Chris Sanders is the creator of Disney’s Lilo and Stitch. He talks to Mike about the 20th anniversary of the movie, how he first drew Stitch in the 80’s for a kid’s book and how he ended up becoming the voice in the movie. Chris also shares why music was so important to the development of the story and when we can expect a new installment in the franchise. Mike also talks to Lou Diamond Phillips who has been in movies such as La Bamba, Stand and Deliver and Young Guns. They talk about things you didn’t know about the making of La Bamba, how he approaches new roles and growing up in Texas and working at What-A-Burger.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome back to Movie Mike's Movie Podcast. I
am your host Movie Mike. I'm gonna be honest with you.
I was going to sit down and record an episode today.
I had my top ten core movie memories. I was
going to review the new Grand Charisma movie, talk about
the Good Burger two trailer. I sat down, I did
all my prep, I was going to hit record. I
just didn't really have it in me. It's been quite
the week, the last week at work, with all the
(00:22):
projects I do and all the things I have to produce.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
It was a lot.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
And I sat down and did not have the mental
capacity to put on the movie Mike persona and do
an episode. And I tried to push through it, and
I just couldn't really get it out. And I didn't
want to give you an episode with my half heart
in it. So I decided to do a best of
which I rarely rarely do. I always want to give
you new content. Even if you look at the weeks
we take vacation on the show, I still try to
(00:48):
put up new episodes because that is how much I
care about you being subscribed to this podcast and listening
every single week. And I have just a lot of
topics that I want to do that I just do
a new episode every single week, and I had it
ready to go and I just couldn't get through it.
And in that moment, I knew that I wasn't going
to be able to and it took a lot of
(01:10):
willpower to not sit here and do one and try
to crank it out anyway. And then Kelsey told me, Yay,
you should probably just take a break. You're about to
be burnt out. So I told myself, all right, I'm
not going to do one, but I wanted to be
as transparent as possible. If you're wondering why there's not
a new episode, that is why we're about to be
on break from the show, the Big show that is
(01:31):
a Bobby Bone show. And I think I'm just gonna
take this as a little bit of a break, but
I'm taking it as an opportunity to share some interviews
with you that are my favorite I've ever done on
the podcast. One is with the creator and voice of
Leelo and Stitch, which is my favorite Disney movie of
all time. And I rarely feel like I nail an interview,
like I always go in with so many questions and
(01:52):
sometimes I don't get to them, but this is the
one interview I felt that I asked every single question
I had on my mind, and I felt like Chris
Sanders and I really connected. And now seeing that they're
making a live action Leelow and Stitch movie is even
more reason to share this interview with you. And then
I also did an interview with Lou Diamond Phillips back
in twenty twenty one, so only like a year and
(02:14):
a half into this podcast, I got to interview one
of my favorite actors who is in one of my
favorite movies, La Bamba, and we'll talk all about that.
So no new episode for you this week, but two
really great interviews that if you're a new listener maybe
you missed, or if you've been around since day one,
I greatly appreciate you and hopefully you listen back to
these and still enjoy them as well. I will be
(02:35):
back next week with a brand new episode, going to
be talking about our favorite movies of the summer, and
I'll still do that Core Memories movie episode probably after that. Again,
thank you for being subscribed, Thank you for listening every
single week. Movie Crew, you guys mean everything to me.
I hope you enjoy these interviews and now let's talk movies.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
In a world where everyone and their mother has a podcast,
one man and stands to infiltrate the ears of listeners
like never before in a movie podcast. A man with
so much movie knowledge, he's basically like a walking IMTV
with glasses. From the Nashville Podcast Networks, this is Movie
(03:16):
Mike's movie podcast.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
You may not know his name, but you definitely know
his work. My guest this week is Chris Sanders, who
is the creator of Disney's Lelo and Stitch. He is
also the voice of Stitch, and long before he wrote
and directed this movie in two thousand and two, he
also worked as a story artist on Disney movies like
(03:39):
The Rescuers, down Under, Beauty and the Beast, The Aladdin,
The Lion King and really got his start when he
was the head of the story on Moulan. Working on
that movie led to him pitching his idea that he's
had since the eighties of Lelo and Stitch. Lelo and
Stitch was his first hit as a writer and director,
and even after Leelo and Stitch, he went on to
(03:59):
write and direct animated movies like How To Train Your
Dragon and the Crudes. So he's a super talented guy.
If you're a fan of Lilo and Stitch or just
a fan of Disney, I think you're gonna love his story.
Flet's talk movies with Chris Sanders. I am on now
with somebody I'm so excited to talk to. I'm on
with Chris Sanders. How are you today?
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Good? How are you?
Speaker 1 (04:20):
I'm doing really good now. A couple of things led
me hear to having you on the podcast. Lelo and
Stitch has been my favorite Disney movie since I was
a kid, and earlier this year, I was scrolling through
TikTok and I see you there and I recognized you,
and I didn't realize the backstory of Lelo and Stitch
and how it came to be, so I knew once
it hit that twentieth anniversary, I had to reach out
(04:41):
to you to get you on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Cool. Yeah, it's been really nice to do those tiktoks.
And that was just a response to I don't remember
what it was exactly, but I ran across somebody who
really didn't know anything about where the movie came from,
and that was that wake up call to me realizing
how much time had gone by, and quite a few
people didn't know the backstory to it. So it's been
(05:03):
really fun to begin that series trys to get some
of the material, which a lot of this stuff just
with animators and animation, a lot of this stuff ends
up in people's garages. You know, there's a lot of
stuff in the archives. But I still have the original
drawings and the original manuscripts that I used to pitch
the project. So that's amongst the stuff that I was
digging up and beginning to put up on TikTok so
(05:25):
that people could take a look at it.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
And that's so cool to see. And I want to
get to the movie, but I kind of want to
start back at the beginning. When you were growing up
in Colorado, what made you fall in love with animation?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I loved straw. My dad, I thought was a great artist.
He did paintings and he would draw like these buck
Rodgers style spaceships, and I remember one day he said,
there's a limit to what you can build, but you
can draw anything. And that really stuck with me, and
so I really I always have a love to a
love of drawing. It didn't ocur to me that I
(05:57):
could turn that into a career and tell you know.
Many years later, I was nearing the end of high school,
trying to figure out what to do with the rest
of my life, and my grandmother was reading an article
in the Denver Post, which was our local newspaper, and
she was reading this art article all about how Disney
Studios was running low on animators. They were retiring, and
they were looking for a way to replenish their ranks.
(06:19):
They created an animation program at this school in California
called Cal Arts, and I thought, oh, my gosh, that's
where I want to go. So I'd always liked animation,
I'd enjoyed it, but I'd never thought of it as
a possible career path until she told me about that school.
And that's the only place I applied.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
How did you know you were? It went from just
you just drawing to like, oh, I'm actually pretty good
at this, Like this is something I could actually pursue
and go to that school.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
You don't know, I was really crossing my fingers that
my drawings were good enough. I think a lot of
kids at Cal Arts were like some of the local
best artists from where they came from. So I was
not unusual in that, Like, I did cartoons for my
school newspaper, so when they needed cartoons, people would come
to me at our Vada High school and you know,
(07:07):
when they needed a mascot drawn or a T shirt
drawn or something like that. Likewise, a lot of the
kids I ended up with in my classic Kyle Art's
same kind of thing. And that was really sobering because,
like I went from being I thought a person who
could draw pretty well to being sobered when I'm sitting
next to somebody named Kelly Asbury. Kelly Asbery. He became
a good friend of mine, and he just drew so
much better than I did. I thought. He just drew
(07:30):
amazingly well. And he drew with a pen because he
had this confidence, and I always drew with a pencil
because I was never really sure. I was like, I
want to erase this and move things around. And he
took out this ink pen and he would just draw
what he wanted and I'm like, oh my gosh, he's
so much better than I am. Right, And you know,
it's still that way. I think one of the things
that's really cool about the animation industry is that if
you ever are looking for inspiration, just walk down the hall.
(07:53):
There's somebody down that hall that's going to be way
better at stuff than you are. And so inspiration to balance.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
I mean in turn that it makes you become better.
You see other people just crushing it, and you're like,
I want to get to that level. I want to
be that good too. I want to creak out my
best idea so I can get the better jobs and
get the things I want to achieve.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Right, absolutely, absolutely, because nobody, I mean there's no nobody
draws the best. Everybody draws, you know, their own things
and their own ways and stuff like that, and it's great.
It's that great coming together of all those different artistic
styles where you can get these wonderful films and you
get these wonderful projects and stuff like that. If I
went back in time and changed out one single artist
on one of these films, the film would be a
(08:31):
little bit different. So they are. They're literally a conglomeration
of the talents that were gathered for that particular project.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
So you go out to this school and how long
is it until you get your first paid job to
where okay, this is turning into my career.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
A lot of people would leave school at that time early.
A lot of people graduated on their third year. I didn't.
I stuck with it for four years. I was very
aware that this was my last chance to go to
school before I would go and start work for the
rest of my life, so I hung in there for
the four years. At the time that I graduated, Oddly enough,
Disney Studios was no longer hiring, so the place I
(09:08):
was really hoping to go was not an option at
that point. So I did find a job at Marvel Productions.
Now it wasn't the comic book part of Marvel. It
was the animation side of it, and they did Saturday
Morning cartoons. I got a job on the Muppet Babies. Now,
the funny thing about that is that one of the
things they would always tell us in cal Arts is draw, draw, draw,
(09:28):
draw every day. Draw things that you see around you.
It'll make you a better artist.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
Well.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
I didn't want to draw the things I saw around me.
I didn't want to draw shairs, I didn't want to
draw tables. I didn't want to draw people's shoes, you know.
I wanted to draw the stuff that I wanted to draw.
The funny thing is at Marvel Productions. On the Muppet
Baby Show, I was in the model department, which meant
anything that was going to be in the cartoon had
to be drawn first as a turn so that they
could color it and model it and send it overseas
(09:54):
so that everything would be on model. So the funny
thing is my first job was really drawing things that
I had avoided drawing in the past. I drew chairs
and tables and shoes and dresses and everyday objects, a
lot of them, right, And it was amazing training.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
So you're working at Marvel and I saw that you
said that you had the first drawing of Stitch in
nineteen eighty one. What about that story? What about that
sketch made you come back to it years later when
you finally get this opportunity to create this story for Disney.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
I had worked a little bit on it in private.
I wanted to do a children's book. And what I
realized after working on it for a while in private,
you know, on my own time, was that the story
was too big to fit into a normally formatted children's book.
I didn't think I could boil this thing down to say,
seventeen pages or thirty two pages, it just seemed too big.
So the idea was bigger than my book. So years later,
(10:49):
I was in the waning days of the production of Mulan.
We made that film at the Florida Studio. So I
was out in Florida, and the president of Feature Animation
at that time, Tom Schumacher or was out visiting, and
he and I and everybody had gone through a lot
making this film. It had been quite the adventure. I
think that my performance on that film had earned me,
(11:13):
had earned me a certain amount of I guess latitude
to maybe do my own movie. And Tom was out
visiting Florida and he said, is there anything that you
would want to do next? And pretty much right there
at dinner, I said, no, no, not a well wait
a minute, okay, you know, there is this one thing.
There was this story, right, and so I was able
(11:33):
to think about it for a little bit. And the
next time he visited, he said, well, and I was
trying to work up a pitch for it, you know,
and he said, well, go ahead, just tell me about it.
And I said, well, I'm not really ready, and he goes, no,
just come on, just do it, you know, And I thought, oh,
here it goes my idea. I mean like it's gonna
be all over the next like the next three minutes.
And I pitched it, just verbally threw it out there,
(11:54):
and I really got my very first and biggest note
of all, which was the story that I had can
call was all about this strange little creature who was
living in a forest and he didn't he had come from.
He was a mystery to everything around him, but he
was also a bit of a mystery to himself, and
the story was all about how he was figuring out
who he was. And he was frightening looking a bit
of a monster, right, And Tom said, I like this story,
(12:18):
but I would have a suggestion. The animal world is
in a sense already alien to us, so placing this
alien being in the animal world doesn't get you the
kind of contrast that you might want. I would suggest
you place this monster in the human world. Boom, there
it was. I thought that was a great idea. So
that was the first biggest note that Leloan and Stitch
ever got. Now this is before it was lelo and Stitch,
(12:40):
before they were in Hawaii. That was when I left
and started working on the idea. Once I returned to California,
and that's where I got this motel room out in
Pulm Springs at this resort, and I locked myself in
this room for three days and all I did was
draw and write because I wanted to create a bit
of a document because it's going to be about an alien.
(13:01):
And I thought, you know what, those are the days
where people were making a lot of monstery kind of
alien movies. And I thought, if you say the word
alien in a development meeting or a pitch, a lot
of people are going to get this instant idea of
what an alien is. And I thought, Okay, if I
don't draw this, they're going to get maybe the wrong idea.
So if I had draw this whole thing out and
they say no to it, at least they're saying no
(13:22):
to the idea that was my idea, so it's a
legitimate no. So after those three days, what occurred to
me was that, in a sense, I had finally created
that children's book that I had tried to create so
many years before and had abandoned.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
That's really interesting to me because I was rewatching it
and I realized how hard it must have been to
pitch an idea about this alien creature doesn't really say
a whole lot of words. So to hear you say
that you took that idea, placed it into Hawaii and
suddenly it made sense.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
You know, this is where you've really got to understand
how important the producer and the head of a student
are to your future. They can make her break an idea,
and in this case, Tom Schumacher, he wanted to make
this film and he that was the next big thing,
was that it's the thing I'm going to put on
TikTok really soon, and I'm working on that one right now.
(14:15):
He told me after the development department looked at it
that they all universally liked the idea, and he said.
I walked into off into his office and he said,
I will make this film on one condition that it
looked like you drew it. And that was very exciting
and flattering. But at that point I didn't even know
what to do because I thought, well, what do I
even draw like? I just draw like everybody else. A
(14:37):
girl who was working at the studio, Sue Nichols, who
was an amazing artist. She also came from cal Arts.
She did a two week analysis of my art style
and she created two documents called Surfing the Sanders Style,
and it explained how I drew Well. Nobody was more
interested to read these than I was, and I was
absolutely fascinated. It turns out there were things that were
(15:00):
governing my style that existed that I didn't really even
realize as I was doing. But she saw them and
she had like dissected the whole thing. So that began.
And that's one of the reasons that Leland and Stitch
is a highly unusual film. It is more unusual than
people really, I think may may realize, because it is
not only a very Miyazaki style story that is extremely
(15:23):
hard to mail down, you know, it's a smaller story,
and it's really kind of strange, based very very much
on quirky, unusual characters. Really, you know, these personalities are
are the whole movie. But also that it's in an
individual artist's style, and that's I don't think that's anything
that has happened really before or since, at least with
an artist inside the studio they've based films on, say
(15:46):
like Isaac Isaac Ivan Dural Sleeping Beauty is based very
much on Ivan durl for example, but he was an
outside creator, so it's one of the reasons that that's
such an unusual film.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
So when do you sit down to create what is
going to be Lelo and Stitch. You have to create Lilo.
When does it get that title, When does it get
that final art?
Speaker 2 (16:06):
It was Lelo and Stitch by the time it was
in that first pitch book. So when I went away
to Palm Springs, by that point I had made the
decision to place the film in Hawaii. I had named
the characters Leelo and Stitch, and I had no connections
to Hawaii at that point. So I pulled Lelo's name
off of a roadmap that I had from Hawaii. There's
a Lilo Lane and I saw that. So this is
(16:29):
one of the strange things. I didn't know what that
word meant. It sounded like a name. It turns out
it's not a name, but it's the word for lost.
So in a really strange way, I found the right
word to make that her name. The same with Nannie,
I just again I looked around for names on a roadmap.
(16:49):
Later on in the making of the film, we did
engage as many people as we could from Hawaii because
we're talking about it, we're trotting into a culture that
we are part of. And if you're going to do that,
you really have to connect with people that know what
the deal is, that know what they're doing for the music,
for the culture, for the dialogue, for your voices as
(17:10):
much as you can, and so we did. We met
a huge number of people who became our guides to
making the film.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Be respectful going into the start of making this movie,
at what point did you become the voice of Stitch?
Were you always going to be Stitch or was that
a voice that just existed in your head? Where did
that come from?
Speaker 2 (17:29):
It's sort of both. It was a voice I had
used up to that point to call people on the
telephone with and annoy them, and it was actually Dean,
my co director. So along the lines of your last question,
one of the first things you do is you find
a co director that you trust, and I had learned
to trust Dean and department and to partner with Dean
during the making of Mulan and Dean was extremely smart
(17:51):
and amazing a natural when it came to storytelling. He
was a natural storyteller and great writer, a wonderful story artist,
and he has very good strucktural knowledge and structural instincts,
so so I partnered with him immediately. As soon as
we decided to do the project, I saw out and
we agreed to co direct on the film. Dean suggested
(18:14):
that I be the voice of Stitch. One of the
main reasons was that we wanted. Originally we didn't want
Stitch to even speak. We were like, oh, it's going
to be like dumb, but we'll do the whole film
and he will just be a character that works in pantomime.
Later on, it became obvious that he was going to
have to speak, and in fact, he would have some
key lines during the film. Well, at that point we thought, okay,
(18:35):
we're going to we're going to have to get a voice,
but you don't want to necessarily hire somebody like Robert
Redford or Danny DeVito and then worry about like, well,
how's the studio going to react when they realized this
character only says like fifteen things and will they then
start to push for like, well, if you know, if
we're going to hire Robert Redford, we want it. You know,
we want Robert Redford. We want like a lot of lines.
And we were afraid that that might begin to really
(18:56):
be the tail that wagged the dog as far as
the making of the film. So Dean suggested, He's like,
you know what, why didn't you just do the voice?
You use that voice when you pitch your boards, So
why you just do it? And then we'll avoid any
problem because you know you're not a real actor, no
one's going to ask for more of you. Right. So
we did do that, and there came a moment, there
(19:17):
was only one moment that I felt a little stressed
about it, and that was when we realized that near
the very end of the film, Stitch would have this
one very important line where he talks about this family
that he found and it was little and it was broken,
but it was still good and that verged on real acting,
and so I thought, I don't know if I can
do this. On that day, I came to Dean and
(19:38):
I said, today, I'm an actor, and you're going to
be the director, the only director, and I'm going to
go in that booth and you tell me what to
do and I'll do it. And if I can't pull
this off, then we'll find somebody else to do the voice.
And so we did, Like Dean directed me. I did
everything he asked, and before long he said, okay, but
I think we got it, And I said, are you sure?
He said, yeah, I think we got and it worked.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Okay, you brought up my favorite scene in the entire movie.
I think it's because of that. It's that moment in
the movie where everything kind of hits me emotionally, and
I remember watching it as a kid and having that
same kind of feeling of Stitch, of being that person
who was filled with rage in a place that he
didn't understand, didn't understand himself, but all of a sudden
he had this family. Now, I think that's the most
(20:21):
perfect scene in any Disney movie I've seen. So it's
cool how that came together. And now you had to
go dig out your acting abilities in that.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
I did my best. I really tried hard that day.
I still remember that day.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
This is my family. I found it all on my own.
That's little and broken, but still good. Yeah, still great.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
So when people find out you're the voice of Stitch,
do they immediately ask you to do it?
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I do get asked to do it a lot. I
had some surgery out of my neck at one point
period of time, about a year I couldn't do it,
but then I got back to doing it, and I
still do it. I get called up about at least
once a month to come in and do I do
voices for toys and for like parades, things for cruise ships,
all Disney stuff. It's fun.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
I told myself if I ever had you on the podcast,
I would show you my voice. And it's actually that
scene that I do. So I would like to let
you hear this and then judge my abilities afterwards and
let me know how I can make it better.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
All right, okay, all right, So it's that scene.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
This's my family. I found it all on my own.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
It's little.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
I'm broken, but still good.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah, still good. How's that? That's really good? That's very nice.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
How do you get the laugh though, because I've been
trying this impression for a while, but that laugh is
and like it's hard to do.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
The big laugh is painful. That is when if you're
doing a recording session, you save that for the very end, like, Okay,
we'll save all the screaming and the laughs for the end,
and then we'll do We'll do. Then you can just
take it to the wall and if you blow your
voice out, You're fine.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
The fact that it being the twentieth anniversary of the movie.
When you go back, what moment sticks out to you
as being the most fun part of the entire process.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
I mean, the part of the process that I've always
loved is music. Dean and I and Leo, It's just
was a big part of this have really I've always
loved music, and I listened to music. I have never
written a scene in a movie without listening to music
while I worked on that scene. I have also boarded
pieces of movies to music, and there are still there
(22:31):
are still pieces of music that if you play them
while you watch a piece of a Disney movie, it
lines up pretty much exactly like if you go to
the soundtrack for a movie called The Mission, there's a
there's a track from that. I believe it. I believe
the track is The Mission. And if you listen to
that while you watch the scene where Moufast's ghost speaks
to Simba, it works really really well because that's the
(22:55):
that's the music I listened to when I boarded the scene,
and I pitched that scene to the directors with that music.
There are scenes Beauty and the Beast I can show
you the music that those were done too, so anyway,
so same with Lelon Stitch. I would listen to music
because I write these scenes. And nothing was more exciting
to us than we would when we would partner with
somebody like Alan Silvestri who is going to be writing
(23:15):
the score. And one of the things that Leland Stitch
was made for a lower budget than movies were being
made for at the time. We felt we could buy
our story freedom by lowering the budget, which is exactly
what happened. But one of the things that both you
and I told the producers and asked the studio carve
off enough money to buy the best score money can buy,
(23:36):
and we will make the film for whatever is left over.
And that's exactly what they did. So we got Alan
Silvestri and there was this really important day where we
were looking at the boards and Alan Silvester was looking
at the whole film on board and looking at the outline,
and he said, I really liked this movie, and he
had a few suggestions, but he said, there's one thing
I didn't see. I didn't see the moment where Stitch
(23:58):
turns from bad to good, because which is a villain
that becomes a hero and that was what the base,
That was really the basis of the whole story. He's
the first and I think at this point still the
only Disney villain who then becomes the hero of the story.
And Allan was like, well, where does that happen? And
both Dean and I at that point were like, oh, well, yeah,
we tried to write it. We couldn't really figure it out,
(24:19):
and it sort of happens here kind of between these
two shots, and suddenly both Dean and I think were
confronted with the reality that we hadn't really been able
to put it up there on the boards. And I'll
never forget what Alan said. We basically told Alan we
didn't know how to do it, and he said, put
it on screen and I'll do it. And I guess
we were saying we couldn't, we didn't know how to
say it, and he said, put it on screen and
(24:40):
I'll say it, and he said it with music. And
so there's a moment where Nannie realizes that they can't
retrieve le Lo, and she's crying and Stitch's watching her,
and if you listen, there's a subtle change in the
music and Stitch walks up to her and he speaks
to her, and that's the moment of change. And what
we realized at that point was that music does the
(25:03):
heaviest lifting of all when it comes to story, and
music is unassailable. No one's going to laugh at music.
You can, you can throw an awkward line in or
an awkward shot and it gets an inadvertent laugh and
you've kind of blown it. But nobody laughs at music.
And so Alan just like taught us such an incredibly
important lesson that day, and we really took that to heart.
(25:24):
So later on, when Diana and I were working on
How to Train Your Dragon, one of the first things
we do now is we carve out a house for
music in different places in the film. So in How
to Train Your Dragon, in that scene where Hiccup is
going to bond and and and he's going to cross
this divide and form a connection to this dragon, no dialogue,
(25:46):
it's all music, and we just know the characters shut up.
All the characters shut up, and music takes over. And
that's just something that Diana and I really believe in now.
And we learned that on Leland Stitch.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Is the love for Elvis music always a part of
the story. Or did that come along when you were
trying to find the music.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
I was a big Elvis fan, so I simply gave that.
I imprinted that only low. And it was really cool
because we actually had to engage with the Elvis estate.
We had done three things that you were not allowed
to do without permission. We had shown an image of Elvis,
we had used his lyrics, and we had also used
his music, and you can't do any of those things
(26:27):
without permission. So so there came a day when we
had we had to approach the Elvis of State and
they sent what we call the Memphis Mafia down to
look at the movie. And all these people from the
Elvis of State traveled to California and they came into
the theater one day, and I'll never forget most of
them were wearing dark glasses. They were wearing sunglasses even
(26:49):
in the movie theater. As they watched the movie. It
was exactly as you think it would be. And they
watched the movie and they came out and they said,
we're stoked, we love this movie. We're going to approve
all the stuff you want want to do. And one
of the cool things we actually got a party at
the Elvis estate after the movie was done, and Dean
and I received a key to the city of the
City of Memphis, and we got a private tour of
(27:11):
the Elvis of the state and we even got a
trip to one of their archive buildings where they have
all of Elvis's actual stuff. There are four archive buildings.
They are in tornado proof structures. One of them is
on the property and that's the one that we were
able to go into. And we were there, you know,
all these amongst all these shelves that had all these
(27:33):
archival boxes, and we were like, so, what's in all
of these? And they're like, well, a lot of stuff,
And we said what do we look at and they said, well,
I don't know, just pick a box, and so Dean
Dean picked a box and they opened it up and
they said, oh, these are all the things that were
on Elvis's countertop in his bathroom when he died. And
we simply packed them all up. And they had a
(27:53):
bottle of his high karate aftershavee that he had used,
and they opened it up and led us mellet and
so we saw we saw some of his jumpsuits, we
saw a pair of boxing gloves that Muhammad Ali had
given him. It was amazing. Anyway, They were amazing. They
were so kind and so generous, and it was just
such a great thing that we partnered with them anyway,
(28:15):
one of those great lucky things.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
One of my other favorite parts of the movie is
how Leelo is like a five six year old girl
but sometimes has like these really dark, almost much older
thoughts than her. How is that writing in things of
like leave me alone here to die? Like, how do
you kind of approach that to make it kind of
alievable that it's a kid saying this?
Speaker 2 (28:35):
You know? That was Dean's line in Dean's scene. Dean
also did the he invented the whole my friends need
to be punished and she's ticking those spoons in the
in the pickle jar. That was just Dean in my sensibility.
But one of the things we had we did was
we our voice actor was a girl named Devey Chase,
and we we we auditioned a lot of young actors
(28:59):
to try to find the voice. It was one of
those you'll know it when you know it, And when
Dveke came in, she had this really very interesting way
of delivering her lines. She had a little bit of
this sort of deadpan kind of delivery, and we were like,
that's Lelo, that's her, And so it's one of those
things that, like, you write it and then you meet
the voice, and hearing the voice helps you write it.
(29:19):
So it's this kind of a snowball effect. But I
must credit Deem for that really great scene that was
entirely his. He wrote it and he even storyboarded it.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
So we've seen sequel Lelo and Stitch, You've seen the
TV series, but now with Disney Plus, will there ever
be any other installment of Lelo and Stitch.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
I think there will be.
Speaker 5 (29:37):
I think.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
I mean, he's a very very popular character. One of
the things that has been very amazing is that I
always hoped to pitch and create a movie that had
a character that really endured. And one of the things
that I absolutely am delighted with is whenever I go
to Disney properties. I can go to Disney World or
I can go to Disneyland, and you'll walk into stores
(29:59):
and there are not just Stitch products. Sometimes there are
entire sections of the store that are literally devoted just
to him. And that is just mind blowing and I
am so so proud of that. And it's so weird too,
because I'm like, I drew him one day in Palm Springs.
I have the first drawing of him, and now he's
been reproduced millions of times and he'll a a lot
(30:22):
of times. There'll be like a product it'll have mihat
Donald and Stitch and it's like, oh my God, like
he's really like he's there right. So yeah, I've been
writing little things because I thought, you know, he's part
of the Disney universe now. And just a really quick
side note, the whole ad campaign that we introduced the
movie with was an ad campaign that Dean and I
(30:43):
thought up.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
With him placing in other like movie posters.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yes, because as the movie was coming close to release
and we were thinking about how we were going to
market it, we were sitting around one day talking about
this whole thing and I said, out loud, isn't it weird?
This little character that we started all by ourselves is
going is about to invade the Disney universe and from
now on, when they do a lineup of Disney characters,
Stitch will always have to be in there with them.
And the idea, like the idea of like, oh, him
(31:07):
invading the Disney universe. We all, well, wouldn't it be
funny if we did the whole opening the Lion King
when they helped the whole cub up. It wasn't the
cub but it was Stitch and everybody just ran away,
and the whole idea just made us laugh. So we
boarded that out and we went to this meeting with
Dick Cook, who was on the main lot and he
was in charge of these things and he was an
(31:28):
executive there, and we pitched it and it got a
big laugh. Dick Cook said, I like this, and then
they said, can we do more? And so we started
kicking around the ideas of having him show up in
the Little Mermaid in Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast,
and which means we had to go back and re
record those actors with new lines. And that was really
(31:49):
funny because none of them were super stoked about it
like they I think it was the idea of it
wasn't like we didn't want to do it. They were
very professional and they were very very generous, and he
did a great job. I think it was more the
idea of, like, what's this thing doing in my movie?
And the funniest one was when we recorded Bell. She
(32:09):
was on speakerphone and she was in New York, so
we were recording her remotely. And the funny thing was,
because she was just on speakerphone, it was impossible not
to imagine that the actual Bell was at the other
end of the line talking to you because you couldn't
see her. So in my mind, it's Bell, it's the
cartoon character. And I remember we said, okay, this this
is the idea. She's going to show up and he's
(32:31):
going to ruin your special dance with Beast, and then
you're going to say I'll be in my room and
you're and you're upset, and then there was a there
was a beat, and she said, so I'm mad at him.
They said, well, you're disappointed, right, and she'd go okay,
and so she would do the line and she say
I'll be in my room and she had this really
(32:51):
sort of upbeat delivery, and we said, well, I think
you're more disappointed than that, right. So we eventually got
to the place where she felt very, very upset, but
it was just so sweet and so cute because she
was like, wait a minute, it was just it was
so it was great and they were what again, it
was so cool because I got to meet those actors.
I never thought i'd meet them, but that was so cool.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
I mean, you created an iconic character, got to work
with people who are also iconic characters. It's amazing to
see that all come together. And I can't wait to
see what comes next, and hopefully I'll get to talk
to you again once that comes around. I really appreciate
the time absolutely.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
If you ever wanted to do a follow up, I'm
so sorry we were late on this because time zones
mixed up, but yeah, let's do that. That would be fantastic.
I really enjoyed chatting with you so much.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Oh thanks, Churris.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Have a good day, you two. I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Blue Diamond Phillips is in a brand new movie called
Adverse and really just an actor that I looked up
to for a very long time for his roles in
LaBamba Stand and Deliver Young Guns because really, for one
of the first times ever as a kid, I looked
up at the screen and saw somebody who looked like me.
So we'll get into that. And if you don't know
about Lou Diamond Phillips, well where have we been all
these years. So before we get into the interview, here's
(34:06):
just a little highlight reel that I put together.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
I got the test ahead of time. I passed thro
out to everyone else. How did you get the test? No, man,
I strangled in his buddies, decomposing in my locker. I
don't see what's wrong with some of those takes. Man,
that's the way I sing. It's got to be clean, Richie.
Each take has to be identical, why so that we
can edit later. Look, look, this is in Mexico? Who
said it was?
Speaker 1 (34:28):
I lived there.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
I understand the tradition of the song. They're always changing
the lyrics. Look, man, I've never even been to Mexico.
My music is my music. Huh tell him?
Speaker 1 (34:36):
There's a bit of a rattlesnake long now with lou
Diamond Phillips. I gotta say, it's a pleasure to be
talking to you. I feel like you're an actor. I've
been looking up for a long time now.
Speaker 5 (34:56):
A lot of violence.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
So you grew up in Corpus Christie, Texas?
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Right?
Speaker 5 (35:00):
Yes? I did? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (35:01):
And did you actually work at Waterburger?
Speaker 5 (35:03):
That was one of my first jobs. My very first
job was as a cook's assistant on the Navy base.
My dad was in the Navy, and I got me
a job when I was like sixteen there. But yeah,
shortly thereafter I worked at Waterburger for quite a while.
I was like the crew chief and employee of the
month and all that. I mean, I slipped some burgers.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Man, I love Waterburger. I grew up in Texas too,
and I was wondering, like, if while you're working there,
is it a thing that you tell your coworkers that
you wanted to be an actor? Was that like not
in your plans at that time?
Speaker 5 (35:35):
Oh? No, no, no, no, no, no, it was. It
was fairly well known throughout high school that you know,
I wanted to become an actor. I mean I was
doing a high school theater. You know, in Texas we
had the UIL, the university interscholastically, and so I was
part of the drama club and I was, you know,
competing a lot and unfortunately winning awards and so a
(35:57):
lot of positive reinforcement. I think everybody knew by my
aspirations were at that time.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
So you've been in movies since the eighties. I just wonder,
at this point does acting kind of come second nature
to you, or does it still like a like a
muscle that you have to flex.
Speaker 5 (36:12):
I mean, if you're anowledging yourself, it's always a muscle
you have to pless. You always have to work out.
I mean, you know, uh, if you start phoning it in, man,
it shows you know, people can see if you're uninspired.
And I try not to do roles that don't matter
to me, you know what I mean. I have to
be excited about something anytime I'm going to do it.
The work is too hard otherwise, you know. Uh. And
(36:35):
and even when I'm you know, doing something that would
be as seemingly as uh, you know, familiar, as as
the role I'm playing on Prodigal Sun, there's you know,
there's there's new stuff to it all the time. I mean,
uh uh, the layers of you know, relationships and history
and bag and I mean it's it's it's always a blessing.
It's always fun. And the uh, you know, the the
(36:55):
other actors that you work with many they really inspire
you to bring your best game all the time, you know.
And I also try to snk it up. I mean,
like this movie Adverse that I have out that is
a little independent film you know that Thomas and Nichols
put together. I said yes because, well, first of all,
Thomas is a friend, and so is Sean. Aston was
already a part of the cast, you know, but then
(37:18):
Mickey or joined the tell A Van Miller and so
let's do something a little different. Let's you know, let's
get edgy, let's not get too comfortable with it. And
you know, it's always it's always fun to join a
an ensemble like that where you know it's not about
the money, it's not about the luxury, but it's about
you know, independent film and an up and coming director
like Brian Metcalf and and you know, you keep it
fresh for yourself.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yeah, And I want to talk about that movie. You
played doctor Cruz in it, and you mentioned how it
had to be something that you wanted to kind of
still test yourself with. So when you get that script
for that movie, what's your like creative process to kind
of find your character in that? Like, do you have
a creative process to know like who you're gonna be
going into sept from when you get the script to
when you show up Actually the.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
Film, Well, it's because it kind of came about because
I was doing a lot of conventions, you know, before
the pandemic hit, and I was running into Thomas a
lot and you know, I had you known him, uh
you know uh in and around Hollywood for a while
and he said, Hey, I'm doing this independent film. You know,
you want to see the scriptures? And yeah, sure, you know,
(38:18):
And like I said, Sean was already in Buddy and
he was already attached. And you know, you look at
the role and you go, can is there something that
I can break to this? Is there something that you
know I can illuminate you know if you will, you know,
as part of the character. And at this point in
my life and career, there's a couple of reasons why
I do something, you know, and I'm excited about the role,
(38:40):
I'm excited about who I'm working with. And this this
was both you know, uh, the end of a certain age,
you know, playing a role of it is you know,
uh supportive or is authoritative you know that that tries
to keep somebody on the on the straight and narrow,
you know, and I felt like, you know, being a
(39:00):
father you know as well this there was a lot
about this role that I could tap into, you know,
just just what comes to me, you know naturally. Uh,
kind of the same thing with the Gila Royal on
Prodigal Son. You know, he's the boss, but he's very
you know, fatherly toward not only his team, but you
know Malcolm Bright, who was the lead profiler. So there
(39:21):
there's something about you know, my history, about the life
that I've lived that lends itself to you know, to
to bringing some some experience to the role without having
to you know, hit it over the head. It's just
part of who you are now. So uh, you know
that that that speaks to me in most of the
things that I've done recently.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
And I was recently talking to Michael Penya and we
were talking about some of the actors who inspired us
because I'm Mexican American and he is as well. And
what two of the actors he named were Edward James
almost in you and I'm sure you kind of get
that a lot now, like people who are like, oh
it was kind of seeing you on screen for the
first time. I was like, Hey, there somebody who actually
(40:01):
kind of looks like me for the first time.
Speaker 5 (40:03):
You know, it's interesting, man, because you know, you just
kind of you do what you do, and then you're
following your own path and then eventually you start going, wow,
I guess I am carrying a flag here. I guess
I am representative of you know, people who need to
be represented. And one of the first times that I
remember experiencing that was I spoke at NYU, you know,
(40:26):
at the film school here in New York, and a
young Puerto Rican actress you know, has said, you know,
about standing Deliver, that she finally looked up and saw
people that looked like her on screen and that's why
she decided to pursue acting, you know. And it's interesting
when I look back a lot of the guys that
were inspirational to me in the seventies, you know, with
(40:48):
the swarthy guys, you know, DeNiro and Paccino and Austin,
It's like, Okay, not everybody has to be Robert Redford.
You know, maybe I can actually you know, have a
have a career at this. And then I wrote a film,
you know, in the early nineties called a Fish Or
I actually played Filipino American and Sisilia Peck was my
leading lady and I got to have dinner with her father,
(41:08):
Gregory Peck, at a certain point and he said, uh,
you know who you remind me of my old friend Tony.
And I thought, well he was gray, that I was kind
of on his path man, that I was kind of
carrying the torch that he started. That is, you know,
representing so many different communities, you know, not just what
I am, you know, blood wise, but you know, the
(41:28):
Latino community and the Native American community and just you know,
I mean I've played Indi with, I've played Asian, you know,
like in mckeam on Broadway, and and that's what it's about.
It's representing each of these communities with you know, with
dignity and with respect. And that's really become kind of
a you know, a touchstone of my career.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
And your breakout role was LaBamba, which is one of
my favorite movies of all time. And I think because
it's not only the story of Richie Vallen's, but ultimately
it's like the story about brothers, which I think why
it still resonates now. But I feel like it's hard
to find any kind of footage of Richie Vallens and
the way his kind of memory lives on is because
of your portrayal in that movie. Like at what point,
(42:08):
did you realize that you weren't just taking on another
role when you were doing that?
Speaker 5 (42:12):
From the second I read the scripts, you know, I
mean I got cast out of Dallas, Texas. Uh And
you know, I had no idea why this Hollywood film
company was doing this national you know, talent search. It
was ridiculous. I really could not believe that I even
had the opportunity to audition for this. And I read
(42:33):
the script and I just went I knew it was
the chance of a lifetime. And even my acting coach said,
you're never going to get this role, but hopefully you're
going to do a great job and they'll give you
something smaller, you know, like the drummer or something, you know.
And so it was it was really lgging in a
bottle when I got the role. And and then you know,
working with Luis Valbez and becoming close with the family,
(42:55):
which was you know, I did throwing into the deep
end of the pool. You know, I met Bob us
at this at the screen test, you know, on the
on the on the Warner Brothers lot. I mean, it
was it was crazy. Uh. So I knew I knew
it was a big deal from the beginning. Uh and
and uh, you know even even beyond that, so I
I felt, you know, very fortunate.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (43:16):
And it's funny because you're right. I mean there there
literally is only a two I think film cuss of Ritchie,
one from American Bandstand and one from a movie called Go,
Johnny Go, where he seems come on, Let's go. So
you know, there wasn't a whole lot to hang my
hat on performance wise. I really relied, you know, on
(43:37):
the family to kind of fill in the blanks for me.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
What is that like talking to the real life Bob
when you're going to play his brother? Like does he
start to like see his brother and you like, how
does that relationship work?
Speaker 2 (43:49):
You know?
Speaker 5 (43:49):
I mean they were they were still kind of me
from the beginning. I mean literally Bob uh said later,
you know, the when he laid eyes on me and
then saw the audition because he knew that I was
going to get the job, which was really sweet. But
you know Connie and Irma, I mean all all of
his siblings, a little Mario it was only a baby
at the time. Uh, and his mom, you know Connie,
(44:10):
she was around, so they were there every single day,
and Uh, it would always be like, well would Richie
do this? Or what would Richie do in this situation?
You know, they they were able to tell me these things.
And it wasn't just about Richie. The rock Star was
about Richie a human being, you know, the seventeen year
old kick uh and and so that you know that
(44:30):
was really uh I think was fleshed out the character
and and and helped him, you know, be more than
just you know an Indians.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
If you will, I wonder now, if you're ever out
in public and you hear the song sleep Walk by
Santo and Johnny, do you immediately have like flashbacks to
filming that movie?
Speaker 5 (44:46):
Always? Man, always, and what I always go to because
it's what that's what it's playing over in the film.
Is that that hillside. Yeah, it made me I run
up that like twelve times. Man. By the time I
was over, I thought I was going to drop dead.
I mean, my my legs were on fire. I don't
know what he was looking for when we ran up
the hill so many times.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Man, after that movie came out where people just yelling
ritchy at you all the time in public, they still
really they still did. Did you get to keep anything
cool from the movie.
Speaker 5 (45:16):
I still have the green guitar, but it's it's in
California right now in my house there. I'm in New
York City where I'm filming Prodigal Son, and when the
pandemic hit, you know, the rock got kind of pulled
out from under it. So I was not not able
to go home, and so we my family, Yvonne and
my thirteen year oldaughter. I've been looking here in New
York City for you know, for a year and a half.
I mean, you know that it is what it is.
(45:39):
But yeah, I kept the green guitar.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
And what was that technique you learned? Because you didn't
learn to play guitar for the movie, you just kind
of learned, like the fingering style. Is that what it was?
Speaker 4 (45:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (45:48):
I know I learned. I still don't play the guitar.
I had to learn all of the singering just for
you know, just for the for the film, and it
was stuping me. I didn't I didn't pick it up.
I should have picked it up that, but I didn't
move on to other things.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
So the following year, in a nineteen eighty eight standing
Deliver comes out, and that movie has just such a
large cast. I wonder, like, when you're filming that, how
hard is it to kind of wrangle everybody in to
do a scene that typical?
Speaker 5 (46:12):
Man? I mean, you know, it's like we've got a
pretty massive ensemble cash for Prodigal Sun as well and
for the movie adverts that I just did. It was
literally just one day of shooting all my scenes with
Thomas E and Nichols, So that becomes easy. I mean,
that's it's not like, you know, putting together an amateur show.
In the uncle's barn. There's an entire army of people
(46:35):
who are doing scheduling and doing wrangling of the actors
and whatnot. So it seems that he's as a professional.
You're there when you're supposed to be there, and you know,
you do what's required to do that day.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
I wonder when you're doing that movie. The line that
always sticks out to me is your line when you're like,
I strangled him in his body is decomposing in my locker. Like,
how hard is that to say with the straight face
with everybody there?
Speaker 5 (46:59):
No you look forward to, man, I mean, but that's
once again, that's just part of the acting. I mean,
it's you know, there there were lines in Longmire, and
there were lines continue to be in lines in Prodigal Son,
especially when I'm working with Kecko againa uh where you know,
you get tickled, you just get you know, and thank goodness,
there's always take too if you if you crack up,
(47:20):
you know. But yeah, that particular line I knew was
going to go down in history.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Was that a genuine reaction in the movie, Like the
laughter seems just so genuine after that.
Speaker 5 (47:31):
Yeah, it was. It was, you know, I mean, the
entire and you know, the entire cast, you know, got
into it. So you know, especially Cloth say it was
a wonderful, wonderful guy. So yeah, I mean, I think
quite often the the warmth and the chemistry and the
happiness that you see on screen is the real deal.
You know, it's hard to hard to manufacture that.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
Well, I really appreciate the time everybody. Go check out
the new movie Adverse, check out lou and Prodigal Son.
And it's been really great getting to talk to you.
I just wanted to really like, you know, like how
much your work has kind of affected my life, and
you know, just being able to see somebody like looks
different and.
Speaker 5 (48:06):
Kind of represent the story for me and wave the
fly bro. You know we got to represent right. Yeah,
I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
And uh, I'll send you a nice water Burger care
package where you are right now. I mean, I what's
your favorite thing to get from there? Do you get sick?
Did you get sick of that food while you're working there?
Speaker 5 (48:22):
No, not at all. I mean, man, you know you
because of the an employee you got. You know, you
got the employee uh employee meals and you know they
kind of had a little coupons that you would turn in.
But h yeah, man, I think I eat Waterburger every day.
It was It was fantastic. And not only that, I
got to make myself so you know, I mean it
just like I wanted it.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Well, appreciate the time. I'll talk to you later.
Speaker 5 (48:43):
Thanks, Mike, have a good one.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
And that's gonna do it for us this week. Thanks
again for being subscribed and listening every single week. I
will be back next week with a brand new episode.
Kelsey and I will be sharing our top movies of
the summer and our worst movies of the summer. There
were a few that's snuck in there, and then we'll
follow that up on another episode and I will do
my ten core movie memory moments of all time. Hope
(49:08):
you have a great rest of your week and until
next time, go out and watch good movies and I
will talk to you later
Hello, and welcome back to Movie Mike's Movie Podcast. I
am your host Movie Mike. I'm gonna be honest with you.
I was going to sit down and record an episode today.
I had my top ten core movie memories. I was
going to review the new Grand Charisma movie, talk about
the Good Burger two trailer. I sat down, I did
all my prep, I was going to hit record. I
just didn't really have it in me. It's been quite
the week, the last week at work, with all the
(00:22):
projects I do and all the things I have to produce.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
It was a lot.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
And I sat down and did not have the mental
capacity to put on the movie Mike persona and do
an episode. And I tried to push through it, and
I just couldn't really get it out. And I didn't
want to give you an episode with my half heart
in it. So I decided to do a best of
which I rarely rarely do. I always want to give
you new content. Even if you look at the weeks
we take vacation on the show, I still try to
(00:48):
put up new episodes because that is how much I
care about you being subscribed to this podcast and listening
every single week. And I have just a lot of
topics that I want to do that I just do
a new episode every single week, and I had it
ready to go and I just couldn't get through it.
And in that moment, I knew that I wasn't going
to be able to and it took a lot of
(01:10):
willpower to not sit here and do one and try
to crank it out anyway. And then Kelsey told me, Yay,
you should probably just take a break. You're about to
be burnt out. So I told myself, all right, I'm
not going to do one, but I wanted to be
as transparent as possible. If you're wondering why there's not
a new episode, that is why we're about to be
on break from the show, the Big show that is
(01:31):
a Bobby Bone show. And I think I'm just gonna
take this as a little bit of a break, but
I'm taking it as an opportunity to share some interviews
with you that are my favorite I've ever done on
the podcast. One is with the creator and voice of
Leelo and Stitch, which is my favorite Disney movie of
all time. And I rarely feel like I nail an interview,
like I always go in with so many questions and
(01:52):
sometimes I don't get to them, but this is the
one interview I felt that I asked every single question
I had on my mind, and I felt like Chris
Sanders and I really connected. And now seeing that they're
making a live action Leelow and Stitch movie is even
more reason to share this interview with you. And then
I also did an interview with Lou Diamond Phillips back
in twenty twenty one, so only like a year and
(02:14):
a half into this podcast, I got to interview one
of my favorite actors who is in one of my
favorite movies, La Bamba, and we'll talk all about that.
So no new episode for you this week, but two
really great interviews that if you're a new listener maybe
you missed, or if you've been around since day one,
I greatly appreciate you and hopefully you listen back to
these and still enjoy them as well. I will be
(02:35):
back next week with a brand new episode, going to
be talking about our favorite movies of the summer, and
I'll still do that Core Memories movie episode probably after that. Again,
thank you for being subscribed, Thank you for listening every
single week. Movie Crew, you guys mean everything to me.
I hope you enjoy these interviews and now let's talk movies.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
In a world where everyone and their mother has a podcast,
one man and stands to infiltrate the ears of listeners
like never before in a movie podcast. A man with
so much movie knowledge, he's basically like a walking IMTV
with glasses. From the Nashville Podcast Networks, this is Movie
(03:16):
Mike's movie podcast.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
You may not know his name, but you definitely know
his work. My guest this week is Chris Sanders, who
is the creator of Disney's Lelo and Stitch. He is
also the voice of Stitch, and long before he wrote
and directed this movie in two thousand and two, he
also worked as a story artist on Disney movies like
(03:39):
The Rescuers, down Under, Beauty and the Beast, The Aladdin,
The Lion King and really got his start when he
was the head of the story on Moulan. Working on
that movie led to him pitching his idea that he's
had since the eighties of Lelo and Stitch. Lelo and
Stitch was his first hit as a writer and director,
and even after Leelo and Stitch, he went on to
(03:59):
write and direct animated movies like How To Train Your
Dragon and the Crudes. So he's a super talented guy.
If you're a fan of Lilo and Stitch or just
a fan of Disney, I think you're gonna love his story.
Flet's talk movies with Chris Sanders. I am on now
with somebody I'm so excited to talk to. I'm on
with Chris Sanders. How are you today?
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Good? How are you?
Speaker 1 (04:20):
I'm doing really good now. A couple of things led
me hear to having you on the podcast. Lelo and
Stitch has been my favorite Disney movie since I was
a kid, and earlier this year, I was scrolling through
TikTok and I see you there and I recognized you,
and I didn't realize the backstory of Lelo and Stitch
and how it came to be, so I knew once
it hit that twentieth anniversary, I had to reach out
(04:41):
to you to get you on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Cool. Yeah, it's been really nice to do those tiktoks.
And that was just a response to I don't remember
what it was exactly, but I ran across somebody who
really didn't know anything about where the movie came from,
and that was that wake up call to me realizing
how much time had gone by, and quite a few
people didn't know the backstory to it. So it's been
(05:03):
really fun to begin that series trys to get some
of the material, which a lot of this stuff just
with animators and animation, a lot of this stuff ends
up in people's garages. You know, there's a lot of
stuff in the archives. But I still have the original
drawings and the original manuscripts that I used to pitch
the project. So that's amongst the stuff that I was
digging up and beginning to put up on TikTok so
(05:25):
that people could take a look at it.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
And that's so cool to see. And I want to
get to the movie, but I kind of want to
start back at the beginning. When you were growing up
in Colorado, what made you fall in love with animation?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I loved straw. My dad, I thought was a great artist.
He did paintings and he would draw like these buck
Rodgers style spaceships, and I remember one day he said,
there's a limit to what you can build, but you
can draw anything. And that really stuck with me, and
so I really I always have a love to a
love of drawing. It didn't ocur to me that I
(05:57):
could turn that into a career and tell you know.
Many years later, I was nearing the end of high school,
trying to figure out what to do with the rest
of my life, and my grandmother was reading an article
in the Denver Post, which was our local newspaper, and
she was reading this art article all about how Disney
Studios was running low on animators. They were retiring, and
they were looking for a way to replenish their ranks.
(06:19):
They created an animation program at this school in California
called Cal Arts, and I thought, oh, my gosh, that's
where I want to go. So I'd always liked animation,
I'd enjoyed it, but I'd never thought of it as
a possible career path until she told me about that school.
And that's the only place I applied.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
How did you know you were? It went from just
you just drawing to like, oh, I'm actually pretty good
at this, Like this is something I could actually pursue
and go to that school.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
You don't know, I was really crossing my fingers that
my drawings were good enough. I think a lot of
kids at Cal Arts were like some of the local
best artists from where they came from. So I was
not unusual in that, Like, I did cartoons for my
school newspaper, so when they needed cartoons, people would come
to me at our Vada High school and you know,
(07:07):
when they needed a mascot drawn or a T shirt
drawn or something like that. Likewise, a lot of the
kids I ended up with in my classic Kyle Art's
same kind of thing. And that was really sobering because,
like I went from being I thought a person who
could draw pretty well to being sobered when I'm sitting
next to somebody named Kelly Asbury. Kelly Asbery. He became
a good friend of mine, and he just drew so
much better than I did. I thought. He just drew
(07:30):
amazingly well. And he drew with a pen because he
had this confidence, and I always drew with a pencil
because I was never really sure. I was like, I
want to erase this and move things around. And he
took out this ink pen and he would just draw
what he wanted and I'm like, oh my gosh, he's
so much better than I am. Right, And you know,
it's still that way. I think one of the things
that's really cool about the animation industry is that if
you ever are looking for inspiration, just walk down the hall.
(07:53):
There's somebody down that hall that's going to be way
better at stuff than you are. And so inspiration to balance.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
I mean in turn that it makes you become better.
You see other people just crushing it, and you're like,
I want to get to that level. I want to
be that good too. I want to creak out my
best idea so I can get the better jobs and
get the things I want to achieve.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Right, absolutely, absolutely, because nobody, I mean there's no nobody
draws the best. Everybody draws, you know, their own things
and their own ways and stuff like that, and it's great.
It's that great coming together of all those different artistic
styles where you can get these wonderful films and you
get these wonderful projects and stuff like that. If I
went back in time and changed out one single artist
on one of these films, the film would be a
(08:31):
little bit different. So they are. They're literally a conglomeration
of the talents that were gathered for that particular project.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
So you go out to this school and how long
is it until you get your first paid job to
where okay, this is turning into my career.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
A lot of people would leave school at that time early.
A lot of people graduated on their third year. I didn't.
I stuck with it for four years. I was very
aware that this was my last chance to go to
school before I would go and start work for the
rest of my life, so I hung in there for
the four years. At the time that I graduated, Oddly enough,
Disney Studios was no longer hiring, so the place I
(09:08):
was really hoping to go was not an option at
that point. So I did find a job at Marvel Productions.
Now it wasn't the comic book part of Marvel. It
was the animation side of it, and they did Saturday
Morning cartoons. I got a job on the Muppet Babies. Now,
the funny thing about that is that one of the
things they would always tell us in cal Arts is draw, draw, draw,
(09:28):
draw every day. Draw things that you see around you.
It'll make you a better artist.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
Well.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
I didn't want to draw the things I saw around me.
I didn't want to draw shairs, I didn't want to
draw tables. I didn't want to draw people's shoes, you know.
I wanted to draw the stuff that I wanted to draw.
The funny thing is at Marvel Productions. On the Muppet
Baby Show, I was in the model department, which meant
anything that was going to be in the cartoon had
to be drawn first as a turn so that they
could color it and model it and send it overseas
(09:54):
so that everything would be on model. So the funny
thing is my first job was really drawing things that
I had avoided drawing in the past. I drew chairs
and tables and shoes and dresses and everyday objects, a
lot of them, right, And it was amazing training.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
So you're working at Marvel and I saw that you
said that you had the first drawing of Stitch in
nineteen eighty one. What about that story? What about that
sketch made you come back to it years later when
you finally get this opportunity to create this story for Disney.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
I had worked a little bit on it in private.
I wanted to do a children's book. And what I
realized after working on it for a while in private,
you know, on my own time, was that the story
was too big to fit into a normally formatted children's book.
I didn't think I could boil this thing down to say,
seventeen pages or thirty two pages, it just seemed too big.
So the idea was bigger than my book. So years later,
(10:49):
I was in the waning days of the production of Mulan.
We made that film at the Florida Studio. So I
was out in Florida, and the president of Feature Animation
at that time, Tom Schumacher or was out visiting, and
he and I and everybody had gone through a lot
making this film. It had been quite the adventure. I
think that my performance on that film had earned me,
(11:13):
had earned me a certain amount of I guess latitude
to maybe do my own movie. And Tom was out
visiting Florida and he said, is there anything that you
would want to do next? And pretty much right there
at dinner, I said, no, no, not a well wait
a minute, okay, you know, there is this one thing.
There was this story, right, and so I was able
(11:33):
to think about it for a little bit. And the
next time he visited, he said, well, and I was
trying to work up a pitch for it, you know,
and he said, well, go ahead, just tell me about it.
And I said, well, I'm not really ready, and he goes, no,
just come on, just do it, you know, And I thought, oh,
here it goes my idea. I mean like it's gonna
be all over the next like the next three minutes.
And I pitched it, just verbally threw it out there,
(11:54):
and I really got my very first and biggest note
of all, which was the story that I had can
call was all about this strange little creature who was
living in a forest and he didn't he had come from.
He was a mystery to everything around him, but he
was also a bit of a mystery to himself, and
the story was all about how he was figuring out
who he was. And he was frightening looking a bit
of a monster, right, And Tom said, I like this story,
(12:18):
but I would have a suggestion. The animal world is
in a sense already alien to us, so placing this
alien being in the animal world doesn't get you the
kind of contrast that you might want. I would suggest
you place this monster in the human world. Boom, there
it was. I thought that was a great idea. So
that was the first biggest note that Leloan and Stitch
ever got. Now this is before it was lelo and Stitch,
(12:40):
before they were in Hawaii. That was when I left
and started working on the idea. Once I returned to California,
and that's where I got this motel room out in
Pulm Springs at this resort, and I locked myself in
this room for three days and all I did was
draw and write because I wanted to create a bit
of a document because it's going to be about an alien.
(13:01):
And I thought, you know what, those are the days
where people were making a lot of monstery kind of
alien movies. And I thought, if you say the word
alien in a development meeting or a pitch, a lot
of people are going to get this instant idea of
what an alien is. And I thought, Okay, if I
don't draw this, they're going to get maybe the wrong idea.
So if I had draw this whole thing out and
they say no to it, at least they're saying no
(13:22):
to the idea that was my idea, so it's a
legitimate no. So after those three days, what occurred to
me was that, in a sense, I had finally created
that children's book that I had tried to create so
many years before and had abandoned.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
That's really interesting to me because I was rewatching it
and I realized how hard it must have been to
pitch an idea about this alien creature doesn't really say
a whole lot of words. So to hear you say
that you took that idea, placed it into Hawaii and
suddenly it made sense.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
You know, this is where you've really got to understand
how important the producer and the head of a student
are to your future. They can make her break an idea,
and in this case, Tom Schumacher, he wanted to make
this film and he that was the next big thing,
was that it's the thing I'm going to put on
TikTok really soon, and I'm working on that one right now.
(14:15):
He told me after the development department looked at it
that they all universally liked the idea, and he said.
I walked into off into his office and he said,
I will make this film on one condition that it
looked like you drew it. And that was very exciting
and flattering. But at that point I didn't even know
what to do because I thought, well, what do I
even draw like? I just draw like everybody else. A
(14:37):
girl who was working at the studio, Sue Nichols, who
was an amazing artist. She also came from cal Arts.
She did a two week analysis of my art style
and she created two documents called Surfing the Sanders Style,
and it explained how I drew Well. Nobody was more
interested to read these than I was, and I was
absolutely fascinated. It turns out there were things that were
(15:00):
governing my style that existed that I didn't really even
realize as I was doing. But she saw them and
she had like dissected the whole thing. So that began.
And that's one of the reasons that Leland and Stitch
is a highly unusual film. It is more unusual than
people really, I think may may realize, because it is
not only a very Miyazaki style story that is extremely
(15:23):
hard to mail down, you know, it's a smaller story,
and it's really kind of strange, based very very much
on quirky, unusual characters. Really, you know, these personalities are
are the whole movie. But also that it's in an
individual artist's style, and that's I don't think that's anything
that has happened really before or since, at least with
an artist inside the studio they've based films on, say
(15:46):
like Isaac Isaac Ivan Dural Sleeping Beauty is based very
much on Ivan durl for example, but he was an
outside creator, so it's one of the reasons that that's
such an unusual film.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
So when do you sit down to create what is
going to be Lelo and Stitch. You have to create Lilo.
When does it get that title, When does it get
that final art?
Speaker 2 (16:06):
It was Lelo and Stitch by the time it was
in that first pitch book. So when I went away
to Palm Springs, by that point I had made the
decision to place the film in Hawaii. I had named
the characters Leelo and Stitch, and I had no connections
to Hawaii at that point. So I pulled Lelo's name
off of a roadmap that I had from Hawaii. There's
a Lilo Lane and I saw that. So this is
(16:29):
one of the strange things. I didn't know what that
word meant. It sounded like a name. It turns out
it's not a name, but it's the word for lost.
So in a really strange way, I found the right
word to make that her name. The same with Nannie,
I just again I looked around for names on a roadmap.
(16:49):
Later on in the making of the film, we did
engage as many people as we could from Hawaii because
we're talking about it, we're trotting into a culture that
we are part of. And if you're going to do that,
you really have to connect with people that know what
the deal is, that know what they're doing for the music,
for the culture, for the dialogue, for your voices as
(17:10):
much as you can, and so we did. We met
a huge number of people who became our guides to
making the film.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Be respectful going into the start of making this movie,
at what point did you become the voice of Stitch?
Were you always going to be Stitch or was that
a voice that just existed in your head? Where did
that come from?
Speaker 2 (17:29):
It's sort of both. It was a voice I had
used up to that point to call people on the
telephone with and annoy them, and it was actually Dean,
my co director. So along the lines of your last question,
one of the first things you do is you find
a co director that you trust, and I had learned
to trust Dean and department and to partner with Dean
during the making of Mulan and Dean was extremely smart
(17:51):
and amazing a natural when it came to storytelling. He
was a natural storyteller and great writer, a wonderful story artist,
and he has very good strucktural knowledge and structural instincts,
so so I partnered with him immediately. As soon as
we decided to do the project, I saw out and
we agreed to co direct on the film. Dean suggested
(18:14):
that I be the voice of Stitch. One of the
main reasons was that we wanted. Originally we didn't want
Stitch to even speak. We were like, oh, it's going
to be like dumb, but we'll do the whole film
and he will just be a character that works in pantomime.
Later on, it became obvious that he was going to
have to speak, and in fact, he would have some
key lines during the film. Well, at that point we thought, okay,
(18:35):
we're going to we're going to have to get a voice,
but you don't want to necessarily hire somebody like Robert
Redford or Danny DeVito and then worry about like, well,
how's the studio going to react when they realized this
character only says like fifteen things and will they then
start to push for like, well, if you know, if
we're going to hire Robert Redford, we want it. You know,
we want Robert Redford. We want like a lot of lines.
And we were afraid that that might begin to really
(18:56):
be the tail that wagged the dog as far as
the making of the film. So Dean suggested, He's like,
you know what, why didn't you just do the voice?
You use that voice when you pitch your boards, So
why you just do it? And then we'll avoid any
problem because you know you're not a real actor, no
one's going to ask for more of you. Right. So
we did do that, and there came a moment, there
(19:17):
was only one moment that I felt a little stressed
about it, and that was when we realized that near
the very end of the film, Stitch would have this
one very important line where he talks about this family
that he found and it was little and it was broken,
but it was still good and that verged on real acting,
and so I thought, I don't know if I can
do this. On that day, I came to Dean and
(19:38):
I said, today, I'm an actor, and you're going to
be the director, the only director, and I'm going to
go in that booth and you tell me what to
do and I'll do it. And if I can't pull
this off, then we'll find somebody else to do the voice.
And so we did, Like Dean directed me. I did
everything he asked, and before long he said, okay, but
I think we got it, And I said, are you sure?
He said, yeah, I think we got and it worked.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Okay, you brought up my favorite scene in the entire movie.
I think it's because of that. It's that moment in
the movie where everything kind of hits me emotionally, and
I remember watching it as a kid and having that
same kind of feeling of Stitch, of being that person
who was filled with rage in a place that he
didn't understand, didn't understand himself, but all of a sudden
he had this family. Now, I think that's the most
(20:21):
perfect scene in any Disney movie I've seen. So it's
cool how that came together. And now you had to
go dig out your acting abilities in that.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
I did my best. I really tried hard that day.
I still remember that day.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
This is my family. I found it all on my own.
That's little and broken, but still good. Yeah, still great.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
So when people find out you're the voice of Stitch,
do they immediately ask you to do it?
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I do get asked to do it a lot. I
had some surgery out of my neck at one point
period of time, about a year I couldn't do it,
but then I got back to doing it, and I
still do it. I get called up about at least
once a month to come in and do I do
voices for toys and for like parades, things for cruise ships,
all Disney stuff. It's fun.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
I told myself if I ever had you on the podcast,
I would show you my voice. And it's actually that
scene that I do. So I would like to let
you hear this and then judge my abilities afterwards and
let me know how I can make it better.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
All right, okay, all right, So it's that scene.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
This's my family. I found it all on my own.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
It's little.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
I'm broken, but still good.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah, still good. How's that? That's really good? That's very nice.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
How do you get the laugh though, because I've been
trying this impression for a while, but that laugh is
and like it's hard to do.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
The big laugh is painful. That is when if you're
doing a recording session, you save that for the very end, like, Okay,
we'll save all the screaming and the laughs for the end,
and then we'll do We'll do. Then you can just
take it to the wall and if you blow your
voice out, You're fine.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
The fact that it being the twentieth anniversary of the movie.
When you go back, what moment sticks out to you
as being the most fun part of the entire process.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
I mean, the part of the process that I've always
loved is music. Dean and I and Leo, It's just
was a big part of this have really I've always
loved music, and I listened to music. I have never
written a scene in a movie without listening to music
while I worked on that scene. I have also boarded
pieces of movies to music, and there are still there
(22:31):
are still pieces of music that if you play them
while you watch a piece of a Disney movie, it
lines up pretty much exactly like if you go to
the soundtrack for a movie called The Mission, there's a
there's a track from that. I believe it. I believe
the track is The Mission. And if you listen to
that while you watch the scene where Moufast's ghost speaks
to Simba, it works really really well because that's the
(22:55):
that's the music I listened to when I boarded the scene,
and I pitched that scene to the directors with that music.
There are scenes Beauty and the Beast I can show
you the music that those were done too, so anyway,
so same with Lelon Stitch. I would listen to music
because I write these scenes. And nothing was more exciting
to us than we would when we would partner with
somebody like Alan Silvestri who is going to be writing
(23:15):
the score. And one of the things that Leland Stitch
was made for a lower budget than movies were being
made for at the time. We felt we could buy
our story freedom by lowering the budget, which is exactly
what happened. But one of the things that both you
and I told the producers and asked the studio carve
off enough money to buy the best score money can buy,
(23:36):
and we will make the film for whatever is left over.
And that's exactly what they did. So we got Alan
Silvestri and there was this really important day where we
were looking at the boards and Alan Silvester was looking
at the whole film on board and looking at the outline,
and he said, I really liked this movie, and he
had a few suggestions, but he said, there's one thing
I didn't see. I didn't see the moment where Stitch
(23:58):
turns from bad to good, because which is a villain
that becomes a hero and that was what the base,
That was really the basis of the whole story. He's
the first and I think at this point still the
only Disney villain who then becomes the hero of the story.
And Allan was like, well, where does that happen? And
both Dean and I at that point were like, oh, well, yeah,
we tried to write it. We couldn't really figure it out,
(24:19):
and it sort of happens here kind of between these
two shots, and suddenly both Dean and I think were
confronted with the reality that we hadn't really been able
to put it up there on the boards. And I'll
never forget what Alan said. We basically told Alan we
didn't know how to do it, and he said, put
it on screen and I'll do it. And I guess
we were saying we couldn't, we didn't know how to
say it, and he said, put it on screen and
(24:40):
I'll say it, and he said it with music. And
so there's a moment where Nannie realizes that they can't
retrieve le Lo, and she's crying and Stitch's watching her,
and if you listen, there's a subtle change in the
music and Stitch walks up to her and he speaks
to her, and that's the moment of change. And what
we realized at that point was that music does the
(25:03):
heaviest lifting of all when it comes to story, and
music is unassailable. No one's going to laugh at music.
You can, you can throw an awkward line in or
an awkward shot and it gets an inadvertent laugh and
you've kind of blown it. But nobody laughs at music.
And so Alan just like taught us such an incredibly
important lesson that day, and we really took that to heart.
(25:24):
So later on, when Diana and I were working on
How to Train Your Dragon, one of the first things
we do now is we carve out a house for
music in different places in the film. So in How
to Train Your Dragon, in that scene where Hiccup is
going to bond and and and he's going to cross
this divide and form a connection to this dragon, no dialogue,
(25:46):
it's all music, and we just know the characters shut up.
All the characters shut up, and music takes over. And
that's just something that Diana and I really believe in now.
And we learned that on Leland Stitch.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Is the love for Elvis music always a part of
the story. Or did that come along when you were
trying to find the music.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
I was a big Elvis fan, so I simply gave that.
I imprinted that only low. And it was really cool
because we actually had to engage with the Elvis estate.
We had done three things that you were not allowed
to do without permission. We had shown an image of Elvis,
we had used his lyrics, and we had also used
his music, and you can't do any of those things
(26:27):
without permission. So so there came a day when we
had we had to approach the Elvis of State and
they sent what we call the Memphis Mafia down to
look at the movie. And all these people from the
Elvis of State traveled to California and they came into
the theater one day, and I'll never forget most of
them were wearing dark glasses. They were wearing sunglasses even
(26:49):
in the movie theater. As they watched the movie. It
was exactly as you think it would be. And they
watched the movie and they came out and they said,
we're stoked, we love this movie. We're going to approve
all the stuff you want want to do. And one
of the cool things we actually got a party at
the Elvis estate after the movie was done, and Dean
and I received a key to the city of the
City of Memphis, and we got a private tour of
(27:11):
the Elvis of the state and we even got a
trip to one of their archive buildings where they have
all of Elvis's actual stuff. There are four archive buildings.
They are in tornado proof structures. One of them is
on the property and that's the one that we were
able to go into. And we were there, you know,
all these amongst all these shelves that had all these
(27:33):
archival boxes, and we were like, so, what's in all
of these? And they're like, well, a lot of stuff,
And we said what do we look at and they said, well,
I don't know, just pick a box, and so Dean
Dean picked a box and they opened it up and
they said, oh, these are all the things that were
on Elvis's countertop in his bathroom when he died. And
we simply packed them all up. And they had a
(27:53):
bottle of his high karate aftershavee that he had used,
and they opened it up and led us mellet and
so we saw we saw some of his jumpsuits, we
saw a pair of boxing gloves that Muhammad Ali had
given him. It was amazing. Anyway, They were amazing. They
were so kind and so generous, and it was just
such a great thing that we partnered with them anyway,
(28:15):
one of those great lucky things.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
One of my other favorite parts of the movie is
how Leelo is like a five six year old girl
but sometimes has like these really dark, almost much older
thoughts than her. How is that writing in things of
like leave me alone here to die? Like, how do
you kind of approach that to make it kind of
alievable that it's a kid saying this?
Speaker 2 (28:35):
You know? That was Dean's line in Dean's scene. Dean
also did the he invented the whole my friends need
to be punished and she's ticking those spoons in the
in the pickle jar. That was just Dean in my sensibility.
But one of the things we had we did was
we our voice actor was a girl named Devey Chase,
and we we we auditioned a lot of young actors
(28:59):
to try to find the voice. It was one of
those you'll know it when you know it, And when
Dveke came in, she had this really very interesting way
of delivering her lines. She had a little bit of
this sort of deadpan kind of delivery, and we were like,
that's Lelo, that's her, And so it's one of those
things that, like, you write it and then you meet
the voice, and hearing the voice helps you write it.
(29:19):
So it's this kind of a snowball effect. But I
must credit Deem for that really great scene that was
entirely his. He wrote it and he even storyboarded it.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
So we've seen sequel Lelo and Stitch, You've seen the
TV series, but now with Disney Plus, will there ever
be any other installment of Lelo and Stitch.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
I think there will be.
Speaker 5 (29:37):
I think.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
I mean, he's a very very popular character. One of
the things that has been very amazing is that I
always hoped to pitch and create a movie that had
a character that really endured. And one of the things
that I absolutely am delighted with is whenever I go
to Disney properties. I can go to Disney World or
I can go to Disneyland, and you'll walk into stores
(29:59):
and there are not just Stitch products. Sometimes there are
entire sections of the store that are literally devoted just
to him. And that is just mind blowing and I
am so so proud of that. And it's so weird too,
because I'm like, I drew him one day in Palm Springs.
I have the first drawing of him, and now he's
been reproduced millions of times and he'll a a lot
(30:22):
of times. There'll be like a product it'll have mihat
Donald and Stitch and it's like, oh my God, like
he's really like he's there right. So yeah, I've been
writing little things because I thought, you know, he's part
of the Disney universe now. And just a really quick
side note, the whole ad campaign that we introduced the
movie with was an ad campaign that Dean and I
(30:43):
thought up.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
With him placing in other like movie posters.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yes, because as the movie was coming close to release
and we were thinking about how we were going to
market it, we were sitting around one day talking about
this whole thing and I said, out loud, isn't it weird?
This little character that we started all by ourselves is
going is about to invade the Disney universe and from
now on, when they do a lineup of Disney characters,
Stitch will always have to be in there with them.
And the idea, like the idea of like, oh, him
(31:07):
invading the Disney universe. We all, well, wouldn't it be
funny if we did the whole opening the Lion King
when they helped the whole cub up. It wasn't the
cub but it was Stitch and everybody just ran away,
and the whole idea just made us laugh. So we
boarded that out and we went to this meeting with
Dick Cook, who was on the main lot and he
was in charge of these things and he was an
(31:28):
executive there, and we pitched it and it got a
big laugh. Dick Cook said, I like this, and then
they said, can we do more? And so we started
kicking around the ideas of having him show up in
the Little Mermaid in Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast,
and which means we had to go back and re
record those actors with new lines. And that was really
(31:49):
funny because none of them were super stoked about it
like they I think it was the idea of it
wasn't like we didn't want to do it. They were
very professional and they were very very generous, and he
did a great job. I think it was more the
idea of, like, what's this thing doing in my movie?
And the funniest one was when we recorded Bell. She
(32:09):
was on speakerphone and she was in New York, so
we were recording her remotely. And the funny thing was,
because she was just on speakerphone, it was impossible not
to imagine that the actual Bell was at the other
end of the line talking to you because you couldn't
see her. So in my mind, it's Bell, it's the
cartoon character. And I remember we said, okay, this this
is the idea. She's going to show up and he's
(32:31):
going to ruin your special dance with Beast, and then
you're going to say I'll be in my room and
you're and you're upset, and then there was a there
was a beat, and she said, so I'm mad at him.
They said, well, you're disappointed, right, and she'd go okay,
and so she would do the line and she say
I'll be in my room and she had this really
(32:51):
sort of upbeat delivery, and we said, well, I think
you're more disappointed than that, right. So we eventually got
to the place where she felt very, very upset, but
it was just so sweet and so cute because she
was like, wait a minute, it was just it was
so it was great and they were what again, it
was so cool because I got to meet those actors.
I never thought i'd meet them, but that was so cool.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
I mean, you created an iconic character, got to work
with people who are also iconic characters. It's amazing to
see that all come together. And I can't wait to
see what comes next, and hopefully I'll get to talk
to you again once that comes around. I really appreciate
the time absolutely.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
If you ever wanted to do a follow up, I'm
so sorry we were late on this because time zones
mixed up, but yeah, let's do that. That would be fantastic.
I really enjoyed chatting with you so much.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Oh thanks, Churris.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Have a good day, you two. I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Blue Diamond Phillips is in a brand new movie called
Adverse and really just an actor that I looked up
to for a very long time for his roles in
LaBamba Stand and Deliver Young Guns because really, for one
of the first times ever as a kid, I looked
up at the screen and saw somebody who looked like me.
So we'll get into that. And if you don't know
about Lou Diamond Phillips, well where have we been all
these years. So before we get into the interview, here's
(34:06):
just a little highlight reel that I put together.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
I got the test ahead of time. I passed thro
out to everyone else. How did you get the test? No, man,
I strangled in his buddies, decomposing in my locker. I
don't see what's wrong with some of those takes. Man,
that's the way I sing. It's got to be clean, Richie.
Each take has to be identical, why so that we
can edit later. Look, look, this is in Mexico? Who
said it was?
Speaker 1 (34:28):
I lived there.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
I understand the tradition of the song. They're always changing
the lyrics. Look, man, I've never even been to Mexico.
My music is my music. Huh tell him?
Speaker 1 (34:36):
There's a bit of a rattlesnake long now with lou
Diamond Phillips. I gotta say, it's a pleasure to be
talking to you. I feel like you're an actor. I've
been looking up for a long time now.
Speaker 5 (34:56):
A lot of violence.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
So you grew up in Corpus Christie, Texas?
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Right?
Speaker 5 (35:00):
Yes? I did? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (35:01):
And did you actually work at Waterburger?
Speaker 5 (35:03):
That was one of my first jobs. My very first
job was as a cook's assistant on the Navy base.
My dad was in the Navy, and I got me
a job when I was like sixteen there. But yeah,
shortly thereafter I worked at Waterburger for quite a while.
I was like the crew chief and employee of the
month and all that. I mean, I slipped some burgers.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Man, I love Waterburger. I grew up in Texas too,
and I was wondering, like, if while you're working there,
is it a thing that you tell your coworkers that
you wanted to be an actor? Was that like not
in your plans at that time?
Speaker 5 (35:35):
Oh? No, no, no, no, no, no, it was. It
was fairly well known throughout high school that you know,
I wanted to become an actor. I mean I was
doing a high school theater. You know, in Texas we
had the UIL, the university interscholastically, and so I was
part of the drama club and I was, you know,
competing a lot and unfortunately winning awards and so a
(35:57):
lot of positive reinforcement. I think everybody knew by my
aspirations were at that time.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
So you've been in movies since the eighties. I just wonder,
at this point does acting kind of come second nature
to you, or does it still like a like a
muscle that you have to flex.
Speaker 5 (36:12):
I mean, if you're anowledging yourself, it's always a muscle
you have to pless. You always have to work out.
I mean, you know, uh, if you start phoning it in, man,
it shows you know, people can see if you're uninspired.
And I try not to do roles that don't matter
to me, you know what I mean. I have to
be excited about something anytime I'm going to do it.
The work is too hard otherwise, you know. Uh. And
(36:35):
and even when I'm you know, doing something that would
be as seemingly as uh, you know, familiar, as as
the role I'm playing on Prodigal Sun, there's you know,
there's there's new stuff to it all the time. I mean,
uh uh, the layers of you know, relationships and history
and bag and I mean it's it's it's always a blessing.
It's always fun. And the uh, you know, the the
(36:55):
other actors that you work with many they really inspire
you to bring your best game all the time, you know.
And I also try to snk it up. I mean,
like this movie Adverse that I have out that is
a little independent film you know that Thomas and Nichols
put together. I said yes because, well, first of all,
Thomas is a friend, and so is Sean. Aston was
already a part of the cast, you know, but then
(37:18):
Mickey or joined the tell A Van Miller and so
let's do something a little different. Let's you know, let's
get edgy, let's not get too comfortable with it. And
you know, it's always it's always fun to join a
an ensemble like that where you know it's not about
the money, it's not about the luxury, but it's about
you know, independent film and an up and coming director
like Brian Metcalf and and you know, you keep it
fresh for yourself.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yeah, And I want to talk about that movie. You
played doctor Cruz in it, and you mentioned how it
had to be something that you wanted to kind of
still test yourself with. So when you get that script
for that movie, what's your like creative process to kind
of find your character in that? Like, do you have
a creative process to know like who you're gonna be
going into sept from when you get the script to
when you show up Actually the.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
Film, Well, it's because it kind of came about because
I was doing a lot of conventions, you know, before
the pandemic hit, and I was running into Thomas a
lot and you know, I had you known him, uh
you know uh in and around Hollywood for a while
and he said, Hey, I'm doing this independent film. You know,
you want to see the scriptures? And yeah, sure, you know,
(38:18):
And like I said, Sean was already in Buddy and
he was already attached. And you know, you look at
the role and you go, can is there something that
I can break to this? Is there something that you
know I can illuminate you know if you will, you know,
as part of the character. And at this point in
my life and career, there's a couple of reasons why
I do something, you know, and I'm excited about the role,
(38:40):
I'm excited about who I'm working with. And this this
was both you know, uh, the end of a certain age,
you know, playing a role of it is you know,
uh supportive or is authoritative you know that that tries
to keep somebody on the on the straight and narrow,
you know, and I felt like, you know, being a
(39:00):
father you know as well this there was a lot
about this role that I could tap into, you know,
just just what comes to me, you know naturally. Uh,
kind of the same thing with the Gila Royal on
Prodigal Son. You know, he's the boss, but he's very
you know, fatherly toward not only his team, but you
know Malcolm Bright, who was the lead profiler. So there
(39:21):
there's something about you know, my history, about the life
that I've lived that lends itself to you know, to
to bringing some some experience to the role without having
to you know, hit it over the head. It's just
part of who you are now. So uh, you know
that that that speaks to me in most of the
things that I've done recently.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
And I was recently talking to Michael Penya and we
were talking about some of the actors who inspired us
because I'm Mexican American and he is as well. And
what two of the actors he named were Edward James
almost in you and I'm sure you kind of get
that a lot now, like people who are like, oh
it was kind of seeing you on screen for the
first time. I was like, Hey, there somebody who actually
(40:01):
kind of looks like me for the first time.
Speaker 5 (40:03):
You know, it's interesting, man, because you know, you just
kind of you do what you do, and then you're
following your own path and then eventually you start going, wow,
I guess I am carrying a flag here. I guess
I am representative of you know, people who need to
be represented. And one of the first times that I
remember experiencing that was I spoke at NYU, you know,
(40:26):
at the film school here in New York, and a
young Puerto Rican actress you know, has said, you know,
about standing Deliver, that she finally looked up and saw
people that looked like her on screen and that's why
she decided to pursue acting, you know. And it's interesting
when I look back a lot of the guys that
were inspirational to me in the seventies, you know, with
(40:48):
the swarthy guys, you know, DeNiro and Paccino and Austin,
It's like, Okay, not everybody has to be Robert Redford.
You know, maybe I can actually you know, have a
have a career at this. And then I wrote a film,
you know, in the early nineties called a Fish Or
I actually played Filipino American and Sisilia Peck was my
leading lady and I got to have dinner with her father,
(41:08):
Gregory Peck, at a certain point and he said, uh,
you know who you remind me of my old friend Tony.
And I thought, well he was gray, that I was kind
of on his path man, that I was kind of
carrying the torch that he started. That is, you know,
representing so many different communities, you know, not just what
I am, you know, blood wise, but you know, the
(41:28):
Latino community and the Native American community and just you know,
I mean I've played Indi with, I've played Asian, you know,
like in mckeam on Broadway, and and that's what it's about.
It's representing each of these communities with you know, with
dignity and with respect. And that's really become kind of
a you know, a touchstone of my career.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
And your breakout role was LaBamba, which is one of
my favorite movies of all time. And I think because
it's not only the story of Richie Vallen's, but ultimately
it's like the story about brothers, which I think why
it still resonates now. But I feel like it's hard
to find any kind of footage of Richie Vallens and
the way his kind of memory lives on is because
of your portrayal in that movie. Like at what point,
(42:08):
did you realize that you weren't just taking on another
role when you were doing that?
Speaker 5 (42:12):
From the second I read the scripts, you know, I
mean I got cast out of Dallas, Texas. Uh And
you know, I had no idea why this Hollywood film
company was doing this national you know, talent search. It
was ridiculous. I really could not believe that I even
had the opportunity to audition for this. And I read
(42:33):
the script and I just went I knew it was
the chance of a lifetime. And even my acting coach said,
you're never going to get this role, but hopefully you're
going to do a great job and they'll give you
something smaller, you know, like the drummer or something, you know.
And so it was it was really lgging in a
bottle when I got the role. And and then you know,
working with Luis Valbez and becoming close with the family,
(42:55):
which was you know, I did throwing into the deep
end of the pool. You know, I met Bob us
at this at the screen test, you know, on the
on the on the Warner Brothers lot. I mean, it
was it was crazy. Uh. So I knew I knew
it was a big deal from the beginning. Uh and
and uh, you know even even beyond that, so I
I felt, you know, very fortunate.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (43:16):
And it's funny because you're right. I mean there there
literally is only a two I think film cuss of Ritchie,
one from American Bandstand and one from a movie called Go,
Johnny Go, where he seems come on, Let's go. So
you know, there wasn't a whole lot to hang my
hat on performance wise. I really relied, you know, on
(43:37):
the family to kind of fill in the blanks for me.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
What is that like talking to the real life Bob
when you're going to play his brother? Like does he
start to like see his brother and you like, how
does that relationship work?
Speaker 2 (43:49):
You know?
Speaker 5 (43:49):
I mean they were they were still kind of me
from the beginning. I mean literally Bob uh said later,
you know, the when he laid eyes on me and
then saw the audition because he knew that I was
going to get the job, which was really sweet. But
you know Connie and Irma, I mean all all of
his siblings, a little Mario it was only a baby
at the time. Uh, and his mom, you know Connie,
(44:10):
she was around, so they were there every single day,
and Uh, it would always be like, well would Richie
do this? Or what would Richie do in this situation?
You know, they they were able to tell me these things.
And it wasn't just about Richie. The rock Star was
about Richie a human being, you know, the seventeen year
old kick uh and and so that you know that
(44:30):
was really uh I think was fleshed out the character
and and and helped him, you know, be more than
just you know an Indians.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
If you will, I wonder now, if you're ever out
in public and you hear the song sleep Walk by
Santo and Johnny, do you immediately have like flashbacks to
filming that movie?
Speaker 5 (44:46):
Always? Man, always, and what I always go to because
it's what that's what it's playing over in the film.
Is that that hillside. Yeah, it made me I run
up that like twelve times. Man. By the time I
was over, I thought I was going to drop dead.
I mean, my my legs were on fire. I don't
know what he was looking for when we ran up
the hill so many times.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Man, after that movie came out where people just yelling
ritchy at you all the time in public, they still
really they still did. Did you get to keep anything
cool from the movie.
Speaker 5 (45:16):
I still have the green guitar, but it's it's in
California right now in my house there. I'm in New
York City where I'm filming Prodigal Son, and when the
pandemic hit, you know, the rock got kind of pulled
out from under it. So I was not not able
to go home, and so we my family, Yvonne and
my thirteen year oldaughter. I've been looking here in New
York City for you know, for a year and a half.
I mean, you know that it is what it is.
(45:39):
But yeah, I kept the green guitar.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
And what was that technique you learned? Because you didn't
learn to play guitar for the movie, you just kind
of learned, like the fingering style. Is that what it was?
Speaker 4 (45:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (45:48):
I know I learned. I still don't play the guitar.
I had to learn all of the singering just for
you know, just for the for the film, and it
was stuping me. I didn't I didn't pick it up.
I should have picked it up that, but I didn't
move on to other things.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
So the following year, in a nineteen eighty eight standing
Deliver comes out, and that movie has just such a
large cast. I wonder, like, when you're filming that, how
hard is it to kind of wrangle everybody in to
do a scene that typical?
Speaker 5 (46:12):
Man? I mean, you know, it's like we've got a
pretty massive ensemble cash for Prodigal Sun as well and
for the movie adverts that I just did. It was
literally just one day of shooting all my scenes with
Thomas E and Nichols, So that becomes easy. I mean,
that's it's not like, you know, putting together an amateur show.
In the uncle's barn. There's an entire army of people
(46:35):
who are doing scheduling and doing wrangling of the actors
and whatnot. So it seems that he's as a professional.
You're there when you're supposed to be there, and you know,
you do what's required to do that day.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
I wonder when you're doing that movie. The line that
always sticks out to me is your line when you're like,
I strangled him in his body is decomposing in my locker. Like,
how hard is that to say with the straight face
with everybody there?
Speaker 5 (46:59):
No you look forward to, man, I mean, but that's
once again, that's just part of the acting. I mean,
it's you know, there there were lines in Longmire, and
there were lines continue to be in lines in Prodigal Son,
especially when I'm working with Kecko againa uh where you know,
you get tickled, you just get you know, and thank goodness,
there's always take too if you if you crack up,
(47:20):
you know. But yeah, that particular line I knew was
going to go down in history.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Was that a genuine reaction in the movie, Like the
laughter seems just so genuine after that.
Speaker 5 (47:31):
Yeah, it was. It was, you know, I mean, the
entire and you know, the entire cast, you know, got
into it. So you know, especially Cloth say it was
a wonderful, wonderful guy. So yeah, I mean, I think
quite often the the warmth and the chemistry and the
happiness that you see on screen is the real deal.
You know, it's hard to hard to manufacture that.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
Well, I really appreciate the time everybody. Go check out
the new movie Adverse, check out lou and Prodigal Son.
And it's been really great getting to talk to you.
I just wanted to really like, you know, like how
much your work has kind of affected my life, and
you know, just being able to see somebody like looks
different and.
Speaker 5 (48:06):
Kind of represent the story for me and wave the
fly bro. You know we got to represent right. Yeah,
I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
And uh, I'll send you a nice water Burger care
package where you are right now. I mean, I what's
your favorite thing to get from there? Do you get sick?
Did you get sick of that food while you're working there?
Speaker 5 (48:22):
No, not at all. I mean, man, you know you
because of the an employee you got. You know, you
got the employee uh employee meals and you know they
kind of had a little coupons that you would turn in.
But h yeah, man, I think I eat Waterburger every day.
It was It was fantastic. And not only that, I
got to make myself so you know, I mean it
just like I wanted it.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Well, appreciate the time. I'll talk to you later.
Speaker 5 (48:43):
Thanks, Mike, have a good one.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
And that's gonna do it for us this week. Thanks
again for being subscribed and listening every single week. I
will be back next week with a brand new episode.
Kelsey and I will be sharing our top movies of
the summer and our worst movies of the summer. There
were a few that's snuck in there, and then we'll
follow that up on another episode and I will do
my ten core movie memory moments of all time. Hope
(49:08):
you have a great rest of your week and until
next time, go out and watch good movies and I
will talk to you later
Host
Mike D
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