Les Misérables (2012) dir. Tom Hooper | Showgays: A Movie Musical Podcast

0:01 [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] One Day More [Music] and wait one day walk [Laughter] because that's range is what I'm doing perfect [Music]

0:51 see we're having fun we're having a good time this is fun guys it's a rollicking wrong this is a fun show well how are you always fun I'm good I'm in the spare bedroom of the house that belongs to the parents of my sister-in-law oh the the moving the shake it we're in different places all the time basically uh yeah maybe one day I'll actually get an apartment in San Diego but today's not that day what's the rush I mean well that's good RJ how are you I'm doing okay okay great RJ do you want to explain do you want to

1:36 explain RJ why we might be a little bit passive aggressive towards you in this app me oh yeah you me yes uh Once Upon a Time uh I had a dream where I was on a zoom with Molly and Adam and we were talking about the hit film The Academy nominated film Les Miserables um and in a in just like a careless cleaning up of our hard drive because it's too small now because of all of the shows were dying um I may have accidentally deleted it so this is our second time talking about this but we are coming into it as if the

2:22 challenge for everyone today is that this is our first time talking about this movie so make sure just a couple notes you know just make sure all of our discoveries are natural organic you know every time you hear on information just you know lean in on like it's like the first time you're hearing it so really be active Discover it weren't a great director thank you the goal of you to give us notes on the episode that we have to re-record because of you and listeners I want you it right now to just look at the run time of this episode because I know it will be and I want you to think about doing that twice yeah I well Adam just edited tick Tick boom and he was like this was under two hours so oh it's 150 maybe an hour 50. so we are officially under the showroom

3:07 under the movie around all right well it's we got a lot of wiggle room to be under the movie running time on this one yeah we'll see I mean spoken for a six and a half hour film is that right I believe so yeah it's a durational film it was actually a mini series originally but they just package yeah [Music] right this time um I'm just gonna redo my challenge um I think last time when I read this I did not get it under a minute so I'm gonna just um do some do some trills do some unique New York to make sure that we are ready to read quickly Adam this is your one minute summary challenge for the movie Les Miserables and your time starts now Jean valzan is

3:54 a convict who has spent 19 years in prison for the crime of stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's starving son he is freed on parole and inspector Javier tells him to watch his back because like raws and monsters Inky's always watching after attempting to steal silver from a church he is given a second chance at Redemption from the bishop and vows to change his life for the better fast forward to him owning a textile mill and being figured out that he has violated his parole by inspector Javier but not before fontine a former employee turned sex worker dies and leaves her daughter in his care he rescues the young Todd from the greedy hands of The Innkeeper tonight is and takes on yonkos that to Paris where he nearly escapes strawberry again time jump once more because that being 16 and falling immediately in love with a rich young boy named Marius whose student friends wish to overthrow the monarchy of France Valjean nearly caught again by Javier rushes to flee the city with cozette but realizes that he needs to protect Mario's in order to ensure his kozet's happiness she truly loves him

4:40 tend to boil over as the students barricade themselves against the French army only for nearly everyone to die except baljan is able to save Marius by dragging him into the sewer and escapes Javier is at one point captured by the students and turned over to Valjean but he sets him free causing a crisis of constants for Javier realizing that Justice does not equal morality and promptly throws himself into the sand because that and Mario's live happily but after Valjean dies and everyone gets a rousing Anthem to leave the theater humming oh oh it was a minute and like 18 seconds oh you had a bit of passive voice in there that I think we had trimmed I think if yeah and a little bit of like initial time I just learned last week with passive voices do in high school English I went to a public school so we weren't getting that information we were getting like vocab

5:26 still in like senior year it was real wild wow I passive voice is like my biggest uh like thorn in any sort of writing it that was always my number one thing that I got back from anything that I wrote was like but it's so easy to fix once you know to look for it yeah I write a lot of passive voice in my remarks for Real Estate uh so I do have to do it a lot actually yeah [Music] so I will start this week and I will tell you that I am probably the one who is most familiar with Les Miserables as I am the only one of the trio who has been in Les Miserables well the full production we're gonna get to my relationship but yes oh

6:12 see RJ's already forgotten um thank you um so I was in uh Les Mis in high school um I played kuferak which is one of the French students I I had a solo and I don't even remember it like during uh during red red and black I I have one of the lines but I don't remember which one it was um anyway the joke of the show at the time I think this was the summer after my sophomore year I still had a very high register um something that obviously I don't have anymore um [Laughter] so I could still sing kozet's Parts oh wow because I was very annoying in that way yeah that checks again also past tense I'm not annoying anymore yeah

6:59 um that's passive voice no it does um so the joke on the joke in the cast was that I was because that's understudy so we that we had like a day where we were like we had twin day we did like a spirit week during rehearsals and we had like today so me and Jose were like the same outfit that's okay um no it's Katie Keener who was my swing choir partner Ari was famously eponine oh very interesting um and uh I read the book at the same time I did read an Abridged version of the book but I mean Bridge version is like 400 pages so I can't imagine ever feeling committed enough to read Les Mis even in a bridge version I don't know if I could handle

7:44 but maybe one day yeah it's the pros is pretty good I mean obviously not reading an original French I was reading the adaptation but um I thought it was I thought it was pretty interesting um it does do a lot of like the thing I complain about in Old authors where it's like they were clearly paid by word so there are some sequences where it's like you're just droning on about the French Wars for no reason but um yeah it's good um and then I did see this movie when it came out this is 2012 I believe yes um I saw this movie when it came out in theaters with my mom um at the time I remember like enjoying it but I feel like past that then it's I don't know I don't know if it's gonna work the same as it did for me when I was like excited to see it in a theater Christmas day or

8:30 whatever um RJ so I had never seen the original show I only knew of certain numbers because um as a Filipino we supported Liz along this career still do and she did a huge like stint of concerts uh in the Philippines and obviously the I dream a dream uh song where she did it for the 20 10th 10th the 10th anniversary that was in her repertoire so I knew I dream a dream um and uh hers is also I would say that the best version of this one of um not I Dreamed a Dream wait which one yeah

9:16 on my own on my own thank you but did Lisa longa do nothing and then later she played pontine yes in the 25th Anniversary Concert yeah okay so I remember watching the speaking of the 25th I remember watching the 25th anniversary uh in college it was I I remember watching it at Simpson it was on the girl side of our floor we were making food at that like common area and I like we watched it together or I remember watching it with Biz I don't know if you were there I feel like you were there I feel like I did watch it in college but my memory is that we were in your room watching it maybe I cooked food and then brought it over and we watched it in my room I feel like the time that we washed up in the um common room was when we watched West Side Story yes okay both of these experiences I was not there for

10:02 yeah my freshman year was a very different yes everyone else he was there but then like as soon as like eight o'clock hit Adam would disappear like he like it's truly Cinderella he just he mole man into the food Subways of Chicago the famous Subways there's two famous for below ground trains oh yeah not elevated a huge thing about Chicago is it's famous the radiator Railroad s the sandwiches are named after um

10:47 the sediment stupid see this is all new this is new we didn't do this that was fun oh it's new material with us yeah yeah um and then when the movie came out since it was the Christmas movie of that time and um at the time I would always fly home to Phoenix for Christmas I watched it once with my parents I watched it once with my uh high school friends and then did we watch it no I think I watch it three times and I guess it was all in Phoenix for the spot I don't believe and then yeah obviously but yeah the first time watching it I was like super all in oh my God amazing like I was also still in my like you know college high of like Art Theater oh I can see the next

11:33 training and uh the tears I was just like into that like thespian whatever [ __ ] [ __ ] um but by the second time rolled I was it was more like focusing on like certain numbers and everything else I kind of just like okay yeah um and then the last time I watched I fully was sleeping because it was like that was my watch with my family and I was like in and out of sleep um just thought it was funny it's like why this of all movies the truly one of the longest movies it was the Christmas movie it was the Christmas movie so it's the one you got to see and so yeah Molly so my first interaction with Layman's was in my fourth grade play because my um school they we did fourth grade plays in the eighth grade place and the eighth

12:18 grade play was like a full musical it was early 70s and then the fourth graders did like shorter plays like straight plays um so we did an adaptation of just the Christmas part of when Valjean goes to pick up cozette so it's a it's really an adaptation of the novel rather than of the musical because it's not a very long part of the musical um so I played Pony because there was an EPI and a pony and to like split up that character now I think Adam you told me that they're actually the cenardias have two daughters in the novel so I don't know why they didn't just give us yeah but it was one of those classic like kids theater how do you get more roles in so that everybody in the class has has a role yeah um but I just got to be like a bratty little kid and it was really fun um and I also really remember that the

13:04 girl who played pozat actually knew how to knit and so she like that was like a Prestige business but she like actually couldn't it and did it and I was like you're going on 80. yeah this little girl I just like did not have the like spatial reasoning skills to understand like she tried to show me and I was like no this is not Computing how old were you fourth grade was at ten yeah like nine or ten nine or ten okay I don't know I can do it now I did figure it out everyone um so yes oh yeah and then so when I was in high school like probably freshman year-ish um there was a college near me that did like a Sleep Away music Theater Camp which was so fun um and so we would spend the whole whole week um like living in the dorms having class and then like put together a showcase

13:49 and then we also got to go to Chanhassen Dinner Theater as like The Big Field Trip of the week um which is a which is a dinner theater that's like 40ish minutes from the Twin Cities Amy Adams used to perform there before she was famous um and we went to see Les Mis one year and I like totally loved it and thought it was just the best thing ever um so yeah and then you know it's uh just all over the culture so of course I knew about it and I knew when the movie came out but did not go see it when it came out I don't I don't really think I like didn't want to I just kind of didn't happen and I don't I'm not like a person who goes to see movies very much so it's not shocking that I didn't see it I do very much feel like and it's funny because I actually watched it again for the Pod today with Rita um so we'll get Rita's commentary

14:36 throughout and uh she asked if it was well received and I was like I feel like it was at the time and then really quickly there was kind of a backlash of like like this feels like it was the last like gritty it's like the Batman Begins version of Les Mis and this is like the last one of those before people were like we're actually sick of this so that was too much so people like dirt on people for fun yeah it's just like oh the sewer scene is a lot y'all um like multiple you want to talk about mole people in the in the subway yeah that was I think why it was in my brain yeah yeah um yeah so it's like a real yeah yeah Christian baleification of uh movie musicals to shout out an Alum of the Pod um because I was also thinking about the like superhero to uh Music Theater guy

15:24 sure Pipeline and reverse with Hugh Jackman Christian Bale Gerard Butler I feel like we need to start making a list of like oh yeah you know action movie slash Music Theater guys I was just telling that because we're recording this the day after the Oscars and RR one for best original song and I was just like that idea of which is a Bollywood a Bollywood film had the idea of like big Bollywood films that are like these crazy action movies also has like intricate dance numbers and musical numbers of like imagine if like that's a requirement now for like if you're gonna be an action star you have to do a movie music I would love what can you imagine in The Avengers just like a dancing with their palies in one of the Avengers movies I haven't watched any like or I watched a few of them movies but like I don't really there is not in one of the movies

16:10 but in Hawkeye the show they do like a parody Steve Rogers Musical that they go to see and they like show you the full song you can't tell me that my life wouldn't be better if there were a dance sequence that included um Chris Evans that's Cash America right Chris Evans and Tom Holland come on come on come on everyone um anyway and then the last thing I want to shout out and I'm going to put in the show notes is this segment from my brother my brother and me this little podcast that we need to plug and um promote on our show uh because they're really struggling yeah they're really struggling over there um they had a question that somebody wrote in about throwing a a Les Miserables themed birthday party for like a 12 year old and the bits that they come up with is just amazing so I would recommend everyone to go listen to

16:55 it I that needs to come back in a fashion of like throwing like musical themed parties I was working at a children's theater once uh in Orlando and we threw a Phantom of the Opera party that was the request of the chat of the like kid yeah and I spent a whole day like printing sheet music and then burning the edges oh was it ever cool though to have a musical themed birthday I feel like that's our that's our lot in life as musical theater kids it should never be deemed cool yeah that's true it's a it's a curse there is a podcast that I used to be very obsessed with called Rana and Beverly and they are two comedians who play these characters named Ron and Beverly who are like middle-aged Jewish Mothers from

17:40 um the Greater Boston area and uh one of them she's like very she's like very rich and she like always wears leopard print and like uh her House's shades of vanilla um she has this whole running bit about how her son Jordan who's at Tish School for the Arts at NYU thank you very much very much um his who the running joke of his character is that he's gay but she like refuses to acknowledge it in any kind of way um he when he's just an artist he's a filmmaker you know yeah he's a creative type yeah uh when he had his bar mitzvah he had it Les Mis themed and so it's the idea of a of a lame is the environments was like I want to go I want to see that I want to participate in that energy

18:26 [Music] um so lame is the book was written in 1862 by Victor Hugo um it is composed of five different sections of the novel uh the first is fontine the second is kozet the third is Marius the fourth is the ideal in the root Hume and the Epic so one word one word one word uh 20 words and then the last section is Jean Valjean um it's just like the life the life industry and then yeah so Brooklyn Main Street is where is where no no rupe is where Jean Valjean and cozette live so that's where

19:11 Mario is that kind of fall in love okay and then the Epic and the ruse um is obviously where the barricade is ah okay gotcha um digressions are used heavily um in the novel and like to the reader or like for a word count just for you just to be like describe the scene real quick because at the time so like something that's different about like today and back then is like Plumbing now if you're trying to hit like a certain page number you can go through and make all your periods 14 point instead of 12 point font and you can like kind of get there that way that's what I did in college um but at the time if you wanted to get to a certain length you really had to kind of just write it you know it's kind of crazy so if you're paid by the word

19:57 it's not gonna help you have big periods wow take a look at that period of that dot and give them a word what are you talking about damn I don't know what you mean we gotta find a nice big old stamp for them yeah um no it just uh he digresses into different like as I was saying earlier he digresses into different aspects of like French politic and French like War history and stuff like that just at different points um because when you're writing and no one else has anything else to read just write about what you want you know what I mean I did do research not in preparation for this podcast but for the last one instead of my notes related to the novel oh yeah would you like me to talk about that now or should I wait until it feels most relevant by all

20:44 means because I don't think during the movie I'm going to want to talk about the book so I feel like no yeah okay so I wrote up an article about six months ago called uh the sewer and the prostitute in Les Miserables from regulation to Redemption um which is about the fact that the sewer is like a very Central setting and metaphor within the novel of Les Mis um I do have a piece of quick feedback for the author Miss Lewis or probably Dr Lewis to please um include quotation or Not Sorry translations of your quotations because it was an article in English but then with French quotations from the novel and no translation and that I feel like if we want the public to engage in scholarships that would be something um okay but also good to color Miss that's brilliant thank you Molly

21:31 Miss Molly can you can you continue okay so she talks about this um very influential Public Health figure Alexandra Jean Baptist uh who was heavily associated with the sewers and in 1822 um wrote a work sort of about sewers and uh like related to like the social metaphor of sewers so there was this tension at the time of seeing sex workers as like inherently contaminated um like a sewer for male desire a morally soiled human but also seeing them as victims of social injustice and so Hugo Works within the framework of this critique to quote um to critique quote the desire for

22:18 control containment and regulation unquote that underpins para duchella and a lot of 19th century social order thinking um that he was putting forth that sex work is not a moral feeling but a profession of Last Resort and um that we should see sex workers is not a sewer but a slave um so in the character of fontine in particular we understand her soul through the story and she is ultimately um she gets buried in a Popper's field which is actually a Christian burial um and that is sort of the novelist way of showing that she's actually redeemed quote not by returning her to the path of virtue but by simply demonstrating that she never left it unquote so I thought that was really um significant to understand how um how those two things are connected um the novel apparently spends and Adam

23:04 you can talk about The Abridged version I don't know how much of it uh spend time on this apparently spends a wild amount of time of them just wandering through the sewers at the climax of the novel like we're just down there for like passages and passages um uh apparently like actually lives down there in the novels they like run into him in the musical but he that's like his home um and so the sewers in addition to all of this uh metaphor of sex work and sewers um they also work as sort of a metaphorical underworld um to talk about that which is excluded from society and there's a recurring theme throughout the novel of dissent um so in particular like finding salvation by descending through fearsome depths rather than like salvation through Ascension is like generally the Christian Association

23:49 um and obviously in you can tell this in the musical that there's a real Pro integration theme of a reintegration theme in terms of prisoners um and uh that was also put together with again so there was like this huge Paris was sort of a late adopter of the sewer model um and there was at the time one of the arguments had to do with using human waste as fertilizer for Farmers so there was like also this metaphor of like what do you do with the waste like does it get reintegrated does it have a use kind of a thing um there was though the reason that Paris ended up putting in a sewer was that there was a cholera epidemic in 1832 that prompted the first systemic expansion of the sewer um and that work really only got started in 1854 so it was still like a huge Topic in the 1860s when Hugo was writing

24:36 this and Pia Emmanuel brunoso was a real city inspector and historian who explored and mapped the sewer system from 1805 to 1812 and he is a character in the novel as well so Belgian and Marius run into him at the sewers I felt like the article was implying that he's the only like real historical figure at all but it wasn't 100 clear so I don't want to claim that definitely um yeah and that is a little bit about the significance of the sewers and human wastes throughout the novel of limits well we'll have to come back to the Sewer obviously when we talk about the film and the the the way in which Jean Valjean goes through the sewers and ends up on the other side and the way that uh Javert goes into the river which is

25:24 typically like a pure body of water but one thing he has a different ending so um interesting thank you so much for that Molly you're welcome thank you six months ago Molly um so criticism on initial reception of the book was mostly negative actually um they accused of being super sentimental catering to social issues which is allegedly the opposite of what art is supposed to do very Oscar Wilde of them yeah and uh Catholic Church placed it on the prohibited books list which is funny because this feels very like a very Catholic but not be Pro church I think maybe the most pro-choice Pro pro-choice excuse me pro-choice book maybe the most pro-church musical I can think of other than maybe Jesus Christ because I

26:10 haven't seen that so I'm not totally sure yeah um however it was commercially successful and it also gained popularity in like across uh outside of France as well and today the novel is considered one of the greatest of the 19th century uh he was giving a Philomena thank you so much do you know Phil made a conk I I want to watch it it's on my list oh my God I know about it I haven't watched it watched it but I keep seeing clips and she's so yeah I've seen just like you know photo sets of highlights of interviews yeah okay um so the musical Les Mis uh by Columbia South and Herbert kretzmer for the English lyrics so that's all music lyrics

26:55 um it was released originally as a concept album similar to um Jesus Christ Superstar which we have not done on the show but um Jesus Christ the historical figure who was first released he was released as a concept album for like Christianity as like a concept you could call the Bible a concert yeah but it's true um Cameron McIntosh was given the album in 1983 to see if it could be turned into a full English production um he was initially hesitant but he still did attempt it initial reviews were negative um they said that the it was a Victorian melodrama with Victorian lavishness another quote was it was witness and synthetic and um there was like a general just overarching criticism of like turning classic literature into a

27:41 musical which is like if if anyone did that now we'd be we'd be celebrating we'd be overjoyed in the street also I maintain always pitch me a concept of a successful musical it doesn't sound insane unless you've actually seen the musical like every musical concept seems wild but it works whether like it's just whether or not it's good that works there's no like right or wrong base material for it also I would agree that it's a Victorian melodrama with Victorian lavishness I just don't think that's a negative calling it synthetic though I don't know I mean maybe I'm just a nerd but like do You Hear the People Sing gets me every time I don't feel synthetic at all I do think there is uh I get it feels like two different claims witness and synthetic I don't I feel like they don't really yeah it's kind of there's not a lot of humor

28:27 except for that the nardias yeah and that in this version is highlighted we'll say that but like yeah I don't know synthetic just doesn't seem that doesn't I didn't either production yeah I wasn't there for the first production in 1980s yeah I just barely missed that one just barely missed so close to see couldn't get a flight I just got it yeah what is what was that old plane that used to run really fast from they reference it in Parent Trap the um oh it doesn't matter screaming famously my mother famously in Parent Trap not famously but I recently watched part of the movie again um they meet the reason the two parents meet on a boat is because she's afraid of flying yes but at the end they get

29:13 back to London before because they took the Concord it was called the Concorde it was like the fast flight yeah actually I watched a video about this one time it was like this very fast plane but it was also very expensive to operate and they just found that there's like a ceiling on how much people are willing to pay to be on a faster flight yeah yeah um the Concord was the original Parent Trap a musical yes oh we can put that on the list sorry go ahead let's talk about Parent Trap yeah yeah you're right go ahead I'm just seeing if we can get it past the runtime no I was just gonna say that have I talked about this on the Pod that um the whole like it used to be a whole thing about people being afraid of flying but that used to be like a big part of culture I feel like that people had a fear of flying and you just like never hear about it anymore yeah yeah

29:59 because people take a Xanax and call it a day yes or people are just like if you're that afraid like you've already figured out what you're gonna do to get around it so it just was when we were kids it was when people were like oh this is the thing everyone asked to like do now do yeah for the first time I don't know I think it's funny we'll talk about Les Mis that's fine I will say Molly did not share that the last time we recorded so that was a discovery new material the original production ran from October 1985 to July of 2019 it is the second longest running show in the west end and it is the longest running musical in the West End what is the longest running it's the Agatha Christie play mouse trap mousetrap it's been running since like 59 or something like that I saw a

30:44 mousetrap in London did you you're not allowed to tell you can't tell the ending I won't tell anybody what happens in it um someone dies um and the original Broadway production ran from March of 1987 to May of 2003 and it is the sixth longest running show in Broadway history um at the oliviers which is the British counties uh this one this was nominated for best new music school it was nominated for best actor for colem Wilkinson and Alan Armstrong who played jabair and uh best actress in the leading role for Patti LuPone she won she won the Olivier Miss Patty and she was funny

31:29 in the original Broadway production um a lot more um so it was nominated for best costume design best actress in a featured role in musical for Judy [ __ ] who played cozette best actor in a leading role in a musical for Terence Mann who was Javert and comb Wilkinson was also nominated as Japan I'm sorry as John belshan and then it one lighting design Scenic Design Direction Francis Raphel one for eponine uh Michael McGuire won for Marius [Music] fact check me on that we're not gonna know Michael McGuire okay Michael McGuire Tony s

32:15 um it won best original score it won best book and it won best musical so talk about everything everywhere at all once more like everything else thank you oh wow I don't know I'm very I get very anxious about this name a j is potentially the letter with them both pronunciations when you're dealing with other languages also in the picture do you know what I mean yeah Jay could be almost any sound I feel like sometimes an age [Music] a hard day a soft j a z [Music] so Les Mis uh the film we're now moving

33:01 on to the film extracted by Tom Hooper who Tom Hooper I think he's a member of yours great guys I literally have to read I know but you you in the notes from six months ago you like Googled Molly has a screenshot of like people also ask about Tom Hooper oh yeah I did I did I have a bullet point called failure of Tom Hooper and his musical choices and I put Tom Hooper in apparently and the also asked from Google is what is Tom Hooper saying about caps what is Tom Hooper known for and why did Tom Hooper directly Miserables and I have the same question uh right before this Tom Hoover had directed The Academy award-winning film

33:49 the King speech ah um which was very good and he got an Oscar for it which was very good he won the US he won the Best Director screenplay Is by William Nicholson Allen Club is it's based on the limits which is also based on Limitless it is produced by Tim Bevin Eric filner Deborah Hayward and Cameron McIntosh it's Stars Hugh Jackman he's at Jean Valjean Stars Russell crime who's also Australian is Xavier since uh Stars Anne Hathaway as you know hunting hunting Amanda Seyfried is Gazette Gazette is Marius Helen bottom Carter is Mrs tenardier and Sasha Americana is

34:36 how many of these folks are alums of this podcast I thought you were asking how many people these folks are alive and I was like I hate all of them I think it was so long ago we don't know I don't know that's long ago Hugh Jackman yes Russell Crowe no yes anything we've watched no not yet Amanda Seyfried yes Helena yes in original scene in original Seasons would be the same okay interesting cool cinematographies by Danny Cohn it is edited by Melanie Oliver and Chris Dickens which Oliver and Dickens I think you're really laying it on thick you know what I mean yeah like we get it by

35:22 the word am I right production companies are working title films relativity media and kamak international is distributed by Universal Pictures it is it was released um Christmas Day in the United States and January 11th in the UK yeah yeah Epiphany uh running time is 158 minutes uh it's language is English I should not have read that uh the budget was 61 million and the box office was 441.8 Million Buckle slameroos yeah a success so like a huge compensation a huge hit yeah but interesting why do we all uh are

36:08 kind of like uh about this movie why are we cold toward the film yeah I mean maybe a question is like are there even movies that are Financial huge financial success and critically beloved that don't then have a backlash later right like I feel like yeah you almost can't have too many of those what is that that triangle the triangle Theory it's like you can only have two you can't it's like it's like uh good cheap and fast yes yeah quality speed and yeah so it's like it's like critical Success commercial success and Legacy you can only have two of the three of the three yeah um or one of the three times none never all you never get all

36:53 and it's funny that we keep coming to this theme of Holy Trinity on this podcast uh because I hate to say it guys we're gonna talk about Christianity um the first time with the church and I do you want you to picture it with a Capital C when we say that yes that's a listener's Minds yeah charts church just like we were talking about Sister Act it's just the same reverence honestly this is this film was mired in development house since 1988. so during that time people who had been considered for these different roles um Javier could have been Paul Bettany or Jeff Jeffrey Rush

37:40 Jeffrey Rush was Javert in the non-musical version oh because I did watch that in high school that was with is that with Uma Thurman yes it is yes very good fun team could have been Amy Adams could have been Jessica Biel Kate Winslet Rebecca Hall Emily Blunt I'm gonna say me I would say Kate wins is probably my strongest one I would have loved to see Emily Blunt but I don't know if I would have loved to see my are you out of your mind yeah yeah yeah eponine could have been Scarlet scarjo Leah Michelle Miley Cyrus Taylor Swift Evan Rachel Wood or Hayden Panettiere honestly I would have loved to see him and Rachel Wood because I know what Evan Rachel Wood has been through and I don't need her to

38:25 like relate with trauma um what is happening she just dies uh I'm really glad that they didn't cast I'm really glad they didn't cast a pop star I I think that would have been really like jarring especially because the characters that come in until halfway through you know what I mean or like as an adult so it would be weird if all of a sudden it was Miley Cyrus yeah it's very hard to separate it's very hard to see when they cast stars that big it's very hard to see them as like a character yeah yeah um so I know what you mean because that could have been Emma Watson Shailene Woodley Miranda Cosgrove or lily reinert choice I think Miss Houston RDA could have been Rowan Atkinson Billy Crystal Ricky

39:11 Gervais Steve Martin or Robin Williams Oh my gosh I'm just so glad it wasn't repeater base I'm so glad it wasn't Rowan Atkins Mr B ored you're being rather zero not consent and then for sure if we think about their type of comedy and the like the fact it like Trinity is very physical copy I feel like so I'd rather see Romania bringing your voice right [Laughter] um these are all the people that could have been Belgian this is from 1988 to when this film was made yeah Warren Beatty Tom Cruise Robert De Niro Michael Douglas Richard Dreyfuss Harrison Ford Mel Gibson Gene Hackman Tom Hanks Dustin Hoffman Kevin Klein Kevin Klein would

39:57 have been a sleigh yeah Al Pacino Robert Redford Christopher Walken yeah these are some of these numbers are so old I think literally they were just like has someone oh opened a film and it was successful actor from the 80s through 2010s yeah yeah congrats that's pretty wild I'm so glad they found someone you can actually sing like to do with any of these people yeah of that whole list who is the one that would have been the worst Choice the worst Choice probably Tom Cruise that's very not Tom Cruise's deal the only thing I'll give Tom Cruise is there's always like he's the good guy so because Valjean is like the epitome of like the good guy I would give it to him but like the manic energy yeah if

40:44 it's good guy I would have done Tom Hanks I would have believed to Tom Hanks more than a Tom Cruise first I think it's Jack Nicholson his apps just the the horror show that that would be I'd still rather see Jack Nicholson would come in and be like my whole deals shop Belgian is gonna be like I'm just gonna charm everybody like what if I was just like a great guy that like everyone loved all the time like that's not oh no we do have to include a sequence in which John Valjean jumps out of a plane yes oh I would have watched Tom maybe I would have liked it better if it was Tom Cruise um so vocals were live on set Molly um you do love yeah

41:31 um they had in-ear piano tracks used as a guide um this is a quote from Mr Hooper himself I will not be doing a British accent for this quote I just felt ultimately it was a more natural way of doing it you know when actors do dialogue they have freedom in time they have freedom and pacing they can stop for a moment they can speed up I simply wanted to give the actors the normal freedoms that they would have if they need a bit for an emotion or a feeling to form in the eyes before they sing I can take that time if they cry they can cry through a song when you're doing it to play back to the millisecond you have to copy what you do you have no freedom in the moment and acting is the illusion of being free in the moment now I don't disagree with what he's saying but also like there is a level where

42:17 sometimes I feel like acting is treated like it's not just people playing pretend which at the end yeah that is really what it is and um it is hard because I think this one more than cats this one is like a a dramatic it's practically an opera like pretty much the whole thing is sung so I'll give him that like in that regard I guess I can see where he's coming from but like overall I I think we should be doing things to try I can see the argument for like some of the rest of recipe I think is how you say it like some of that that's like yeah they're technically singing but it's like kind of toxicing I just think I mean I I think it's a stronger choice for this than for cats because we needed a beat in cats um I just feel like no dance doesn't

43:03 need a beat that's famous that's the thing about dancing it's never there's never a Beat I've had now a long time to think about this and how long nine inches more than more than 10 years now um so like musical theater actors do this all the time right like they sing live every day and they can make choices but you need to get them to they still have to like stay on Pace with the musician that I think is the real thing because okay so like I'm gonna link this in the show notes or a whole video from sideways which is this like very pedantic music guy that like critiques things like childhood's musicals and I love it but it's like it's a little much sometimes right and they did this crazy thing like the the level of like different tracks and like having to mic stuff and then being like

43:50 you can't step on this part of the floor because it's gonna Creak and it's gonna mess up our incredibly elaborate sound system like did not seem worth it I can see that I can see the case where rather than the actors already having recorded their track and singing back to it having them go with musicians but still let the musicians guide it the way that you do in theater and if you want to slow down that's fine but you're gonna have to make up that time and get back on track because that's how you're supposed to do it and so I just feel like I feel like you just went too far in the direction of the live singing and that there's like a more middle ground that could have captured the thing that he wanted of allowing for an actual performance of the music on set yeah it feels like it just needs more rehearsal in terms of just like finding what

44:36 finding you and the music director sit down together and figure out what that pace is because I do agree that like actors do a piano The Pianist follows the singer technically but I also think if you are like given full reign as an actor just do whatever I think actors can be indulgent sometimes and sometimes it works and sometimes it's this Anne Hathaway performance where it's incredible yeah and sometimes it's the entirety of cat they also apparently would sink for like 10 hours straight on set and Hugh Jackman also talked about like specifically in that first scene how he like went without water for multiple days to be like a dragon muscular and whatever and that's like absolute horror

45:22 to a singer's ears to say like oh I had to sing for many hours so I what I did was not hydrate my vocal cords yeah and I felt like with that knowledge there were times reducing it I was like I can just hear that your heart like a drink of water well that's the thing I can see I don't want to hear someone that's actually trying to pull up a giant Shipwrecked ship thing I want I'm getting that in the visual but I want to hear you sing I love the idea of you pulling a ship and not you actually because it is it's also like it's the thing about acting where people are like don't be great about acting would be if you weren't acting and instead you did it for real and it's like no you're just like undercutting the whole art of the thing that people can do like that's right that's the whole beauty of it so they don't actually have to be in pain like you can just they can act it so yeah I do think it's obnoxious and

46:08 indulge it can still cause catharsis in the audience yeah yeah it's the idea of yeah you can contain what you want to portray and evoke without I don't tell you yeah I mean this the content of this show is rough and Rita's first reaction for the first like 30 minutes was like oh it's like such like she was watching so like games it's like oh my God yes she was like this is uh she like saw the show but she was like it's not really how they did it oh my God like she was so horrified by everything um a horror I don't know that that's what we want to evoke believe is I feel like we're trying to be at like you know some Victorian lavishness maybe a little like a touch of that maybe a little give us get us back up there I still want people to sound pretty yeah

46:54 oh wait it's the music is so pretty I'm not like not a hot take the music can babies is good I like we've finished watching it during my mom and I was like let's listen to a cast album sometime because like I think you've got some some of the Melodies but like that's really what's great about it so you know that was her first time ever watching it yeah she had never seen Les Mis at all I asked my mom what she knew about it and she said it didn't belch on steal a loaf of bread and I was like perfect you've got all the uh you need let's go yeah that is enough to get you started it is nice that the show requires you to know nothing yeah it does tell you you don't even have to know Francis a [ __ ] I mean like you don't have to know the history of French politic whatsoever you can just go in blind you do have to

47:39 trust them that they had another king because Rita did not believe that for a good three minutes as I tried to explain to her which Revolution this was ah yes like another one I thought there was only one he did it a few times they had a big revolution I don't know if you knew about it but it was like a huge deal yeah it was pretty big um here's what it won and what it was nominated for at the Academy Awards it was nominated for best production design best original song for a song called suddenly which we'll get to best costume design best actor for Hugh Jackman and best picture and it won sound mixing which is now NADA it's just best sound now um deserved it for this makeup and hair styling and supporting actress for Anne Hathaway do we think that the world would be a

48:26 better place if we Barred movie musicals from being entered into the original score original song categories that they would stop adding songs to stop making those stupid songs yeah I'm gonna petition Joe Biden to make that change build back Broadway so um the barricade Street these are just fun little facts I found funnel facts and figures the barricade street is actually Diagon Alley um the cast were not allowed to drink alcohol uh this was or water or water apparently this was especially hard on Russell Crowe and Amanda Seyfried Amanda Seyfried who I'm sure was like I drank the entirety of mamamoo and we were fine

49:12 there wasn't a soul alive that didn't have liquor inside their bloodstream what do you mean I can't drink um it took eight hours to film my dream to dream and only the fourth take was used so they could have wrapped it after that I feel like I've seen it halfway talk about this though and that like she was the one that was like no again I'm getting my Oscar uh the film was originally going to be four hours long which included a 15-minute battle scene that's so wacky although that is a cry what I like to see someone recut that as a mini-series because like it would pretty it would be pretty sick to see a whole battle seat because you can't do that in the musical yeah I would I would do a Netflix for one hour episode if somebody has that footage and put it together that way I'd be interested I mean just the pure scope of this musical is impressive the fact

49:57 that it works like the fact that they literally go through a man's entire life with multiple characters having full arcs yeah and it like you understand it it's not confusing like it's your your on board it pays as well not necessarily the movie but like the musical is like paced really well it's like pretty cool that this is like this happens yeah because on paper yeah it's pretty it's pretty uh unbelievable it is impressive and Rita's overall review was it kept moving and that's pretty impressive considering one how I described her reaction for the first 30 minutes and two we started at like 7 30 on a Sunday and not only did we know we had to go to bed but like we were watching it in my parents room and knew that my dad was gonna get tired and have to come in and be like I need to be done so we have like real time pressure on us the fact that she didn't just feel like oh my God

50:44 this movie will never end is a Real Testament yeah um so here are the here are the five movies in theaters uh when this movie came out um number five was Jack Reacher number four is Parental Guidance three is Les Mis two is Django Unchained and number one was The Hobbit an Unexpected Journey which I really beloved film oh my God everyone will talk about it all token fans just say it's the greatest adaptation of all time token fans famously are like we love that this one book got split into three parts it's a thing we love actually yeah and they're like real advocates for please diverge from the text don't stay faithful to it at all you know what I mean that's why they're holding five that's their whole day yeah yeah what's

51:30 the uh was the cartoon from the 70s beloved yeah by The Tokens The Tokens loved things I think Tolkien people like it I don't think it like gained I think it also wasn't super well known so that like helped yeah be like it has Niche cool power but it's like kind of Unfinished I think and stuff and yeah yeah it is a cool it is cool that they even try to do this as a little animated movie but um I would briefly like to discuss before we move on to the film um should we have the Hathaway conversation now or should we have it while we talk about the movie I say at her yeah when we talk about her performance yeah okay oh here is the one thing I wanted to add background book wise I read this on Wikipedia but

52:16 apparently Hugo was like he ended up he was in Paris when this revolution happened and he like inadvertently ended up in a street where there was like a firing what's it called her Crossfire um yeah so he like ended up in the thick of it without realizing what was happening and so it obviously had like a big impact on him and therefore he you know decided to make it a central point in his novel so I think that's interesting that he was actually a firsthand witness to the student Revolution [Music]

53:05 thank you so I'm gonna say this I called my mom recently and she was like Adam I loved what episode was it it was fan of the Opera she was like I loved the fan of the Opera episode and I said oh I'm glad you liked it and she said you did you didn't do it the normal way and I was like what way are you talking about I don't know what you're talking about she was like you just talked like you guys didn't go through beat by beat because honestly Adam you guys should just assume that these people have seen these movies so you shouldn't have to feel obligated to explain the plot to them and go beat by beat through the movie and I was like okay we haven't I'll wait like sometimes we don't do that and she was like oh you know what I mean so that's my note from my mom last structure Nance looking for Less structure so I think I've made her

53:51 happy so far because I I distracted you for your points a lot so I think we can continue that sentiment um in the great tradition of our Phantom of the Opera I think yeah I feel like this is a character by character situation personally a hundred percent sure for sure so let's start with the most important character of them all let's start with the finale we should do small beans to Big beans I was gonna say I was gonna say start with fontine okay she she's not a big bean but she's she's a baby she's a she's a first third being if this movie is split up into three parts one would say a typical three-act structure yeah she is the first third

54:39 um this performance is so good by Anne Hathaway one of our greatest actresses and also the backlash surrounding her winning this Oscar was insane yeah uh I'm gonna say something that I think is going to be offensive to you and to The Listener searching everyone to be prepared um no you don't like women no um I don't but that's not what this is about um oh oh yes she said first she said I didn't know Russell Crowe could sing and I said can he be from what you've seen so far and she said yeah it's pretty good

55:25 and then we watched Anne Hathaway's number and she said speaking of people who can't sing and I said she won an Oscar for this and my mom said well what do they know maybe it's just not that song and I didn't want to spoil it but I was like he still always it's the song it's so funny I disagree with that take but I just you know canceled we're canceling Rita it's like so funny the same thing can be interpreted in a different way basically exactly but here's the thing I think this actually comes back to the live singing thing you can feel the strain and I think for for me her strain in that performance like helps that moment because it is

56:10 like she's dying um I I think for some it could like it might not even be a thing of like it sounds bad but it might be like it makes me uncomfortable and so the only way I can express like why it's making me uncomfortable is just that it's like I don't like this song I don't like what's going on you know what I mean not that I'm saying that your mother is not an articulate woman but um it like feels like the thing of like uh you're at a funeral and you start like laughing because your body's just like what I what's this emotion what's going on yeah it's also maybe the moment in the film that you're both like oh this is really gonna be what the whole movie is because before that you're like hey maybe it's set up maybe they're starting really dark and then it's gonna like get a little bit lighter and I feel like that's when we were like oh it's not gonna get that much lighter though is that it's really gonna be in this

56:56 kind of range so maybe that's also part of it yeah it like I never thought about it yeah it is kind of setting what like tone and theme you're going to be hunkering down for the rest of the movie because if you think about the next ax it's about people already in that state trying to rise above it so like the students like you you know with the the Revolution and then yeah Montana yeah well especially because belgian's whole initial like all the stuff with the bishop right is a little it's very sort of like precursor to the story it feels like the setup rather the core story so once he has made himself into an honest man you sort of you have this question of like okay now is the story just gonna be about him him succeeding basically or like is there still gonna be bad stuff and then you kind of learn through

57:41 Fontaine like oh no it's not it's not gonna just be a happy story if a man pulled himself up by his bootstraps um so classic American Tails yeah it's not a willy American Tale that's a great movie I want to watch that movie now um yes um the streets are paved with cheese that's it that's the next part okay what was I saying Anne Hathaway she's great I like it I think that it also works because her character is also so brief I think maybe that level of melodrama would be too much if she were a

58:27 character for the whole time yes but I also like the melodrama because I am I'm a pro melodrama girl I just I want it to be Victorian I want it to be over the top for it this is what I have to say too in regards to this being in conversation with cats which is Tom Hooper's later directorial musical what a conversation that is situation every actor in this piece knows that this is a melodrama or at least knows the tone that they are supposed to be giving the most off tone I would say is like the tenardiers but it's so specific and like they're being a comic relief that it's okay this like if everyone had the same idea of what they were supposed to be giving in cats I feel like it could have helped it a little bit more but like more consistency yeah Rebel Wilson and James

59:14 Corden and like everybody who's trying to do their own thing they're they're not all in the same musical you can't convince me Rebel Wilson and Judy then forever in a room together just in their lives no not at all absolutely not so that's something I think about like at least everyone got that they say is a melodrama and like just like played to that which is I mean that's what it's what it that's what the text asks of its performers so um also oh one real quick moment which is in the lyric where they say like because you see her get her teeth taken out and then there's a line that's like get give it all up or something my mom did think that they meant take all of your teeth and she was like oh

1:00:02 it was I do think that it contributed that we didn't want to watch it too loud because we were like sharing a space and so we watch it with subtitles and having to also look at the words the words does add to the level of like despair yeah um her reactions make sense RJ do you um do you remember reading this article from Salon it's okay if you don't it's in pieces there was an article yeah from a salon that is titled Anne Hathaway Hollywood's most polarizing Star by Daniel Daddario and it was just what's the year on it I just want to know if it's like you know contemporary to the backlash or 2013. reflective of okay yeah

1:00:47 so that would have been that would have been one in 2012. so it would have gotten yeah um and it was just kind of exploring like why why was her why was she so polarizing why did people immediately want to like hate her like Anne Hathaways as like an actress trying to promote Les Mis and so you know explored a little bit about how um there was a kind of like a development of like younger actresses being able to jump from like these more like you know when you hear from Princess Diaries but being able to do like these big drama Prestige films um it's happened a couple of times with like Gwyneth Paltrow and azalewagger Jennifer Lawrence um okay but the Gwyneth Paltrow situation has a lot

1:01:33 more like politics behind it yes that has the whole the one she never she won for Shakespearean love which she should not have won for sorry well and then I mean she is now a polarizing figure for premium promoting pseudoscience yeah yeah yeah of of a vagina candle yeah ways of like trying to figure out why but like one of the things that I pulled out was that there was a uh a review that like called her performance like it's a sad puppy act pitch a tricking full volume while ripping off Sinead O'Connor and [ __ ] and it's Joan of Arc this performance doesn't just beg for an Oscar at grovels for it and I think there was her Persona at the time was very much like she wants the Oscar she wants it yeah and I think that shows in her performance I mean it showed with the

1:02:19 melodrama she was like someone that was doing what was required for this role and it was just kind of perceived as like well it's just one of those roles and performances that ask for an Oscar and but we kind of like use that as a way to like hate her of like being ambitious and wanting that and so like when she got her Oscar and when she said it came true like people like didn't react to that well they thought it was a little condescending which it's like for someone who has worked really hard that's what everyone feels like in that moment you know we just watched the Oscars and people felt that way and so it it I don't know it was I even remember being one of those people that was kind of like off put by it but I couldn't really

1:03:04 find it like why yeah I mean I'll also like admit like yeah I definitely went along with the whole like she is a little bit grating like yeah I'm not like uh above that Trend that happened uh there was also the like her co-hosting with James Franco and the Oscars that I think showed a little bit more of like the overindulgence a little bit I think for me it's very much the like I think as I've gotten older I've been able to like more embrace the like look people find theater kids embarrassing and that's just like whatever but I think also at that time when I was most trying to be like I do theater but I'm not like one of those kids you know I'm like yeah yeah so I do remember very distinctly that like freshman year my roommate listened to more musicals than I did like I love them but I didn't want to be like a stereotype right so I think that was for

1:03:50 me a part of it it's funny because I feel like Ariana Dubose is getting a little bit of this right now especially from her her like Baptist like song when she like introduced all the women that were nominated Viola Davis my woman King she did like a song which was like it was just like uh it was just a recipe for not the basket she was like out of breath but then also it was the bafta so it wasn't like people were bopping and jumping it's a very stoic odd you're just British people yeah it's just like fully like yes Angela uh Angela Bassett my woman King and then it's just like people like hmm Angela Bassett my woman King no Viola Davis okay it was Angela Bassett did the thing Viola Davis my

1:04:36 woman King Blanchette Kate you're a genius and Jamie Lee you are all of us but it was done in this like very earned like yes musical theater it feels very short it's not I love her but like not in a way of like she's she really encompassed me um I Am Woman I see Mario the dubos do not write the lyrics of this song um and is she dead did she come on record and say that it said it was a she was a collaboration um I feel like this is the epitome of the kind of thing that I don't know about because I'm not on Twitter and I'm really glad that I don't know about it do you know like I I am happily out of this cultural conversation because I don't want to spend mental energy on thinking about it yeah Fair totally fair

1:05:24 except in the context of you telling me on the podcast yeah um well that's Anne Hathaway I mean just to I to cap it off she I think she earned that Oscar this was a really great performance I do I see like removed from it now yeah I do see the like she's a theater kid at heart like she is a theater performer that like really values capital A acting um and she took I mean if if you were her age and got like this role you would absolutely do everything in your power to make sure that it's like great into like really fight for it and I also feel like it's one of the performances that is like sticks the most in my brain of all of the performances in the movie yeah

1:06:09 um I I think that she I think you're right that it is good that she has like 20 minutes in this movie and then it's like and that's it thank you have a great night um because she's allowed to just be the absolute weeping woman that she is that her character is and then be done and famously Patti LuPone uh when she was in the West End she would go have a drink during the second act at the pub across the street and then be back in time for Curtain Call thanks and that's the life you want yes yeah [Music] foreign

1:06:56 [Music] [Laughter] [Music] I would like to talk about Molly's favorite person Amanda Seyfried I do love her not a great a great singing romance but I thought she did a good job I thought she did a good job too she not she doesn't leave me with a huge impression and the way

1:07:42 that Anne Hathaway does but I also feel like who could play because that in a way that would leave me with its future absolutely yeah yeah it's like white bread you just gotta be it's Joanna from

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