artist called Arthur
Rackham who worked at the turn of the century and
(04:05):
illustrated some definitive books of the Grim Brothers and you know,
the Ring Cycle and various things like that, and um,
the thing that inspired me the most was that his
his trees were always twisted and strange and full of life,
and they would have faces in it. And then the
(04:26):
creatures he would draw were like a tree, like the
branches you know that they were that the lines were
very flowing. I was working in London at the time,
but I wanted to move to the country because I
wanted to develop my art. I knew I needed to
move to the countryside, which I did, and was immediately
(04:48):
struck by what I was looking at, which were rocks
and trees and hills, and I felt like, as an artist,
I could see what they look like on the outside,
but I was always intrigued about what they looked like
on the inside. And as I articulated that, I started
(05:11):
to draw more and more gnomes and fairies, which got
classified as fantasy arts, which I always get a bit
annoyed at, and I'd say, I don't do fantasy, I
do reality. This is the this is the real spiritual
nature of the world. When I first came to America,
(05:35):
I was a guest of honor the World Fantasy Convention.
I was convinced there wasn't a single trick in America
because that you know, inspirational energy was not showing up
in the arts, you know, in the fantasy art. And
I was both shocked and delighted to discover that America
(05:57):
has wonderful treas I mean most please. And then I
was a bit annoyed that they asters was a why
aren't they looking at your own trees? They were too
busy looking at each other's work. It's very American. Yeah,
rather than being inspired were there's something was right on
their doorsteps. So there's something about branches. The flow of
(06:20):
a branch and the fact it's organic is the way
I like to draw. You know, a line needs to
be expressive, and it has to be expressive of whatever
it is, the character or soul or something like that.
But it's always going to be sort of different each time.
But it's rather besides, so you know, there's no one
(06:44):
way of drawing. Um, well, what I tried to draw
his spirit? Really? I mean I tried to draw the
the invisible purposes. I don't know why enough I got
down that route or drying to draw fareas. I have
a family member who is deeply involved in in spiritual work,
(07:04):
and I told her I was speaking to you, and
she was so thrilled, and I found myself asking her
this question. And I'd like to ask you, now, what
is a fairy? Because it does seem to encompass a
fairly wide swath of characters, But are they psychical impressions?
Are they creatures or how would you define a fairy?
Tough questions? First, Really, I think that, I mean, that's
(07:25):
a fascinating it's a fascinating thing, um, you know, because
everybody wants proof or they want evidence, and they want
it to be real. And then if you say what
you see in your head, they go, see, uh, it
doesn't exist, does it? But it? But it does seem
to me that fairies or spirits are often spirits of place.
(07:47):
They're a spirit of a hill or a specific location.
And that's why I think when they show up and
when you see them or people's experience of them off
of the very similar the shapes and forms are responding
to the energy of the place, and so it is
(08:08):
the spirit of that place. And when they sort of
show up, I'm doing the inverted customers with my fingers. Here.
Is that it seems to me it's simultaneously like in
your head but also projected seemingly outside. Certainly, I don't
see fairies very often, but if I do, you absolutely
(08:31):
know you've seen it. But it's not going to be
necessarily very clear if it makes any sense. I mean,
I remember being on tour in America and I was
somewhere I don't remember exactly where. I was somewhere on
the West coast, and I was walking around and I
was thinking, I don't know, I just feel to be
(08:53):
experiencing about the best, the best way of saying it,
rather than seeing, but experiencing lepricorn and I thought, I
love that. I'm going a bit do lally. Why am
I thinking about lepricorns? And then I suddenly saw a
sign and it said on this side, well fever sheds.
(09:15):
And it was when ships were coming in and there
were a lot of Irish immigrants coming in and they
had fevers. They put them in isolation in these sheds,
and I thought, gosh, I think they brought lepricorns with them.
I think that's spontaneous visual expressions of you know, of energy,
(09:38):
of spiritual energy. I suppose yeah. Did you feel that
that you saw things differently or saw things that most
people don't see from an early age? I guess the
question is did you choose fairies or did they choose you? Um,
and then they absolutely chose me. I can't say that
I saw them, but it was my first glimpse of
(09:58):
Arthur Rackham's are when I was at art school, and
I was training to be a painter, and I was
getting really bored with it. I just thought, you could
paint a rubbish picture, but if you could explain it
in grand words, it was called good art. And I thought,
this is absolutely, you know, patently not true. And I
(10:22):
really sort of believed that the picture should be self
evident and it should tell its own story. So I
thought I'd changed courses and go and study graphic design
because it graphic designs seemed to be much more direct,
with an image of having a meaning and you could
understand it. And as I was waiting for my interview
(10:45):
in the library, I came across our for rack and
book Midsummer Night Dream and in it were you know
these pictures, wonderful pictures of in the scratchy inclines trees
with faces in it. I thought, ah, I didn't see
it that way when I was young, but that's how
(11:05):
I felt when I was climbing up trees. I felt
there was the spirit of it. And that's how I
got drawn into wanting to draw fairies. And as I
when I went on the course graphic design course, it
was really boring. It was absolutely pretti. Were you boring,
and so I sort of chained myself to to illustrate.
(11:30):
You know, I got very interested in Gradgrind's fairy tales
and did my own drawings, and as I were drawing
fairy tales, I got I became more and more interested
in the possible psychic reality of real fairies and started
to also try and paint being sort of made of
(11:52):
light and that were elusive and Neyone difficult, were really
impossible debate. I don't know what I was thinking of that,
and I've always wanted my pictures, you know, from then
on doing and somehow incorporate some sense of spirit. Something
(12:14):
that you do so well that is so incredible to
me is that there there is such a sense of
realism in your work, and that makes it so much
more evocative. What is key to getting through to people
in that way and to putting that sense of realism?
Is there something that really is integral you have to
nail just right in order to make it have that
sense of realism. I think it's desired to allow people
(12:37):
to believe, and so say one of my paintings that
can be lay complex, that's always what I would call
a touchstone. And so that that would be something that
was really realistic, something that people would know understands it
might be a human figure. And that allows the viewer
(13:00):
to trust me as the artist, because when I start
to take them on the journey and I start to
go down the deep ends and things have become stranger
and stranger, then they are believing that as well. So
I have over the years painted very abstract paintings of
just pure light, and I could just do that, but
(13:26):
I think there would be, unfortunately a possibility people would
just dismiss it as being the madness. And what I
wanted to do is to is to bring people on
the journey to there, and so UM my complex paintings
they are more akin to maps. Um and so these
(13:51):
maps allow you to go on the journey into fairyland.
They are take you in safely. But in folklore or
going into fairy is quite dangerous. You can get lost,
you can get trapped, you can be in there for
our years and come back and you find time has changed,
(14:11):
or everybody you knew has to hide. It's very dangerous
place to be. You can lapse into madness. So you
need a safe way out. And so my paintings are
hopefully precisely that maps into fairy. It's so funny to
me how these days ferry work is sort of placed
(14:32):
in the realm of you know, children's nursery or something
like that, whereas as you said, historically, through the ages
and with oral histories, it is a very dark, very adult,
very sort of dangerous place. Yes, it seems to me.
When I started, fairy was definitely still relegated to the nursery.
(14:52):
It was it's thought to be a childish occupation, whereas
precisely it was part of the everybody's lives because you
needed to placate the fairies and you had to leave
like little gifts or you have sort of of milk
or or presents for them. Otherwise they stole your children,
(15:14):
took them away, or they done them into change things,
and they sickened and died. Your cattle died. You could
die because you know, you have had a stroke and
that was elf shots. You know, there would be these
magical invisible elf shots that cause heart attacks. So you
had to have a proper relationship with the spiritual beings
(15:38):
that surrounded you in the world. The fairies weren't, you know,
pretty little things, you know, in little pink dresses and
literary wings. They were dangerous and strange creatures. So I've
been trying to re engage with that aspect of witness
for years. You mentioned fairies sort of abducting children. That
(16:01):
leads us right into really the plot of Labyrinth, just
just to begin there. How did your first cross paths
with Jim Henson. I had moved down to the country
on the edge of Dartmoor, and I'd been painting pictures
for book covers and for books, and I really wanted
(16:21):
to paint more fairy creatures and controls and that sort
of thing. And I really wanted to paint pictures that
didn't have a strange blank bit of the top where
you put in the title of the book. I wanted
to fill in all the space with with stuff. And
I had some work in a couple of major books
(16:46):
about illustration at the time, and I was on the
front of one of them, and actually Ada Lee, who
worked with me on a the Fairy Book but also
won the Oscar for his wonderful designs for Lord of
the Rings, and he was on the back. And actually
it was the first picture I painted when I moved
to the country, and it was a patrol with a
(17:08):
waterfall coming off the end of his nose and there
was a rainbow. And Jim Henson saw that and he
was the back of his mind. He was thinking about
doing a major film using puppets, and he thought, well,
maybe this chat might be the person to do it.
So they got in contact with me, and I went
(17:30):
to see Jim and he said, well, what do you think.
I was terrified. I don't know. I mean, I just
really thought the puppets had such a potential to be expressive,
and to be expressive of strange world and a deep
world that could tell a story. And so he said,
(17:52):
we'll come to New York, and I went to New
York and we started on it there. But Jim didn't
know at the time that I could do sculpts, other
sculpting little things, and so I was into the deep
end because I didn't know quite how to tell people
what to do, and so I actually made things a
lot just to explain to them what I was thinking.
(18:15):
And that was five years of my life, every day
working on The Dark Crystal. When we'd finished that, we
there was a showing of the film in San Francisco.
I was there with my wife, Wendy and Jim and
(18:37):
we were driving away from that in a limousine and
we say five years of our lives. We were just
exhausted and I thought, We're never Nassa. I've had enough
of all this stuff. And Jim said, should we do
another one? And we said, oh, well why not. This
(18:57):
is in the back of the limit. Yeah, And so
it said, well, what what was it going to be about?
And I said, I don't know. And he said his
daughter and Lisa, who was a majoring in mythology, you know,
been talking to him and he said, well, maybe it
should be about Indian mythology, because there's there's all sorts
(19:18):
of you know, strange chariots and horses and gods going
across the sky. And he said, well, do you know
anything about that? And I said no, I have the
face he started to see. And so he sort of
thought of a bit more and I said, well, you know,
I know about goblets. Oh, he said that sounds interesting.
(19:38):
I said, well, the goblins traditionally steal babies. Because what
Jim had said this time, he said, I just don't
want puppets. I want to put some human beings in it.
And I just had this vision of a baby surrounded
by puppets, the strange, the Nari Goblin puppets, and I
thought that will really work and said Jim was on
(20:02):
board of that, and he said, well, well, what's what else?
And there's a lot of desperation. I sort of said,
well what about a labyrinth? I said, look, a lab
of thinking that a labyrinth is not only a place
that you can wander around in, it's also a metaphor
for life's journey. And that's where we left it. We
(20:24):
said that's great, and I came back to England and
I started to paint various pictures. First of all, it
was the baby with the goblins around it, and then
I did other things of possible creatures that we would
might meet in the in the labyrinth, and then we
started to develop the story to go with it. What
(20:55):
was your working relationship like with Terry Jones, who worked
on the script. Were there meetings between you two or
did he purely go off your series of images? Raven
was about three years to do, and we were doing
that in England because Jim was working on the Muppet Show,
which they were recording here in England at El Street.
(21:16):
That way he could be doing that and keeping an
eye on us in the workshop as we were starting
to build and make these characters and develop the story,
and we were getting fairly close to film, and Jim said,
I don't know, I think that needs tweaking the script.
So he, like I was, was a Python fan, and
(21:38):
we knew that Terry Jones was his story and as
well that, you know, his sense of history and visual
stuff was great. So instead and I think I'll ask
him to just tweak it. So he came in to
the workshop and just looked around and I had on
my desk my sketch books, and he started just a
(22:00):
to the sketch books and he kept going, oh, that's great,
I love that, and he just picked out some things
that were like the wild things or knockers and various things.
And he went away and stead of just tweeting and
then like shining up the script, he just wrote a
whole lot of new stuff that we had a whole
(22:20):
lot of new characters suddenly, and luckily we were now
a well trained team about making things and so it
didn't phase us. We just sort of started to build
the new characters for it, and then on what Terry
had spotted is really because I'm English. There's a lot
(22:40):
of my references for the characters I was drawing really
was Alice in Wonderland, and he sort of drew some
of that aspect out of that with the new characters.
Jim loved all that, but he hadn't really spotted how
part of like my dad, I suppose of my englishness
(23:02):
I was in the drawings and Terry Jones heads and
Terry Jones was an absolute delight the work with. It's
funny you mentioned that I think of the guards that
with each other two heads, and it's a very right
Alison Wonderland is. I love the sort of the logic
humor of that, the very Lewis Carrol like just wordplay
(23:22):
that completely plays off the incredible visuals right. Well, the
design of those characters came from what can I do
as a designer, design what puppets do the best, because
puppets don't really do a lot, but you've got to
imply they do, and you've got to give them some
(23:45):
really good stuff to do so you believe they can
do a lot more. And so one of the basic
things of the puppet is just popping up the top
of the playboard, you know that horizontal line, and they
stick their heads over the top, and I thought, well,
that's what it is. I just make this oblong and
we'll just have a head. And I thought, well, that's
(24:05):
not enough. And then I suddenly thought about playing cards,
and playing cards have heads at the top, and the
card has heads at the bottom because you can use
their cards anyway, you lay them down anyway around. So
suddenly I thought, we've got a character here, and it's
going to be relatively easy to make. It's going to
(24:28):
be strange. But it was that. Then it suddenly became
a reference to the cards in Alice in Wonderland, and
then Terry wrote all this very funny dialogue for them,
and that brought them to life. Was it a struggle
translating your illustrations into three dimension? I mean there must
have been a lot of trial and error for not
only developing something in the three dimension, but also something
(24:50):
that would then be manipulated to give performances, something like Ludo,
but all that stuff. Yes, that was why it's like
five years for Dark Crystal and three for Labyrinths. That
I couldn't just do the designs and walk away and
my designs can be fairly loose because it's no good
(25:11):
tinning it down too soon. You have to go through
those stages of signing out how you're going to bring
it to life and how you're going to mechanically make
that happen. And so often there's quite a lot of
prototype work where you just like couple something together to
start with. Then you find out what your problems are
(25:31):
and and now I'm redesigning as that's happening. I'm trying
to build on the strength of how things are made.
So it's only really near the end when we're you know,
we've done the skulls and we're putting it together. You
can still be making changes and I'm still coming to
the final conclusion of how what the color is exactly
(25:55):
going to be like? You know, what's the finish going
to be like? Because it's part of my job is
to guide that, is to keep the spirit of that
going because it needs to show up at the end,
it needs to show up on the screen and be alive. Um.
And that is teamwork. That's a lot of people with
(26:18):
all their skills bringing it together, and it's you know,
you've got a huge amount of people working things, and
part of what I need to do is corral that
to make it, keep it, keep it going in the
right direction, because rather than spinning off out of control
and it feels like it's the wrong thing. Something like
(26:38):
Ludo is one of you know, Handson's triumphs, as they
were used to building big creatures, and when we were
building that, they had the expertise to do it. But
Jim would come in and look at it, and all
his comments were not about the way it was looking,
but how does it feel for the performers, And how
(27:00):
can we make the person on the inside and the
other people helping move it, how can we make their
life easier that we don't hurt them, we don't damage them,
and also how that they can be more expressive to
the character. So you know, we spent a long time
(27:22):
building or rebuilding until we finally got to the the
end result. And when you did, when you saw, like
all the things that we build, when they came to life,
yet just sometimes just in the studio before we even
got them on the set, it was just it would
just take your breath away because there was magic happening
(27:44):
in front of your eyes. It must have been emotional
to see this, this character that existed only in your
imagination suddenly be, as you said, alive in front of you. Yes. Yeah,
And I know that it had been a long journey
for Jim because I know he got excited about the
possibility of what you could do with puppets. And I
(28:07):
know one of the first things Jim got me to
see when I was first went to America, he did
these characters on Saturday Night Live. That's right, And he said,
the thing that made them different they had glass eyes
in it, and so that and the as these little
glittery eyes and it just get and he says, it
(28:28):
just gives us this uncanny look. And that was sort
of the beginning of everything. And so you can see
that journey from those puppets to Labyrinth, when you've got
Ludo or you've got the goblins. And we worked hard
on getting all the eyes for everything right. Jim believed
in the potential of well, the potential of telling a
(28:50):
story with deep emotion, and it was quite extraordinary because
we knew that with the Muppet shows that people and
pup its inter react seamlessly. You know. That was that
that was the Puppet Show with guests on and so
we knew we had no problem well having Jennifer Connelly
(29:11):
the girl, or a baby, or David Bowie, you know,
interacting with well in inanimate objects made out of rubber
and fur and bits and pieces that I mean, you
would just absolutely believe it. I know you you must
love all your children equally. But is there a puppet
(29:31):
or a character that really stands out as a above
the others, as a personal favorite for you from that film?
Oh lord, so many. I'm sure there are so many
of them. Milk the milk bottles. No, it wasn't even
me to doing that. I mean that was it was
really interesting to be filming in England with English crew.
(29:54):
You know that there are the gates to the Goblin
City and some of the English who just put two
little milk bottles down by the step. And that's very
English because that in the days that milkman delivered milk
to your door, and we just put in that, you know.
But Jim was always um. He loved all those little
details and always put all sorts of little the details.
(30:18):
And Jim always had a thing about chicken spec remember
him saying, we're gonna put some chickens in so we
got this though. They hired this chicken wrangler come in
with their chickens, but he and then he and then
that night he sort of said to us, he said,
you know, they might might be a wrangler, said, but
chickens do nothing a wrangler chicken. Oh, these but it's
(30:45):
but it's all those things that you need on the
set to like to bring everything to life, and chickens
do how FACTI or maybe they distract I don't know.
So we went to the old expression don't don't work
with with kids or animals, and Jim did exactly. Now
it's precisely that. Yeah, yeah, speaking of kids, told me,
(31:08):
is your son? Whose idea was it to cast your
son as the baby in the film? Well, we obviously
always needed a baby at some point, And then I said,
the first picture I painted was of the baby surrounded
by goblins. By the time we were ready to film,
we suddenly realized we needed a baby, and low and behold,
(31:33):
I seemed to have one of my own who was
actually precisely at the right age, and so it seemed
the easiest thing to do was the heart who actually
looked remarkably like By painting the baby in the painting,
which is quite extraordinary. And also that the fact that
(31:54):
because he was ours, he was just really used to
being um surrounded by strange you know creatures loved Yeah,
I mean because I mean there are some moments that
you see in the film where he's crying, which he's unfortunate,
and it was never because he was frightened of the
goblins at all. It's just that they would start the
(32:17):
playback the music really loud, and we kept say can
you not like, could you just like just tweak it slightly,
but they would just father startle him. When when when
you know, David Bowie would start singing, how was how
was David with Toby? It must have been surreal not
(32:39):
only just to see David Bowie with a child, but
have it to be your son. What what was? What
was there? Hesitate to call the relationship? But how was
it was David with with Toby? Well? Um, when I
was really never never there because I was always in
the workshop and the workshop was in Hampstead in London
and we were filming out at else because I was
(33:00):
just always too busy because we're always trying to get
you know, the next puppets ready or the next scene
or I'd be on the next set to check on
all that. But it meant that my wife, Wendy, who's
the baby's mother, was there, you know, all the time.
Daby was great. I mean he was a very really lovely,
(33:21):
lovely man, so it was easy. I mean, Wendy was
always there to make sure that Tubby was safe. That's
the interesting is that once we knew that we were
going to have a live baby, also knew that we
would need probably a puppet, baby would need something some
other things. And that's where how when I designed the
strike the outfit for the baby, that it needed to
(33:44):
be really distinctive that you could see it from a
distance and he would be able to see the baby
wherever it was in the general mayhem of the sets
and the uh the goblins, and also liked the strike
did refer to Alice in Wonderland, to her stockings, that
sort of thing. And also um the fact that we
(34:08):
could duplicate who had had a puppet, which we didn't really,
but we had like a fake baby that the day
the could throw up in the air. It's always a
shock when I see the film and my baby up
in the average starts and I know Howbie, you know,
over the years has gone to have gone to various
like conventions and things that they have, like labyrinth conventions
(34:31):
where they do throw a stuff baby around which he
finds a pitch shocking. Do you recall meeting David's for
the first time? What were you what were your first
impressions of them? Yes, I do. I mean it was
very interesting times because he had an assistant who was
very protected on him, and so she didn't really like
(34:54):
too many people getting anywhere nearer in with us, unfortunate,
but himself was just absolute delight. And so we were
just a few days away from him starting and we
were still trying to sort out like his wig and
various things. And I remember having a meeting with him
(35:18):
in his dressing room which had nothing in it yet,
because he just really arrived. And we had made for
him as a gift a little bone flute, little tiny
thing and it played, so it's a very ancient thing,
and so I knew and I know the sound of
it is a very ancient found and we gave it
(35:41):
to him in his dressing room and he just took
it and he just the most extraordinary thing. He leapt
up onto the table top, you know, with the mirror
behind it, with all the lights around it, and he
hunkered down and he played a tune on it and
it was the most spooky thing. It was like it
(36:03):
was like he was Puck or some He was definitely
very fairly like and what you really wanted to do
was like go to the course of the room, get away,
because it was just so powerful and so exhilarating, and
he just sort of got the spirit of the Goblin King.
To shame that there was nowhere in the in the
(36:26):
characterization in the film to have anything like that, but
he was kind of extraordinary. Another thing about him was
that he had He was very funny, you know, he
was he was very lighthearted and connected. But so my
dealings with him were at a distance. I've been making
costumes and things in the workshop and um, you know,
(36:49):
the things were taken to him and he would be
wearing it, but I never Wendy sat that. My wife,
Wendy would saw him like every day when dealing with Toby,
but I never it. He saw him again after that. Wow,
that is that is quite an impression. That is unbelievable.
It seems like, well, once there's enough it seems like
(37:10):
from that just that the energy coming off of him,
as you said, sounds extraordinary. Yes. Wow. How did the
style of Jarred evolve from you know, his costume and
his hair and everything in his makeup. How evolved were
you with developing that his look? Actually, some of the
designers for him hardly exist. There is a funny sketchy
(37:32):
bit that really became his major look, and it's about
maybe two inches tall in a sketch book. I mean,
it was just sort of scribbles, but we were developing it,
and I did lots of designs for that, because well,
he is as a character is really segments and fragments
(37:53):
of a teenage girl's imagination. And so the first one
which Jim really what he wanted was pop star, you know,
as somebody that would bring to the part all those
things you know, a famous person would naturally have. Buie
was absolutely perfect because in his characterizations on stage and
(38:17):
and his our various incarnations of different characters, you know,
Ziggy Sadust is all sorts of different people. That's the
way he is as a creative artist. So he brought
back to it, you know, because I did have some
costumes where maybe it would be in a being in
(38:39):
a suit or whatever. I always saw the Goblin King
as somebody mercurial or changing, and so the next thing
was that actually I felt that he came out of
sort of literature, so sort of romantic literary figures. So
there's very much there's very much Heath Clear in there.
(39:02):
There's Rochester from Jane Eyre and Mr Darcy from Pride
and Petjudice, as well as things like meta Stophiles, which
is it's all very theatrical, which absolutely David understood. My
design for the wig was a couple of little scripples,
(39:24):
didn't know quite what it was, and we started the
ship and we thought, well, maybe it should be like
a wolf, you know, that we would started to go
down the route that he could have some sort of
wolf like characteristics, but it miss made him sort of
look old and gray. Once they've got the general shape
of the wind, David just sort of took charge and basically,
(39:45):
because this is his territory, he's used to a glam rock,
you know, it's that it meant to it's meant to
be this little glam rock look, you know, and the
fact that it's like a Tina Turner look, as well.
He totally got you know, so we meant we could
just like tweak it a bit and make it more
(40:05):
raggedy and all that. You know, he got his own
person to do the strange makeup I stuff and he
literally could step into it. And so when we were
then developing you know, other aspects, which was for the
leather jacket look because that is also I wanted that
(40:26):
sort of dangerous, you know, the wild one Marlon Young,
Marlon Brando look um. But we also wanted it to
be very much part of the Goblin world. Where so
that also relates to there's a some mercenary soldiers in
the fift hundreds of the land next who were quite flamboyant.
(40:50):
So some of that costuming refers to that. Was like
the tight pants and the boots and and this leather
jacket that all has it's alarmor on it, but the
armor is all tweaked. We got you know, strange worms boring.
It's boring their way through the armor, which is sort
of comes from like combs of death and all sorts
(41:14):
of I really wanted to be really a rich amalgam
of influences that would turn up in the costumes. We
were finishing the film and we were coming to the
last scene with David and it was the end of
the film and we were sort of relaxing a bit.
(41:35):
I think we can go home soon. Basically, we suddenly
realized we suddenly realized, oh, well, shouldn't he have another
costume at this stage? And we went, oh, maybe he should.
And we sort of actually played up all night and
sort of built that thing for him, which is rather
(41:55):
kabooki Japanese kabooti. Look, you know, not because I wanted
to him to be like a ghost like as I
was thinking of the kabuki theater. Ghosts are really strange
things and stuff. We sort of quickly built it with
a sort of whispy fur and the bone color everything.
(42:24):
How familiar were you with with his music? Kabuki was
a big influence on his own style in the in
the Ziggi and Aladdin saying years how deeply were you
aware of his musical work? Um, well, I've always been,
always been a fan, and you know, I have liked it,
and I know that he was very interested in that.
He trained in mind and it shows up in all
(42:47):
the costumes, and I knew that he would respond to it.
The unfortunate thing was that not actually really been able
to talk to him about it, because you know, everybody
my my infamous you know purs pants, so their course,
these literally like towers as um were there for a reason,
(43:09):
I mean because partly also not only it's part of
that look that you're Heathcliff and all that those um
that period, whether trousers were fairly tight and the boots
you know, and the tailcoats and all that we were
going for that, but also a ballet dancer, I mean
it really is that would be another influence all that.
(43:31):
But what I really wanted to giving was a big
metal cog piece which I hadn't quite got round to design,
and I didn't know quite how do it? Tell anybody
this is where what I wanted to do. But in
the end I didn't get the chance. I'm sure he
wouldn't want it. He seemed quite quite happy to um,
you know, go with with this sort of expressive theatrical look.
(43:56):
I mean, it seems so wonderful that that he was
so willing to haven't said, to humor about himself, and
to really commit so deeply to to something like this,
you know what I mean, Like it seems like really
wonderful that that he he seems so willing to play,
I guess is the best way I think to put
to put it, to be so willing to try new things,
which I guess shows up in his own musical work anywhere. Yeah. Well,
(44:17):
also that what I wanted to do was actually that
that's an interesting thing about the idea to play, because
that just reminds me that something is that I designed
for him, which is that swagger stick, that little whip
thing which has the crystal ball on the end. But
I thought, if I give him that, it also gives
(44:38):
him as a performer something he understands, which is a
microphone in his hand. And it works. You know. It
helped him, I think, enormously when he was performing with
all the goblins, to have that in his hands. It
refers to the whole gamut of theatrical expressions of romantic literature.
(45:00):
That's what we were trying to do, and he was
great at it. I mean, there was one odd thing happened.
We were also building more costumes for him, and we
worked one weekend with lots of them, and they were
presented to him and he would turn them down. Actually,
it is only when he turned down it, which was
(45:22):
a big robe thing. But suddenly in the newspapers it
says Bowie rejects costumes, and we thought, what's that about.
It was very odd and was thought, that's like that.
He said, you know, this is just us making a
movie here, and then I realized what was going on,
because well, he making the film was part of us
(45:46):
sort of come back. He had been out of the
public eye for a while and this was publicity. He
had leaked the story himself because what he was doing
actually probably that every weekend, I think it was when
we were working on the costume, he was actually out
on the streets filming with Nick jagger Um and they
(46:10):
had this I forgot the name of the song now,
but they had a hit song dancing in the streets. Yeah. Yeah,
So that's what he was up to, and so it
was very clever move. But all the other costumes and
he was so happy to wear. Answer. I wanted to
ask you, and this is probably a strange question, did
you have any keepsakes from the set? Like I think
(46:31):
I read that you've got a mystic coat from the
set of The Dark Crystal and the costumes made me
think of it. Do you have anything from from Labyrinth? Yeah,
I've got I've got something that was so so. Two
years ago I was going to a convention and I
had what I had in my case. It went through
(46:53):
the ghana and a supervisor said this O, and it
went over there and I had this. Lady started going
through the the bag and she couldn't find anything, and
she said can't You said that can't, said it's in
there for look, but she said, can't find What do
(47:14):
you think you've got? I said, I don't know. I said, oh,
I'm thinking. Oh metal probably said it off because the
civilvisor kept saying, is he is he a public notary?
Going a date of a dangerous public notary? He was it?
And when I searched it out, it was I have
(47:36):
David Bowie's necklace. You know, it's this plow light thing
we designed for him, and I that was what it was,
and that was the scanner was picking it up, and
she looked at it, he said, and when she was really,
so this is cool David Bowie a while and he
and I said, why do you think it's public notary?
(47:58):
She said, oh, thinks it's one of those you know
where they sort of leave the laver and they stamp
you know, that field on it. And he said he
don't know that they make a plastic nowadays, it wouldn't
be metal. Well that was that was That was really
all I got. Wow, that's really special. I mean, you know,
(48:21):
you speak of going to these conventions and what is
it about the film that makes it held so dear
by so many? What do you think it is that
resonates after all these years. Well, I mean, to be honest,
I think we were slightly disappointed when we finished. I mean,
this sounds bad, but it is that there was a
purity to Dark Crystal because it was all puppets and
(48:45):
now we thought, well, I don't know, we got people
in there? Are we are we retreating somewhere to have
people in it, and you know it seems a bit
lighter and everything. But we well, we were missing it.
What we what we missed? And that's what the power
of it is that the story speaks to generations of
(49:08):
generations of young girls. Then they keep coming through, you know,
keep getting new ones at them, and so somehow it
relates to their predicament, to their to their way they are.
Because that was the idea that you know, she's just
going through that stage in her life where she's having
(49:28):
to leave behind the young girl aspects of herself and
be and start to become a woman. That's what it
was about. And I think we'd completely missed that aspect
of it or and when you see it again you go, oh, yes,
now I get it. I don't know, but it's absolutely
people keep do love it, and and then it rises
(49:50):
in people's heartsome and more and more. Yeah, has your
relationship to the film changed at all? Do you do
you recognize the person who who created those characters. It's
sometimes it's hard to do that. I mean, I know
that Dark Crystal for years. It took a long time
before I could um disassociate the music from um emotions
(50:18):
because in the film, the music is about the emotions
of the story. But working on it, all you remember
with the music brings back to you is how you're
dirty and dusty and tarking. It's unfair how stressful it
is to try and get the things made on time,
get them right, all those sort of things. You know.
(50:39):
So some of that aspect happens in Labyrinth, but I
think it's helps enormously to have lyrical songs in it,
to have Bowie's voice helping tell the story as well.
But it is a story that people will do respond
to it. I mean, I know we had a royal
premiere for it and it was Prince Charles and Diana
(51:03):
came to that one. And I remember years later I
met Prince Charles and it was well the opening of
the Museum of Moving Image in London, and I met
him and well, I've been invited along to hear him
open it. And then they said, quickly go around the back.
He's going to go around. They went around the back
(51:24):
and he's coming around and he came past the Henson's
lot and they was asking them, you know, what would
they do, and they were all like secretaries. And he
got to me and said well what did you do?
And I said, well nothing, I said, they fired me.
He said no. I said, well, actually, sir, you know
(51:44):
we have met. We met the opening of Labyrinth and said,
laverynth Yes, a very very good film, very funny, he said,
the bold of Eternal Stench because all that sort of
fasting noises and he said yes, he was laughing. In fact,
(52:05):
I was the only one loved it because everybody was
very embarrassed about all that. But he loved it. I
mean he doesn't. He talked knowledge with about it and
he was a great He's a great fad He's loved
all the Goons stuff and Peter Seller. I think it's
that lineage, you know, and so I think via the
Pythons and Terry Jones as well. So I think it
(52:26):
definitely he related to all that. How about Toby, how
does he feel about it these days? Oh? I mean,
I think he's absolutely delighted to have been in a
part of it. I mean, obviously he doesn't remember too
much about what it was like to be on set
because he was at the year in the bit, you
(52:47):
know that. But it's given being part of our family
and being part of the making of things like you know,
the puppets and goblins. That's in his blood now, you know.
That's what he loves to do, filmmaking and creatures. And
he was involved in the In the Dark Crystal series
(53:09):
on Netflix that from a few years back. He was, yeah, supervising. Yeah,
he was great because it's a great to work with
him and when we make a great team, you mean,
I have no patience and he's very patience. He said, well,
what my father meant to say, It keeps me calm.
(53:32):
And he's like, you know, five solutions to things, because
it's everything is about trying to figure things, you know,
how to do things. I mean. The best time of
working on the new series was well, there was one
time where we were building all these knives and swords
(53:52):
and things that growing out the back of the Skexies
and we were working on it was about I say
to Night and I said to Toby, this this is
a big film series and they said yes. I said, yeah,
this is a Netflix it's big. And then he said yes.
I said, well I'll come. It's only you and me working,
(54:16):
which is you know, so that sometimes you just got
to do it yourself, you know literally and then you know,
in the morning and trying to get something on set
and where we were there whatever, you know, six in
the morning, on our hands and knees literally on that
you hadn't need, in front of the costume, bluing things
to it, you know, and aging it so it could
(54:38):
be on set at nine. And that was just was
actually fun, you know, to be with my own son
hands on, getting your hands dirty and indeed often bleeding
on it. I mean, i'd say I've said now the
pest costume as one you bled off because with me
offen a guy have strange sharp bit, some various things
(55:01):
that can be a bit dangerous, and I know I've
led on a few of the stuff, but that's that's
that's part of the magic of of these things which
are inanimates. You know that's made out of staff, but
you try to imbue them with spirit. And so it's
great to be working on things that are three dimensioned
(55:22):
because they like me working on one of my paintings,
which I try to imbue with spirit. And if if
people can feel it's there, then the work is successful.
Your work has meant so much to me and so
many of my loved ones. I it's such an honor
to speak to my My last question, I don't want
(55:42):
to take up too much more of your time, But
my last question, what can we learn from from fairies?
What can they teach us? Oh U that there are
no rules, no no no rules and fairy U. But
what fairies do? They insist you do the right thing.
So if you're in Seri stories, you've got to do
(56:04):
the right thing and in you know, in a dialogue
with fairies, you've got to do the right thing, but
they're not going to tell you what that is. And
also it keeps changing, so you've got to do it
always the right thing at the right time. And that's tough.
So it means it's a much as a spiritual philosophy.
(56:26):
It's it's tough, but it's I think it's much more
open and caring and loving and connective. Off the Record
is a production of I Heart Radio. If you liked
what you heard, please subscribe and leave us a review.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I
(56:47):
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or are you listen to
your favorite shows
Off the Record is a production of I Heart Radio.
Hello and welcome to Off the Record, the show that
goes beyond the songs and into the hearts and minds
of rocks greatest legends. I'm your host, Jordan Runtug. Thanks
so much for listening. Over the last few months you've
joined me. Is I've explored different eras in the life
of David Bowie and talked with key figures from these
(00:22):
many periods. But now we're gonna do something a little different.
From the moment I started this project, I've had friends
and loved ones say, what are you gonna do on Labyrinth?
You have to do something on Labyrinth. The passion for
this movie is immense, and I get it. I was
born a year after the film was released. I guess
that would make me a millennial. Try not to hold
(00:43):
it against me. A lot of my friends are the
same age, and for us, Labyrinthe was our introduction to
the man and the mystery that is David Bowie. The style,
the swagger, the sass, the pants. First impressions are powerful,
especially a first impression like this. To this day, there's
a part of me that truly believes that David Bowie
really is jarref the Goblin King. Like so many, Labyrinth
(01:08):
was a favorite movie growing up. It was only years
later that I discovered it was considered something of a
disaster for director Jim Henson, the legendary Lord of the Muppets.
It earned just half of its twenty five million dollar
budget in the States and garnered mixed reviews, many from
those who felt it was too mature for children and
too fantastical for adults. It was just before Henson's death
(01:30):
in the film began to enjoy new life on home video.
Since then, it's become a cult classic, beloved by generations
of kids thanks to the innovative designs and of course
David's unforgettable performance and unforgettable hair. So with this in mind,
I'd like to welcome you to the start of Labyrinth Week,
a celebration of this oft overlooked Bowie treasure. Over the
(01:53):
next few days, I'll share interviews with several people who
helped bring Labyrinth to life, and today we're starting with
the perfect person, conceptual designer Brian Froud, the man who
imagined the world of Labyrinthe. Brian is a legendary illustrator
and painter who works in the realm, commonly referred to
as fantasy. Those you'll see he personally objects to the word.
(02:16):
His paintings breathed life into ancient folklore and oral history,
depicting the spiritual side of the natural world through fairies
and mythological figures. The rich imagery attracted the attention of
Jim Henson, and in nineteen seventy seven they began work
on a different cinematic saga, The Dark Crystal. The film
took them five years to complete and left them both exhausted.
(02:38):
As soon as it was done, they dove headlong into Labyrinthe.
It began with Brian's drawings of goblins and monsters and
surreal landscapes. His visions formed the basis for the film's script,
written by Monty Python veteran Terry Jones. Brian helped oversee
the construction of elaborate character puppets, another multi year process.
(02:59):
The auction was something of a family affair. Also at
the workshop was his wife, Wendy, a legendary sculptor and
puppet maker, perhaps best known for fabricating Yoda for the
Star Wars series, and they were also joined on the
set by their son Toby as in Baby Toby abducted
by Jared. The Goblin. King Brian put his heart, soul, imagination,
(03:21):
and firstborn into this film, so it seemed only right
that we kick off Labyrinth Week with him. I hope
you enjoy our conversation. To start, there was a wonderful
quote you gave where you said, everything you need to
know is in a tree, and it seemed like a
great place to start. I wanted to ask you more
about that and the role that that nature plays in
(03:43):
your work. It all seems to sort of flow from there. Yes.
I remember when I was working in England and I
was creating my paintings, which well, I guess sort of organic,
and I was really inspired by an artist called Arthur
Rackham who worked at the turn of the century and
(04:05):
illustrated some definitive books of the Grim Brothers and you know,
the Ring Cycle and various things like that, and um,
the thing that inspired me the most was that his
his trees were always twisted and strange and full of life,
and they would have faces in it. And then the
(04:26):
creatures he would draw were like a tree, like the
branches you know that they were that the lines were
very flowing. I was working in London at the time,
but I wanted to move to the country because I
wanted to develop my art. I knew I needed to
move to the countryside, which I did, and was immediately
(04:48):
struck by what I was looking at, which were rocks
and trees and hills, and I felt like, as an artist,
I could see what they look like on the outside,
but I was always intrigued about what they looked like
on the inside. And as I articulated that, I started
(05:11):
to draw more and more gnomes and fairies, which got
classified as fantasy arts, which I always get a bit
annoyed at, and I'd say, I don't do fantasy, I
do reality. This is the this is the real spiritual
nature of the world. When I first came to America,
(05:35):
I was a guest of honor the World Fantasy Convention.
I was convinced there wasn't a single trick in America
because that you know, inspirational energy was not showing up
in the arts, you know, in the fantasy art. And
I was both shocked and delighted to discover that America
(05:57):
has wonderful treas I mean most please. And then I
was a bit annoyed that they asters was a why
aren't they looking at your own trees? They were too
busy looking at each other's work. It's very American. Yeah,
rather than being inspired were there's something was right on
their doorsteps. So there's something about branches. The flow of
(06:20):
a branch and the fact it's organic is the way
I like to draw. You know, a line needs to
be expressive, and it has to be expressive of whatever
it is, the character or soul or something like that.
But it's always going to be sort of different each time.
But it's rather besides, so you know, there's no one
(06:44):
way of drawing. Um, well, what I tried to draw
his spirit? Really? I mean I tried to draw the
the invisible purposes. I don't know why enough I got
down that route or drying to draw fareas. I have
a family member who is deeply involved in in spiritual work,
(07:04):
and I told her I was speaking to you, and
she was so thrilled, and I found myself asking her
this question. And I'd like to ask you, now, what
is a fairy? Because it does seem to encompass a
fairly wide swath of characters, But are they psychical impressions?
Are they creatures or how would you define a fairy?
Tough questions? First, Really, I think that, I mean, that's
(07:25):
a fascinating it's a fascinating thing, um, you know, because
everybody wants proof or they want evidence, and they want
it to be real. And then if you say what
you see in your head, they go, see, uh, it
doesn't exist, does it? But it? But it does seem
to me that fairies or spirits are often spirits of place.
(07:47):
They're a spirit of a hill or a specific location.
And that's why I think when they show up and
when you see them or people's experience of them off
of the very similar the shapes and forms are responding
to the energy of the place, and so it is
(08:08):
the spirit of that place. And when they sort of
show up, I'm doing the inverted customers with my fingers. Here.
Is that it seems to me it's simultaneously like in
your head but also projected seemingly outside. Certainly, I don't
see fairies very often, but if I do, you absolutely
(08:31):
know you've seen it. But it's not going to be
necessarily very clear if it makes any sense. I mean,
I remember being on tour in America and I was
somewhere I don't remember exactly where. I was somewhere on
the West coast, and I was walking around and I
was thinking, I don't know, I just feel to be
(08:53):
experiencing about the best, the best way of saying it,
rather than seeing, but experiencing lepricorn and I thought, I
love that. I'm going a bit do lally. Why am
I thinking about lepricorns? And then I suddenly saw a
sign and it said on this side, well fever sheds.
(09:15):
And it was when ships were coming in and there
were a lot of Irish immigrants coming in and they
had fevers. They put them in isolation in these sheds,
and I thought, gosh, I think they brought lepricorns with them.
I think that's spontaneous visual expressions of you know, of energy,
(09:38):
of spiritual energy. I suppose yeah. Did you feel that
that you saw things differently or saw things that most
people don't see from an early age? I guess the
question is did you choose fairies or did they choose you? Um,
and then they absolutely chose me. I can't say that
I saw them, but it was my first glimpse of
(09:58):
Arthur Rackham's are when I was at art school, and
I was training to be a painter, and I was
getting really bored with it. I just thought, you could
paint a rubbish picture, but if you could explain it
in grand words, it was called good art. And I thought,
this is absolutely, you know, patently not true. And I
(10:22):
really sort of believed that the picture should be self
evident and it should tell its own story. So I
thought I'd changed courses and go and study graphic design
because it graphic designs seemed to be much more direct,
with an image of having a meaning and you could
understand it. And as I was waiting for my interview
(10:45):
in the library, I came across our for rack and
book Midsummer Night Dream and in it were you know
these pictures, wonderful pictures of in the scratchy inclines trees
with faces in it. I thought, ah, I didn't see
it that way when I was young, but that's how
(11:05):
I felt when I was climbing up trees. I felt
there was the spirit of it. And that's how I
got drawn into wanting to draw fairies. And as I
when I went on the course graphic design course, it
was really boring. It was absolutely pretti. Were you boring,
and so I sort of chained myself to to illustrate.
(11:30):
You know, I got very interested in Gradgrind's fairy tales
and did my own drawings, and as I were drawing
fairy tales, I got I became more and more interested
in the possible psychic reality of real fairies and started
to also try and paint being sort of made of
(11:52):
light and that were elusive and Neyone difficult, were really
impossible debate. I don't know what I was thinking of that,
and I've always wanted my pictures, you know, from then
on doing and somehow incorporate some sense of spirit. Something
(12:14):
that you do so well that is so incredible to
me is that there there is such a sense of
realism in your work, and that makes it so much
more evocative. What is key to getting through to people
in that way and to putting that sense of realism?
Is there something that really is integral you have to
nail just right in order to make it have that
sense of realism. I think it's desired to allow people
(12:37):
to believe, and so say one of my paintings that
can be lay complex, that's always what I would call
a touchstone. And so that that would be something that
was really realistic, something that people would know understands it
might be a human figure. And that allows the viewer
(13:00):
to trust me as the artist, because when I start
to take them on the journey and I start to
go down the deep ends and things have become stranger
and stranger, then they are believing that as well. So
I have over the years painted very abstract paintings of
just pure light, and I could just do that, but
(13:26):
I think there would be, unfortunately a possibility people would
just dismiss it as being the madness. And what I
wanted to do is to is to bring people on
the journey to there, and so UM my complex paintings
they are more akin to maps. Um and so these
(13:51):
maps allow you to go on the journey into fairyland.
They are take you in safely. But in folklore or
going into fairy is quite dangerous. You can get lost,
you can get trapped, you can be in there for
our years and come back and you find time has changed,
(14:11):
or everybody you knew has to hide. It's very dangerous
place to be. You can lapse into madness. So you
need a safe way out. And so my paintings are
hopefully precisely that maps into fairy. It's so funny to
me how these days ferry work is sort of placed
(14:32):
in the realm of you know, children's nursery or something
like that, whereas as you said, historically, through the ages
and with oral histories, it is a very dark, very adult,
very sort of dangerous place. Yes, it seems to me.
When I started, fairy was definitely still relegated to the nursery.
(14:52):
It was it's thought to be a childish occupation, whereas
precisely it was part of the everybody's lives because you
needed to placate the fairies and you had to leave
like little gifts or you have sort of of milk
or or presents for them. Otherwise they stole your children,
(15:14):
took them away, or they done them into change things,
and they sickened and died. Your cattle died. You could
die because you know, you have had a stroke and
that was elf shots. You know, there would be these
magical invisible elf shots that cause heart attacks. So you
had to have a proper relationship with the spiritual beings
(15:38):
that surrounded you in the world. The fairies weren't, you know,
pretty little things, you know, in little pink dresses and
literary wings. They were dangerous and strange creatures. So I've
been trying to re engage with that aspect of witness
for years. You mentioned fairies sort of abducting children. That
(16:01):
leads us right into really the plot of Labyrinth, just
just to begin there. How did your first cross paths
with Jim Henson. I had moved down to the country
on the edge of Dartmoor, and I'd been painting pictures
for book covers and for books, and I really wanted
(16:21):
to paint more fairy creatures and controls and that sort
of thing. And I really wanted to paint pictures that
didn't have a strange blank bit of the top where
you put in the title of the book. I wanted
to fill in all the space with with stuff. And
I had some work in a couple of major books
(16:46):
about illustration at the time, and I was on the
front of one of them, and actually Ada Lee, who
worked with me on a the Fairy Book but also
won the Oscar for his wonderful designs for Lord of
the Rings, and he was on the back. And actually
it was the first picture I painted when I moved
to the country, and it was a patrol with a
(17:08):
waterfall coming off the end of his nose and there
was a rainbow. And Jim Henson saw that and he
was the back of his mind. He was thinking about
doing a major film using puppets, and he thought, well,
maybe this chat might be the person to do it.
So they got in contact with me, and I went
(17:30):
to see Jim and he said, well, what do you think.
I was terrified. I don't know. I mean, I just
really thought the puppets had such a potential to be expressive,
and to be expressive of strange world and a deep
world that could tell a story. And so he said,
(17:52):
we'll come to New York, and I went to New
York and we started on it there. But Jim didn't
know at the time that I could do sculpts, other
sculpting little things, and so I was into the deep
end because I didn't know quite how to tell people
what to do, and so I actually made things a
lot just to explain to them what I was thinking.
(18:15):
And that was five years of my life, every day
working on The Dark Crystal. When we'd finished that, we
there was a showing of the film in San Francisco.
I was there with my wife, Wendy and Jim and
(18:37):
we were driving away from that in a limousine and
we say five years of our lives. We were just
exhausted and I thought, We're never Nassa. I've had enough
of all this stuff. And Jim said, should we do
another one? And we said, oh, well why not. This
(18:57):
is in the back of the limit. Yeah, And so
it said, well, what what was it going to be about?
And I said, I don't know. And he said his
daughter and Lisa, who was a majoring in mythology, you know,
been talking to him and he said, well, maybe it
should be about Indian mythology, because there's there's all sorts
(19:18):
of you know, strange chariots and horses and gods going
across the sky. And he said, well, do you know
anything about that? And I said no, I have the
face he started to see. And so he sort of
thought of a bit more and I said, well, you know,
I know about goblets. Oh, he said that sounds interesting.
(19:38):
I said, well, the goblins traditionally steal babies. Because what
Jim had said this time, he said, I just don't
want puppets. I want to put some human beings in it.
And I just had this vision of a baby surrounded
by puppets, the strange, the Nari Goblin puppets, and I
thought that will really work and said Jim was on
(20:02):
board of that, and he said, well, well, what's what else?
And there's a lot of desperation. I sort of said,
well what about a labyrinth? I said, look, a lab
of thinking that a labyrinth is not only a place
that you can wander around in, it's also a metaphor
for life's journey. And that's where we left it. We
(20:24):
said that's great, and I came back to England and
I started to paint various pictures. First of all, it
was the baby with the goblins around it, and then
I did other things of possible creatures that we would
might meet in the in the labyrinth, and then we
started to develop the story to go with it. What
(20:55):
was your working relationship like with Terry Jones, who worked
on the script. Were there meetings between you two or
did he purely go off your series of images? Raven
was about three years to do, and we were doing
that in England because Jim was working on the Muppet Show,
which they were recording here in England at El Street.
(21:16):
That way he could be doing that and keeping an
eye on us in the workshop as we were starting
to build and make these characters and develop the story,
and we were getting fairly close to film, and Jim said,
I don't know, I think that needs tweaking the script.
So he, like I was, was a Python fan, and
(21:38):
we knew that Terry Jones was his story and as
well that, you know, his sense of history and visual
stuff was great. So instead and I think I'll ask
him to just tweak it. So he came in to
the workshop and just looked around and I had on
my desk my sketch books, and he started just a
(22:00):
to the sketch books and he kept going, oh, that's great,
I love that, and he just picked out some things
that were like the wild things or knockers and various things.
And he went away and stead of just tweeting and
then like shining up the script, he just wrote a
whole lot of new stuff that we had a whole
(22:20):
lot of new characters suddenly, and luckily we were now
a well trained team about making things and so it
didn't phase us. We just sort of started to build
the new characters for it, and then on what Terry
had spotted is really because I'm English. There's a lot
(22:40):
of my references for the characters I was drawing really
was Alice in Wonderland, and he sort of drew some
of that aspect out of that with the new characters.
Jim loved all that, but he hadn't really spotted how
part of like my dad, I suppose of my englishness
(23:02):
I was in the drawings and Terry Jones heads and
Terry Jones was an absolute delight the work with. It's
funny you mentioned that I think of the guards that
with each other two heads, and it's a very right
Alison Wonderland is. I love the sort of the logic
humor of that, the very Lewis Carrol like just wordplay
(23:22):
that completely plays off the incredible visuals right. Well, the
design of those characters came from what can I do
as a designer, design what puppets do the best, because
puppets don't really do a lot, but you've got to
imply they do, and you've got to give them some
(23:45):
really good stuff to do so you believe they can
do a lot more. And so one of the basic
things of the puppet is just popping up the top
of the playboard, you know that horizontal line, and they
stick their heads over the top, and I thought, well,
that's what it is. I just make this oblong and
we'll just have a head. And I thought, well, that's
(24:05):
not enough. And then I suddenly thought about playing cards,
and playing cards have heads at the top, and the
card has heads at the bottom because you can use
their cards anyway, you lay them down anyway around. So
suddenly I thought, we've got a character here, and it's
going to be relatively easy to make. It's going to
(24:28):
be strange. But it was that. Then it suddenly became
a reference to the cards in Alice in Wonderland, and
then Terry wrote all this very funny dialogue for them,
and that brought them to life. Was it a struggle
translating your illustrations into three dimension? I mean there must
have been a lot of trial and error for not
only developing something in the three dimension, but also something
(24:50):
that would then be manipulated to give performances, something like Ludo,
but all that stuff. Yes, that was why it's like
five years for Dark Crystal and three for Labyrinths. That
I couldn't just do the designs and walk away and
my designs can be fairly loose because it's no good
(25:11):
tinning it down too soon. You have to go through
those stages of signing out how you're going to bring
it to life and how you're going to mechanically make
that happen. And so often there's quite a lot of
prototype work where you just like couple something together to
start with. Then you find out what your problems are
(25:31):
and and now I'm redesigning as that's happening. I'm trying
to build on the strength of how things are made.
So it's only really near the end when we're you know,
we've done the skulls and we're putting it together. You
can still be making changes and I'm still coming to
the final conclusion of how what the color is exactly
(25:55):
going to be like? You know, what's the finish going
to be like? Because it's part of my job is
to guide that, is to keep the spirit of that
going because it needs to show up at the end,
it needs to show up on the screen and be alive. Um.
And that is teamwork. That's a lot of people with
(26:18):
all their skills bringing it together, and it's you know,
you've got a huge amount of people working things, and
part of what I need to do is corral that
to make it, keep it, keep it going in the
right direction, because rather than spinning off out of control
and it feels like it's the wrong thing. Something like
(26:38):
Ludo is one of you know, Handson's triumphs, as they
were used to building big creatures, and when we were
building that, they had the expertise to do it. But
Jim would come in and look at it, and all
his comments were not about the way it was looking,
but how does it feel for the performers, And how
(27:00):
can we make the person on the inside and the
other people helping move it, how can we make their
life easier that we don't hurt them, we don't damage them,
and also how that they can be more expressive to
the character. So you know, we spent a long time
(27:22):
building or rebuilding until we finally got to the the
end result. And when you did, when you saw, like
all the things that we build, when they came to life,
yet just sometimes just in the studio before we even
got them on the set, it was just it would
just take your breath away because there was magic happening
(27:44):
in front of your eyes. It must have been emotional
to see this, this character that existed only in your
imagination suddenly be, as you said, alive in front of you. Yes. Yeah,
And I know that it had been a long journey
for Jim because I know he got excited about the
possibility of what you could do with puppets. And I
(28:07):
know one of the first things Jim got me to
see when I was first went to America, he did
these characters on Saturday Night Live. That's right, And he said,
the thing that made them different they had glass eyes
in it, and so that and the as these little
glittery eyes and it just get and he says, it
(28:28):
just gives us this uncanny look. And that was sort
of the beginning of everything. And so you can see
that journey from those puppets to Labyrinth, when you've got
Ludo or you've got the goblins. And we worked hard
on getting all the eyes for everything right. Jim believed
in the potential of well, the potential of telling a
(28:50):
story with deep emotion, and it was quite extraordinary because
we knew that with the Muppet shows that people and
pup its inter react seamlessly. You know. That was that
that was the Puppet Show with guests on and so
we knew we had no problem well having Jennifer Connelly
(29:11):
the girl, or a baby, or David Bowie, you know,
interacting with well in inanimate objects made out of rubber
and fur and bits and pieces that I mean, you
would just absolutely believe it. I know you you must
love all your children equally. But is there a puppet
(29:31):
or a character that really stands out as a above
the others, as a personal favorite for you from that film?
Oh lord, so many. I'm sure there are so many
of them. Milk the milk bottles. No, it wasn't even
me to doing that. I mean that was it was
really interesting to be filming in England with English crew.
(29:54):
You know that there are the gates to the Goblin
City and some of the English who just put two
little milk bottles down by the step. And that's very
English because that in the days that milkman delivered milk
to your door, and we just put in that, you know.
But Jim was always um. He loved all those little
details and always put all sorts of little the details.
(30:18):
And Jim always had a thing about chicken spec remember
him saying, we're gonna put some chickens in so we
got this though. They hired this chicken wrangler come in
with their chickens, but he and then he and then
that night he sort of said to us, he said,
you know, they might might be a wrangler, said, but
chickens do nothing a wrangler chicken. Oh, these but it's
(30:45):
but it's all those things that you need on the
set to like to bring everything to life, and chickens
do how FACTI or maybe they distract I don't know.
So we went to the old expression don't don't work
with with kids or animals, and Jim did exactly. Now
it's precisely that. Yeah, yeah, speaking of kids, told me,
(31:08):
is your son? Whose idea was it to cast your
son as the baby in the film? Well, we obviously
always needed a baby at some point, And then I said,
the first picture I painted was of the baby surrounded
by goblins. By the time we were ready to film,
we suddenly realized we needed a baby, and low and behold,
(31:33):
I seemed to have one of my own who was
actually precisely at the right age, and so it seemed
the easiest thing to do was the heart who actually
looked remarkably like By painting the baby in the painting,
which is quite extraordinary. And also that the fact that
(31:54):
because he was ours, he was just really used to
being um surrounded by strange you know creatures loved Yeah,
I mean because I mean there are some moments that
you see in the film where he's crying, which he's unfortunate,
and it was never because he was frightened of the
goblins at all. It's just that they would start the
(32:17):
playback the music really loud, and we kept say can
you not like, could you just like just tweak it slightly,
but they would just father startle him. When when when
you know, David Bowie would start singing, how was how
was David with Toby? It must have been surreal not
(32:39):
only just to see David Bowie with a child, but
have it to be your son. What what was? What
was there? Hesitate to call the relationship? But how was
it was David with with Toby? Well? Um, when I
was really never never there because I was always in
the workshop and the workshop was in Hampstead in London
and we were filming out at else because I was
(33:00):
just always too busy because we're always trying to get
you know, the next puppets ready or the next scene
or I'd be on the next set to check on
all that. But it meant that my wife, Wendy, who's
the baby's mother, was there, you know, all the time.
Daby was great. I mean he was a very really lovely,
(33:21):
lovely man, so it was easy. I mean, Wendy was
always there to make sure that Tubby was safe. That's
the interesting is that once we knew that we were
going to have a live baby, also knew that we
would need probably a puppet, baby would need something some
other things. And that's where how when I designed the
strike the outfit for the baby, that it needed to
(33:44):
be really distinctive that you could see it from a
distance and he would be able to see the baby
wherever it was in the general mayhem of the sets
and the uh the goblins, and also liked the strike
did refer to Alice in Wonderland, to her stockings, that
sort of thing. And also um the fact that we
(34:08):
could duplicate who had had a puppet, which we didn't really,
but we had like a fake baby that the day
the could throw up in the air. It's always a
shock when I see the film and my baby up
in the average starts and I know Howbie, you know,
over the years has gone to have gone to various
like conventions and things that they have, like labyrinth conventions
(34:31):
where they do throw a stuff baby around which he
finds a pitch shocking. Do you recall meeting David's for
the first time? What were you what were your first
impressions of them? Yes, I do. I mean it was
very interesting times because he had an assistant who was
very protected on him, and so she didn't really like
(34:54):
too many people getting anywhere nearer in with us, unfortunate,
but himself was just absolute delight. And so we were
just a few days away from him starting and we
were still trying to sort out like his wig and
various things. And I remember having a meeting with him
(35:18):
in his dressing room which had nothing in it yet,
because he just really arrived. And we had made for
him as a gift a little bone flute, little tiny
thing and it played, so it's a very ancient thing,
and so I knew and I know the sound of
it is a very ancient found and we gave it
(35:41):
to him in his dressing room and he just took
it and he just the most extraordinary thing. He leapt
up onto the table top, you know, with the mirror
behind it, with all the lights around it, and he
hunkered down and he played a tune on it and
it was the most spooky thing. It was like it
(36:03):
was like he was Puck or some He was definitely
very fairly like and what you really wanted to do
was like go to the course of the room, get away,
because it was just so powerful and so exhilarating, and
he just sort of got the spirit of the Goblin King.
To shame that there was nowhere in the in the
(36:26):
characterization in the film to have anything like that, but
he was kind of extraordinary. Another thing about him was
that he had He was very funny, you know, he
was he was very lighthearted and connected. But so my
dealings with him were at a distance. I've been making
costumes and things in the workshop and um, you know,
(36:49):
the things were taken to him and he would be
wearing it, but I never Wendy sat that. My wife,
Wendy would saw him like every day when dealing with Toby,
but I never it. He saw him again after that. Wow,
that is that is quite an impression. That is unbelievable.
It seems like, well, once there's enough it seems like
(37:10):
from that just that the energy coming off of him,
as you said, sounds extraordinary. Yes. Wow. How did the
style of Jarred evolve from you know, his costume and
his hair and everything in his makeup. How evolved were
you with developing that his look? Actually, some of the
designers for him hardly exist. There is a funny sketchy
(37:32):
bit that really became his major look, and it's about
maybe two inches tall in a sketch book. I mean,
it was just sort of scribbles, but we were developing it,
and I did lots of designs for that, because well,
he is as a character is really segments and fragments
(37:53):
of a teenage girl's imagination. And so the first one
which Jim really what he wanted was pop star, you know,
as somebody that would bring to the part all those
things you know, a famous person would naturally have. Buie
was absolutely perfect because in his characterizations on stage and
(38:17):
and his our various incarnations of different characters, you know,
Ziggy Sadust is all sorts of different people. That's the
way he is as a creative artist. So he brought
back to it, you know, because I did have some
costumes where maybe it would be in a being in
(38:39):
a suit or whatever. I always saw the Goblin King
as somebody mercurial or changing, and so the next thing
was that actually I felt that he came out of
sort of literature, so sort of romantic literary figures. So
there's very much there's very much Heath Clear in there.
(39:02):
There's Rochester from Jane Eyre and Mr Darcy from Pride
and Petjudice, as well as things like meta Stophiles, which
is it's all very theatrical, which absolutely David understood. My
design for the wig was a couple of little scripples,
(39:24):
didn't know quite what it was, and we started the
ship and we thought, well, maybe it should be like
a wolf, you know, that we would started to go
down the route that he could have some sort of
wolf like characteristics, but it miss made him sort of
look old and gray. Once they've got the general shape
of the wind, David just sort of took charge and basically,
(39:45):
because this is his territory, he's used to a glam rock,
you know, it's that it meant to it's meant to
be this little glam rock look, you know, and the
fact that it's like a Tina Turner look, as well.
He totally got you know, so we meant we could
just like tweak it a bit and make it more
(40:05):
raggedy and all that. You know, he got his own
person to do the strange makeup I stuff and he
literally could step into it. And so when we were
then developing you know, other aspects, which was for the
leather jacket look because that is also I wanted that
(40:26):
sort of dangerous, you know, the wild one Marlon Young,
Marlon Brando look um. But we also wanted it to
be very much part of the Goblin world. Where so
that also relates to there's a some mercenary soldiers in
the fift hundreds of the land next who were quite flamboyant.
(40:50):
So some of that costuming refers to that. Was like
the tight pants and the boots and and this leather
jacket that all has it's alarmor on it, but the
armor is all tweaked. We got you know, strange worms boring.
It's boring their way through the armor, which is sort
of comes from like combs of death and all sorts
(41:14):
of I really wanted to be really a rich amalgam
of influences that would turn up in the costumes. We
were finishing the film and we were coming to the
last scene with David and it was the end of
the film and we were sort of relaxing a bit.
(41:35):
I think we can go home soon. Basically, we suddenly
realized we suddenly realized, oh, well, shouldn't he have another
costume at this stage? And we went, oh, maybe he should.
And we sort of actually played up all night and
sort of built that thing for him, which is rather
(41:55):
kabooki Japanese kabooti. Look, you know, not because I wanted
to him to be like a ghost like as I
was thinking of the kabuki theater. Ghosts are really strange
things and stuff. We sort of quickly built it with
a sort of whispy fur and the bone color everything.
(42:24):
How familiar were you with with his music? Kabuki was
a big influence on his own style in the in
the Ziggi and Aladdin saying years how deeply were you
aware of his musical work? Um, well, I've always been,
always been a fan, and you know, I have liked it,
and I know that he was very interested in that.
He trained in mind and it shows up in all
(42:47):
the costumes, and I knew that he would respond to it.
The unfortunate thing was that not actually really been able
to talk to him about it, because you know, everybody
my my infamous you know purs pants, so their course,
these literally like towers as um were there for a reason,
(43:09):
I mean because partly also not only it's part of
that look that you're Heathcliff and all that those um
that period, whether trousers were fairly tight and the boots
you know, and the tailcoats and all that we were
going for that, but also a ballet dancer, I mean
it really is that would be another influence all that.
(43:31):
But what I really wanted to giving was a big
metal cog piece which I hadn't quite got round to design,
and I didn't know quite how do it? Tell anybody
this is where what I wanted to do. But in
the end I didn't get the chance. I'm sure he
wouldn't want it. He seemed quite quite happy to um,
you know, go with with this sort of expressive theatrical look.
(43:56):
I mean, it seems so wonderful that that he was
so willing to haven't said, to humor about himself, and
to really commit so deeply to to something like this,
you know what I mean, Like it seems like really
wonderful that that he he seems so willing to play,
I guess is the best way I think to put
to put it, to be so willing to try new things,
which I guess shows up in his own musical work anywhere. Yeah. Well,
(44:17):
also that what I wanted to do was actually that
that's an interesting thing about the idea to play, because
that just reminds me that something is that I designed
for him, which is that swagger stick, that little whip
thing which has the crystal ball on the end. But
I thought, if I give him that, it also gives
(44:38):
him as a performer something he understands, which is a
microphone in his hand. And it works. You know. It
helped him, I think, enormously when he was performing with
all the goblins, to have that in his hands. It
refers to the whole gamut of theatrical expressions of romantic literature.
(45:00):
That's what we were trying to do, and he was
great at it. I mean, there was one odd thing happened.
We were also building more costumes for him, and we
worked one weekend with lots of them, and they were
presented to him and he would turn them down. Actually,
it is only when he turned down it, which was
(45:22):
a big robe thing. But suddenly in the newspapers it
says Bowie rejects costumes, and we thought, what's that about.
It was very odd and was thought, that's like that.
He said, you know, this is just us making a
movie here, and then I realized what was going on,
because well, he making the film was part of us
(45:46):
sort of come back. He had been out of the
public eye for a while and this was publicity. He
had leaked the story himself because what he was doing
actually probably that every weekend, I think it was when
we were working on the costume, he was actually out
on the streets filming with Nick jagger Um and they
(46:10):
had this I forgot the name of the song now,
but they had a hit song dancing in the streets. Yeah. Yeah,
So that's what he was up to, and so it
was very clever move. But all the other costumes and
he was so happy to wear. Answer. I wanted to
ask you, and this is probably a strange question, did
you have any keepsakes from the set? Like I think
(46:31):
I read that you've got a mystic coat from the
set of The Dark Crystal and the costumes made me
think of it. Do you have anything from from Labyrinth? Yeah,
I've got I've got something that was so so. Two
years ago I was going to a convention and I
had what I had in my case. It went through
(46:53):
the ghana and a supervisor said this O, and it
went over there and I had this. Lady started going
through the the bag and she couldn't find anything, and
she said can't You said that can't, said it's in
there for look, but she said, can't find What do
(47:14):
you think you've got? I said, I don't know. I said, oh,
I'm thinking. Oh metal probably said it off because the
civilvisor kept saying, is he is he a public notary?
Going a date of a dangerous public notary? He was it?
And when I searched it out, it was I have
(47:36):
David Bowie's necklace. You know, it's this plow light thing
we designed for him, and I that was what it was,
and that was the scanner was picking it up, and
she looked at it, he said, and when she was really,
so this is cool David Bowie a while and he
and I said, why do you think it's public notary?
(47:58):
She said, oh, thinks it's one of those you know
where they sort of leave the laver and they stamp
you know, that field on it. And he said he
don't know that they make a plastic nowadays, it wouldn't
be metal. Well that was that was That was really
all I got. Wow, that's really special. I mean, you know,
(48:21):
you speak of going to these conventions and what is
it about the film that makes it held so dear
by so many? What do you think it is that
resonates after all these years. Well, I mean, to be honest,
I think we were slightly disappointed when we finished. I mean,
this sounds bad, but it is that there was a
purity to Dark Crystal because it was all puppets and
(48:45):
now we thought, well, I don't know, we got people
in there? Are we are we retreating somewhere to have
people in it, and you know it seems a bit
lighter and everything. But we well, we were missing it.
What we what we missed? And that's what the power
of it is that the story speaks to generations of
(49:08):
generations of young girls. Then they keep coming through, you know,
keep getting new ones at them, and so somehow it
relates to their predicament, to their to their way they are.
Because that was the idea that you know, she's just
going through that stage in her life where she's having
(49:28):
to leave behind the young girl aspects of herself and
be and start to become a woman. That's what it
was about. And I think we'd completely missed that aspect
of it or and when you see it again you go, oh, yes,
now I get it. I don't know, but it's absolutely
people keep do love it, and and then it rises
(49:50):
in people's heartsome and more and more. Yeah, has your
relationship to the film changed at all? Do you do
you recognize the person who who created those characters. It's
sometimes it's hard to do that. I mean, I know
that Dark Crystal for years. It took a long time
before I could um disassociate the music from um emotions
(50:18):
because in the film, the music is about the emotions
of the story. But working on it, all you remember
with the music brings back to you is how you're
dirty and dusty and tarking. It's unfair how stressful it
is to try and get the things made on time,
get them right, all those sort of things. You know.
(50:39):
So some of that aspect happens in Labyrinth, but I
think it's helps enormously to have lyrical songs in it,
to have Bowie's voice helping tell the story as well.
But it is a story that people will do respond
to it. I mean, I know we had a royal
premiere for it and it was Prince Charles and Diana
(51:03):
came to that one. And I remember years later I
met Prince Charles and it was well the opening of
the Museum of Moving Image in London, and I met
him and well, I've been invited along to hear him
open it. And then they said, quickly go around the back.
He's going to go around. They went around the back
(51:24):
and he's coming around and he came past the Henson's
lot and they was asking them, you know, what would
they do, and they were all like secretaries. And he
got to me and said well what did you do?
And I said, well nothing, I said, they fired me.
He said no. I said, well, actually, sir, you know
(51:44):
we have met. We met the opening of Labyrinth and said,
laverynth Yes, a very very good film, very funny, he said,
the bold of Eternal Stench because all that sort of
fasting noises and he said yes, he was laughing. In fact,
(52:05):
I was the only one loved it because everybody was
very embarrassed about all that. But he loved it. I
mean he doesn't. He talked knowledge with about it and
he was a great He's a great fad He's loved
all the Goons stuff and Peter Seller. I think it's
that lineage, you know, and so I think via the
Pythons and Terry Jones as well. So I think it
(52:26):
definitely he related to all that. How about Toby, how
does he feel about it these days? Oh? I mean,
I think he's absolutely delighted to have been in a
part of it. I mean, obviously he doesn't remember too
much about what it was like to be on set
because he was at the year in the bit, you
(52:47):
know that. But it's given being part of our family
and being part of the making of things like you know,
the puppets and goblins. That's in his blood now, you know.
That's what he loves to do, filmmaking and creatures. And
he was involved in the In the Dark Crystal series
(53:09):
on Netflix that from a few years back. He was, yeah, supervising. Yeah,
he was great because it's a great to work with
him and when we make a great team, you mean,
I have no patience and he's very patience. He said, well,
what my father meant to say, It keeps me calm.
(53:32):
And he's like, you know, five solutions to things, because
it's everything is about trying to figure things, you know,
how to do things. I mean. The best time of
working on the new series was well, there was one
time where we were building all these knives and swords
(53:52):
and things that growing out the back of the Skexies
and we were working on it was about I say
to Night and I said to Toby, this this is
a big film series and they said yes. I said, yeah,
this is a Netflix it's big. And then he said yes.
I said, well I'll come. It's only you and me working,
(54:16):
which is you know, so that sometimes you just got
to do it yourself, you know literally and then you know,
in the morning and trying to get something on set
and where we were there whatever, you know, six in
the morning, on our hands and knees literally on that
you hadn't need, in front of the costume, bluing things
to it, you know, and aging it so it could
(54:38):
be on set at nine. And that was just was
actually fun, you know, to be with my own son
hands on, getting your hands dirty and indeed often bleeding
on it. I mean, i'd say I've said now the
pest costume as one you bled off because with me
offen a guy have strange sharp bit, some various things
(55:01):
that can be a bit dangerous, and I know I've
led on a few of the stuff, but that's that's
that's part of the magic of of these things which
are inanimates. You know that's made out of staff, but
you try to imbue them with spirit. And so it's
great to be working on things that are three dimensioned
(55:22):
because they like me working on one of my paintings,
which I try to imbue with spirit. And if if
people can feel it's there, then the work is successful.
Your work has meant so much to me and so
many of my loved ones. I it's such an honor
to speak to my My last question, I don't want
(55:42):
to take up too much more of your time, But
my last question, what can we learn from from fairies?
What can they teach us? Oh U that there are
no rules, no no no rules and fairy U. But
what fairies do? They insist you do the right thing.
So if you're in Seri stories, you've got to do
(56:04):
the right thing and in you know, in a dialogue
with fairies, you've got to do the right thing, but
they're not going to tell you what that is. And
also it keeps changing, so you've got to do it
always the right thing at the right time. And that's tough.
So it means it's a much as a spiritual philosophy.
(56:26):
It's it's tough, but it's I think it's much more
open and caring and loving and connective. Off the Record
is a production of I Heart Radio. If you liked
what you heard, please subscribe and leave us a review.
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(56:47):
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