Jon Chu on Wicked, Silicon Valley, and Defying Hollywood’s Gravity

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Before you were very famous, when you did the dance movies.

Yeah, the step-ups.

Step-ups. He showed them to me and he said, my son is going to be very famous.

He brought me right over and showed me the pictures.

Don't you understand how big my son will be?

And he goes, as big as Chef Chu.

He refers to himself in the third person a lot.

Oh, of course.

I know.

I know.

I grew up in that.

But I will always actually be Chef Chu's son.

Everywhere I go, L.A., San Francisco, it doesn't matter.

I'm Chef Chu's. From New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm a Kara Swisher with a bad voice.
But my guest today is a fantastic person, so hopefully it will drown out the noise of my voice. My guest today is John Chu, the director behind the new Wicked movie, which will be in theaters this Friday.
Wicked is a classic for musical lovers. It's a story about challenging power and perceptions that is always relatable, especially important today.
I've been waiting for this movie, and let me tell you, I have been very deeply moved by it. I think it's beautifully done, because John Chu makes beautiful movies, but it really went well beyond expectations for so many different reasons, including its stars, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande.
They star as Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, if you didn't know, and maybe she's not so wicked, and Galinda, the Good Witch, and maybe she's not so good. They are, in fact, spectacular, and their chemistry is off the charts, and they center a really wonderful movie and a massive production.
The choreography alone is insane, and Chu did a beautiful job bringing it to the big screen. I saw the original musical on Broadway with the original cast, and this is really something special.
He creates a specific kind of magic in his films. He did it with Crazy Rich Asians, another movie I really love and watch over and over again.
It came out in 2018 and 2021, adapting Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical In the Heights. I didn't like it as much, but it was sure beautiful.
And one of the interesting things about John is that he grew up and was shaped by the tech revolution in Silicon Valley. His parents own Chef Chews in Los Altos, one of the best Chinese restaurants in the area.
I have gone there a bedillion times. And in fact, John talks a lot about it in his memoir, Viewfinder, a memoir of seeing and being seen, which he co-wrote with Jeremy McCarter.
So we're going to talk about all that, how Hollywood and Silicon Valley have merged over the years for better and worse, and what impact our current political climate could have on John's efforts to expand representation on screen. Let me be clear, there are a lot of wizards out there trying to get us witches, and we'll see who wins.
Our expert question this week comes from Tony award-winning

director Bart Shear who's currently adopting the musical film La La Land for Broadway and will be

directing Dolly Parton's musical Hello I'm Dolly and I absolutely can't wait for either of these.

So it should be fun defying gravity with John Chu even though my voice

is probably going to bring me down. Let's get to it.
John, welcome. Thanks for being on On.
Thank you very much. It's an honor to be here with you.
I almost went to your dad's restaurant in Silicon Valley. I was just there.
And I was like, should I go to Chef Chu's and ask him a question for his son? You got to go. You got to go.
I've been there 109 times. Every Chinese company that was headquartered in Silicon Valley did their banquets there.
So I've been there a million zillion times. But everybody goes there.
Everybody goes there. Your dad is very proud of you.
What did you learn from him? He's an entrepreneur. Of course, he's surrounded by entrepreneurs and serves entrepreneurs.
What did you learn from him? Yeah, well, I learned a ton from watching him, just his work ethic. And that's not just him, him and my mom.
They built this from nothing. 1969 is when they started it.
And that's tough. The restaurant business is tough.
And I've watched him work really hard in the kitchen. Like if a chef was down, he would get in there and he would get greasy and he loved it.
It was like playing music to him back there. And he would draw his dishes, his new dishes on a napkin.
So I would watch him draw these dishes and then he would go make them and get sweaty and then go into the front of the house and wipe himself off. And my mom would be there and they'd be greeting the customers and they'd be the hosts of the night and watching that charm, watching them tell stories.
It was literally a house of stories there. And I always watched them go back and forth.
And what I realized is what I was really drawn to was the guy in the kitchen. To me, that's where he's like, this is where the work actually happens.
It is like being a director, right? It's putting on a theatrical show. For people who don't know it, Chef Chew's is just, it's so fantastic.
It's so over-the-top banquet-y. a very classic chinese restaurant but super popular among silicon valley people so it is like putting on theater and putting on a night yeah and even working with the chefs and the bus boys in the back and everybody it was it was chaos it was a pirate ship in my in my eyes and uh and he had to maneuver and get to the vision of what he wanted to do and And it was very rarely glamorous.
And I would sit there at the bar doing my homework. And so he always included us.
He always included us in the work itself, telling us what he was doing. But you didn't want to go into it.
No, I didn't. And not because of anything other than I think my parents were always like, you're doing other things, including my mom, who, you know, they wanted us to be president of the United States.
They wanted us, they thought we were the Asian Kennedys. They would, like, dress us up the same.
We'd go to, like, etiquette classes. We'd go to dance classes.
We'd go to musical, opera, ballet in the city. We had season tickets.
And so they really wanted to immerse us in American culture. They did not want us to feel.
I mean, I'm named after a television show, Jennifer and Jonathan, me and my sister, Jennifer and Jonathan from heart to heart. Wow.
What? It's crazy. Yeah.
So media stories, what the American dream was, that's what they wanted to achieve and everything that they did. And they, and they put that on us and not a bad way.
It was just, that was the dream. And they lived it every day for us.
So congratulations. You've got two new babies.
You missed the red carpet premiere of Wicked because your wife was giving birth to your fifth child. Is that correct? Fifth child.
And I'm the youngest of five. I have four kids.
So talk to me about this. This seems like a movie moment.
You rush from the red carpet to that. It was crazy.
So I've been working three years on Wicked so far. And I already had two babies during Wicked.
One, but when I got the job named Ruby over the Ruby Slippers and another one while we were shooting. And so getting all the way to the opening of the premiere and we're in a hotel room.
My whole family has flown in. My wife's family has flown in.
We're looking over the red carpet. And at four in the morning, I get a nudge from my wife and she's like, my water broke.
Of all days, of all. And so we just left our suits there, left our clothes and went to the hospital.
And my family went on the red carpet, which was very scary for me because I'm usually the one managing how they talk to Jeff Goldblum or Ariana Grande. So they were off on their own.
And while the movie was playing, the baby was born. Wow.
Little Stevie Sky Chu. Why that name? Well, I have some heroes, one of which is Steve Jobs, one of which is Steven Spielberg, one of which is Stevie Wonder, Stevie Nicks, and maybe even a little Steven Schwartz on this round.

So my wife said, she was born on your premiere day, you get your name.

And I was like, well, you have to be okay with this.

And I was fine with it.

My mom did say, that doesn't sound like a president of the United States president Stevie and uh I said she's going to be a rock star mom sorry oh okay all right so when you have others to bring to give to that that cause so you talk about your love of Steve Jobs I mean I can see Steven Spielberg obviously great director why Steve Jobs you a poster in your bedroom as a kid. I had every poster.
I had all the Think Different posters, like wallpapered on my thing. But even before the Think Different, it was, one, he was our hometown hero.
He was the guy who dreamed big. And we lived in a neighborhood that dreamed big and valued engineers first.
And he was the great storyteller of that. He could connect it.
I watched every Macworld keynote. I would sneak out of school and go to San Francisco.
We flew to New York to go see it. We rarely got actual tickets, but we get close enough.
And I just love the way he talked about the tools and creativity. And almost like he was just letting you in on a secret.
He was never selling anything. And I was really drawn to that connection.
And the tools that I actually finally did get my hands on because of customers at Chef Choose, they would hear my dad's story and give us computers, beta computers. It was sort of the dawn of digital video editing.
It was video cards and things were coming into play. And so I got this stuff very early and and I saw the power.
I felt the power of what that was doing for me. And so I just looked at him as somebody who— Did you meet him? I did.
I did. I met him.
Tell me about that. I knew him very well.
And I've watched all your interviews. I've watched all your interviews.
I know everything. I've seen everything.
I was very lucky. Well, I was at the academy awards uh and not because of anything other than our dance company that i had was performing it so i was there early and he rolls in with bob eiger into the uh to the vip like uh bar area and um i was like oh my gosh that's steve jobs that's steve jobs i can't talk to him i don't want to talk to him here i don't i.
I know that he probably wouldn't want to talk to me. I wouldn't be able to live with him looking at me like he doesn't want me to be there.
So I'm just going to avoid it. And he could do that.
He could do that. I know.
And my buddy who was in a bunch of iPod commercials, like, I don't care. So he went over and talked to him.
And as he's talking, he grabs my arm and pulls me over and says, hey, Steve, this is John. He really you and i'm like uh hi i'm from los altos and my family has this restaurant and i really love your stuff and you and you really gave me the tools and he's like that's great he's like you're from los altos like we're neighbors i was like yeah and he's like oh i know chef choose i was like yeah great and he's like uh i was like you know these tools really gave me a voice i didn't know what I was going to do.
I had, but it's the computers that allowed me.

Now I'm making movies in Hollywood.

And he's like, that's so great.

And I said, you know, even your commercial,

it's a mantra that I say every day.

And I memorized it and he sort of leaned in.

And I was like, oh, okay, here's to the crazy ones.

The Misfits, the Rebels, the Trouble.

And I start doing it and he just keeps leaning in.

And every time I stop, like I'm going to stop. And I do the whole thing.
And by the end, he's saying it with me. Wow.
And it was the most amazing time. He shook my hand.
He said, thank you, John. That means so much.
And Bob Iger comes around. And he goes, hey, Steve, this is John.
He directed our Step Up movies. You heard of the Step Up movies? And Steve Jobs was like, no.
But Lorraine came over. And she's like, daughters love those movies and i was like yes um and then i and then i left them alone the first line of your memoir was i grew up in the future and as you said you grew up in los altos for people who don't know it's a dead center of silicon valley one of the towns palo alto los altos um and as i said your your parents have the rest of the restaurant there You just talked about how it shaped you as a filmmaker that you use these tools.
You were also a tech and a drama kid. You took tap dancing 12 years.
You were immersed in the theater. Talk about these two twin things and how they fit together.
I think very few filmmakers have a technology love. They just sort of accept it.
I mean, obviously you're all in it now yeah I mean I think technology it just was a lifestyle like growing up that was that was what you did and there was new things all the time and change was just normal and in fact it was encouraged and and so for me it always opened up a new window and so there's always discovery And with the camera itself, that technology was changing so fast because I did not have access to all this stuff. So a film, developing Super 8 film, you had to pay money.
You had to get the thing. I had to have lights.
And that was just not accessible. But the people at the restaurant would give me these cameras, these digital cameras that were, you know, 320 by 240, 6 know, 640 by 480 was like the big thing.

And, but it gave me a leg up on all the people that, and I was young, I was like 10, 12 years old. And so those, I already understood the power of technology or the accessibility that it gave me and the advantage it gave me.
Even in school, I convinced my teachers to not write papers, but to make videos. And watching people react to what I was doing felt like I could be heard for the first time.
So those two things were never separate. And I learned a lot of lessons doing that by the time I went to USC.
They were not fully digital. I got to learn film.
I got to do 16 millimeters on a flatbed with splicing. And I finally understood, like, oh, a real bin is like a place where you put the frames of the thing that you actually splice, that you actually cut something.
And so I was sort of on that edge of the digital takeover. And through my years of film school, by the end, it was all digital.
But at the beginning, it wasn't. But you started out as a tech enthusiast but your memoir it seems you become more of a tech skeptic myself also throughout your career um mostly because i've gotten to know them i miss steve jobs terribly i have to say and his spirit um at least in terms of the mentality especially when it comes to the idea that hollywood should be more like silicon valley um talk about when happened for you.
To me, the death of Steve Jobs was a very big moment. I remember it to this day, but it switched from think different to move fast and break things.
And I pay a lot of attention to words, obviously. Talk a little bit about that shift for you.
Well, I remember the day Steve passed as well. I was shooting G.I.
Joe and I was working with some actors and it was a hard day. And my assistant came and whispered to me that he had passed and everything went away that day.
I excused myself, went to the bathroom and I just wept on the floor. I met that guy once, but his effect on me was so deep because I think even his ideas, he gave all the employees this when he was changing the campaign to the Think Different, he gave them all this book that had these poems of each of his heroes.
And he said in that in the intro of like, that it's about your purpose and about the soul of a company. You're not just selling computers, of course, they'll do the fastest computers, but, but like, it's about what you're doing it for.
And, and that's the philosophy that I grew up in. That's the philosophy that I, I, I loved.
Um, and honestly, I, I, I do believe that that is still true. I think it's more when the Silicon Valley mentality came to Hollywood, I was all for it.
It's digital. When I went there, it was film, film, film, nothing will replace film.
I was like, you guys are idiots. It'll change.
So you could see it coming. And every time Silicon Valley was right.
And I guess I got more skeptical only more recently when it shifted from inspiration to data. You know, Hollywood used to be run by mavericks and artists.
And yes, it's a business, but it was like you roll the dice to bet on culture that they were going to discover something new. And when it became about data, it was like run over by this idea of using stories to just collect your clicks and your attention.
And art and stories aren't about your attention. There is a patience to going to a theater and sitting in the dark and not having the control to skip forward.
And so that's where it started to change for me because everyone's mentality was different about what stories should be told or where the money was going to be told because money speaks so much that it just, everything shifted. Yeah, what was interesting is they resisted it forever.
You know, they did resist it for far too long. And in terms of their own updating of them and loud others to take control.
One of which was Netflix. And that was, was that part of your decision to turn down Netflix offer for crazy recommendations? You took less money to stay and premiere it at Warner brothers.
How much money did you leave on the table? Now, it was a huge box office hit. It grows $240 million worldwide about.
That had been your metric for success with your previous films. Talk a little bit about that decision because you are tech forward as an ally, but there's something wrong.
I agree with you. Something went wrong in the calculation.

I think that's where the fault line hit for me is that decision. Because had you asked me then, and is the argument of Netflix, which by the way, I love Netflix.
I watch Netflix. It's great.
It's a different medium, though, than I think movies are. So when they approached it was, I think I really thought about what their idea was you you want everyone to see asian as lead actors and beautiful then you have to have as many eyeballs as possible and we are worldwide and we're day and date and everyone will see on the same day and get it for free or get it for their subscription like that is what your purpose is and we fulfill that purpose and i think what hit me was yes but and i talked about this with kevin kwan the author was it's movies though are in this it's like a museum and people pay money to go see the museum it's the best of the best and you go there and you get people's attention and the deal with the audience is different the value is different they're going to pay you money to sit in the dark and let you take them on a ride and they cannot leave and that takes and someone's going to pay hundreds of millions of dollars or millions of dollars to market these things to get you to go in that has that's part of the story beyond the movie and that is and that's what we for always.
It's like, when is a giant company going to market movie stars as looking like this? Heroes looking like this? And in a streaming platform, again, this is at that time and maybe shifting, but it couldn't change culture. It couldn't, in a weird way, reviewers and pundits could always determine, oh, this movie's movie's bad and it's going to work but what an audience can do that no other thing is they just show up and their vote is in the money so movies like even Oppenheimer you're like did you think Oppenheimer was going to be a billion dollar movie no but audiences showed up and proved that that could be I mean that's a giant version of that but like and there's plenty plenty of other movies that you just don't think and the audience changes it.
So I knew that the real purpose of Crazy Witch Asians was to change the habits of the world a little bit and see it differently. And so we took less money and chose it.
We were in very privileged places in our lives where we could do that. And the way we saw that as the sign that we had to do that was there a lot of pressure not to oh yeah all the lawyers on that phone call were like because we had 15 minutes to decide because they everyone put down their offers at the same time and warner brothers had actually put less down than they did than their offer than they did the week before because it was i don't know they were being assholes but but.
But that was hard to swallow. That was really hard to swallow

because I was like, they're going to win

off of trying to slight us,

but I need that thing and we need to do this.

This is why we're here.

So I just think movies, there's a value.

There was something I saw on the internet

where they're like, hey, you know,

when an envelope comes in

and you just think it's junk mail, you toss it.

But when a FedEx envelope is in the room, that's never left unopened.

Because the packaging is some sort of value that you know something valuable is inside.

So you pay more attention to it.

I really do think that movies have a framework that people pay more attention to and bring it into their lives.

Now, do you think that's true now?

Because Netflix has only gotten bigger. It's lapping everybody else.
Although Disney's coming up with streaming is probably a number two player. How do you calculate these things now? You used to have a lot of power of production and distribution decisions.
How do you think about that now? And I want to ask you about Project Popcorn and how it impacted you. I think that eyeballs and views don't equate to attention.
Okay. I have to think about where the audience's position is whenever they're watching a movie or whatever they're watching, if we're doing something for TV.
I have to understand where they are so I can meet them there and bring them into my world. And I often think that in Netflix, yes, the movies, the TV shows are high quality, great storytellers, serial storytelling, amazing.
Those are like novels you can dive into. And that's its own medium.
And they have some great cultural shifting series, but that's because of their series and you live with them for a while in terms of a movie and a two-hour movie i think a two-hour movie and a streaming service is like nothing it's like you're microwaving your popcorn yeah exactly and i and i i see it because i see it in the movie theater when we show wicked i see it when everyone's cheering at the end and they're standing up like that has an effect and they want to bring their friends and that takes effort and it becomes a part of their life i mean look at the marketing effort in itself that we're representing these characters sorry about that you can't you can't avoid it good it's very good i don't think it's bad i think it's actually brilliant frankly and with a streaming service you just that's just not your business and so i i think i think it's still same. I just think the quality of all these things are getting better just in their own islands of how you consume entertainment.
What was your experience within the Heights? When I'm referring to Project Popcorn, this is when they announced at the last minute it was going to be streamed at the same time as a theater release. Explain how that hit you.
Well, I found out 15 minutes before the world found out. We had been in very close contact with Warner Brothers this whole time of making the movie because we got shut down during COVID.
We were in their final mix of it, which means we only had like two months before the movie was coming out. And so we all got together with Lin-Manuel Miranda and the executives, and we decided we were going to hold and wait for a theatrical release until this thing is over.
So when I got the call out of nowhere saying, hey, we just want to let you know, it's sort of over our heads, but they're doing this thing, releasing all movies on streaming. There was part of my brain that understood this.
Like, had we had a conversation and they explained this, me, of all people, understand the situation we're at. We have a movie.
This could be another year. Will this movie be relevant in a year? That's a valid question, but they didn't ask us.
They just did it. And I also understand that decision-making in terms of they couldn't be bespoke to everybody, but it doesn't take away how that takes away your trust for a studio that you've really fought for and worked with.
This is Jason Kylar at the time, correct? Jason Kylar. Yeah, I mean, I never met Jason Kylar.
I met him once at our premiere, and he's a smart guy. I get him.
I get him. I understand.
I just think that the way they do it is different. When you're working with artists, we're pouring our lives into these things.
And we understand we're not idiots. We understand where we're at.
And that really hurt me. And that really made it see like, oh, they're not in charge anymore.
The people that I trust aren't in charge. There's somebody above them that is driving this.
Right. It's making the decisions.
But how did that change the way you make deals with studios? Wicked is with donna langley who is impeccable taste i would say um having a proper box office weekend release kicking off the holiday season how did it change and then i want to get into making of wicked and everything yeah well i mean deal making is all different now now you've got to figure out like is this streaming is this not and you always have to know that there is a possibility whether you think it's theatrical or not they could flip the switch on you like right now we have like trauma against this thing and some people don't want to deal with that part of those deals and so they just take a little bit longer but places like universal who uh comcast in that company has a true investment in uh theatrical entertainment i think the people who held on to this idea that you could trickle down the value of a property by presenting the story in movies and continue, like, I think that philosophy won in the end. I'm not sure.
But there was a sense of like, okay, that actually could exist instead of the way it was, you know, six months ago, where it was like, oh no, theatrical is totally out. It will eventually go to Peacock, for example.
Yes, exactly, exactly. And those deals are interesting, because they can go on Peacock, and they can sell it to do it to Netflix and all these places.
I think that's the way we're going. But I think people like Donna Langley understand that and work.
I've known Donna Langley for 20 years. So she can speak to me in those terms and not some other, not someone the storytelling business.
And especially something like Wicked, where it's an IP that's never been shot on stage or in movies or in animated. Those are the things I'm drawn to because I knew that we could make impact with this thing.
And we can make impact at a time that it needed to be told. It's also a big movie, right? When I interviewed Ted Sarandos, he's like, there's either going to be the big movies and then everybody else is going to be on streaming.
So let's talk about Wicked. In the Heights, Wicked, both musicals, Crazy Rich Asians had a similar over-the-top magical quality.
It really did. And you said you wanted to create a delicious Wizard of Oz world.
Talk about your films, how they're connected creatively. And again, Wicked could have been a different movie, all green screen and CGI, but you built a set with a huge soundstage in England instead.
In your book, you said you wanted to find a balance between cutting-edge technology and old-fashioned craft between these things we've just been talking about. Talk a little bit about how you've moved forward with these films and that result in this one.
Well, when I first started in the business, I was doing like dance movies and I was raised in two worlds. I was raised in Silicon Valley and came to Hollywood and grew up in Hollywood.
So I feel like I have a very good compass of which parts of each world work for what I do. So I'm always, I will never bet against technology.
I mean, technology, when it's coming, there's nothing you can stop. I've seen it, I've witnessed it, and there's beautiful things that can come from it.
And I think in my first seven movies that I made, I was sort of, I was really young, learning how to make movies with a studio, with a giant company. These weren't independent movies.
They were studio movies with franchises and fan bases. is after I Rich Asians which was the one that I the first time right before that I figured out that I think I did my 10,000 hours and I was like oh I belong here so I want to do something that makes me really scared so I did Crazy Rich Asians and when you witness something like Crazy Rich Asians how that can change a landscape and change a group of actors and change how people see lead actors it's really hard to go back you realize the power of cinema when that bet pays off and right in front of your eyes it never goes away like okay this is where this is the this is the power of movies so within the heights we tried to do the same and in wicked um even more so this is sort of the pinnacle of that if i thought those three movies as my new sort of view it's my new view trilogy crazy rich agents in the heights it's new view of classic stories um that sweep you away to other lands but bring you home and and again redefining what beauty is what um family looks like um what a hero is what a villain is and and and actually sort of kicks the tire on the American story,

the Americana thing that my parents grew me up on, which was very helpful, but now for a new

generation that now that I have kids may not be as helpful. And what's the new story that America

is? And so that's what Wicked deals with. It's also perfectly timed.
We'll get that

for some reason politically. It's propaganda.
It's about misinformation. It's about the other.
We'll be back in a minute. Today Explained here with Eric Levitt, senior correspondent at Vox.com, to talk about the 2024 election.
That can't be right. Eric, I thought we were done with that.
I feel like I'm Pacino in three. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.
Why are we talking about the 2024 election again? The reason why we're still looking back is that it takes a while after an election to get all of the most high quality data on what exactly happened. So the full picture is starting to just come into view now.

And you wrote a piece about the full picture for Vox recently, and it did bonkers business on the internet. What did it say? What struck a chord? Yeah, so this was my interview with David Shore of Blue Rose Research.
He's one of the biggest sort of democratic data gurus in the party. And basically, the big picture headline takeaways are...
On Today Explained. You'll have to go listen to them there.
Find the show wherever you listen to shows, bro. The dance scenes are amazing.
I'm going to touch on them for a second, especially the one in the library. I don't want to have too many spoilers since the movie's coming to US theaters on Friday, but talk about how you choreographed that scene for Wicked fans.
It's this one. So talk about that scene.
And it has this, for people who know, it has this beautiful, you can see how much you love dancing.

It has a beautiful element to it.

Yeah, I mean, it's called Dancing Through Life.

It's Fiero, the prince, the rebel prince who comes into the school. And he's sort of showing the other students who follow all the rules and follow the story of the wizard and Shiz university that breaking the rules is kind of funny sort of loosens them up this is the beginning of what i call this or the wakening up of oz you know oz is this place that has the wizard has told the story that that you don't have to live in fear you don't have to confront each other about anything happiness is the number one thing follow the yellow brick road and there's a wizard that will give you your heart's desire and then this is the first sort of he comes in here and we have the spinning wheel this giant spinning wheel which sort of takes from like 2001 or from a royal wedding or things like that we tried to take images of american cinema um not just american musicals but american cinema and put them in this movie it had a little busby berkeley iby Berkeley, I'll tell you.
There's a little Busby Berkeley. There's even 80s John Hughes thing as you roll into the school, like they're rolling into the parking lot, even E.T.
at the end with the drums. So there are all these little pieces because we are dissecting what the American story is and what it means to us.
So in this scene, we have all these dancers and that spinning wheel, I mean, the insurance companies did not want this spinning wheel and it took a lot of engineering to build it and not just the tech of it, but also to build it into an actual set. We built sets, 17 stages we built different sets on.
We built Emerald City, we built Munchkin Land, we built a 60... It looks like it.
Yeah. It does not look like AI, i'll tell you that and and don't get me wrong vfx is in this movie we have flying monkeys we have animal animated animals but the vfx people would tell us build as much as you can we work with ilm and frame store like if you build as much then we can only make it better and so that was really fun to just like throw down in a way when we talked to universal we knew we we were doing a moonshot.
We were like, we need to define why the movie musical is necessary now and why you can't, you can only do this in this medium. They would not spend this money in a Netflix thing.
You couldn't get the scope of the Netflix thing. And this is again, nothing against Netflix.
I love Netflix. It wouldn't look as beautiful.
You just wouldn't shoot the, you wouldn't go to the moon in this. Like, this is a very specific thing.
So I love reminding people. It's sort of a nod to the golden era of Hollywood, of Ben-Hur or Lawrence of Arabia.
Yeah. It had a lot of those elements.
We can still do this. Hands have touched this and painted.
All the walls in the dorm room are painted, hand-painted. It's pretty incredible.
The costumes, the hair and makeup. Yeah.
Getting 300 munchkins in hair and makeup in the morning they're arriving at 2am and I get there at 6 and you only have a portion of them ready and each of them have to be different they can't be the same so it was an enormous task by a lot of people this was going to space then of course thereying Gravity, the main song of the show, although I would think there's a couple others I like better, but it's a fan favorite and a really crucial scene. And you do it a little differently.
I saw the original Broadway production with Idina Menzel and Christian Chenoweth, but Alfie is flying and singing. Talk about how you did that.
Yeah, Defying Gravity was probably the hardest thing I've ever shot in my life because it required all departments. It required our sets when we're building it.
We had like three different sections. We had the actual bottom with the staircase spinning up.
We had the top and then we had to have another top for the outside because we needed room for the rigging because she was actually going to be all flown around and singing live so you can't do this if you don't have cynthia rivo right you sang live even if you over laid it later just for people to know i mean she couldn't even do it without i had as backup options i think hey you know we're gonna be throwing wind at you like if you want to just lip sync to it she's like i can't i can't so we were spitting around. She had to train for a year to learn how to do these stunts on her own.
And that's with visual effects. That's with costumes because her cape plays a big role in this.
And there's a huge emotional core to this because you have to be as intimate as when she says, come with me. And Glinda's looking at her and without words is saying, I can't.
And there's silence in this. So as big as the number gets, we had to be very focused on what story we're telling.
And that intimate story of the separation of these two. And because it's the end of the movie, it has to be emotionally satisfying.
It has to be the thing that you've been waiting for the whole movie. The end of the first half of the movie.
It's a two-parter. Yes, yes, yes.
But we had to make it feel like this was the end of a movie. So if you don't know anything about Wicked, I think you feel, that's what was our intent, to feel emotionally satisfied that we were waiting for.
And there's even her falling out the window, which isn't in the show. And that falling out the window is she has to earn her flight.
So that when she comes down, she has to figure out why she's flying. And she sees her younger self.
And she grabs the broomstick and she goes up. So when she says, it's me, she really means it's me.
It's just taking the words that we've heard over and over again and giving them real purpose and witnessing and living with that purpose so that the words become even stronger and we see it in new ways. Yeah, it's interesting.
Also, she's the dead center. I kept thinking, is Ariana Grande stealing this movie? And then I realized, no, they are so critical to get the chemistry between them.
It's really astonishing chemistry, by the way. And we never did a chemistry read between the two of them.
We did chemistry reads with them with other people. And we never paired them because I never thought they would pair.
But when I realized that she was Galinda and she was Elphaba, like no question. then we sort of rolled the dice because we knew that they both shared this very rare power.
Their voice, this ability to do something that physically people can't do and spiritually they can't do. So they shared that but they're very different people in how they see the world.
That's right. And when they came together they actually I think had a meeting together and said let's on purpose make this a beautiful experience.
We have heard too many stories of when you get two divas together, like what happens? And that has been something that we all have trusted. Yeah, it looks like a love fest on the PR tour.
No. So every episode, we get a question from an outside expert.
Have a listen. Okay.
Hi, John. This is Bart Shear, and I'm a fellow director, and I have a really wonky directing question.
As you were making Wicked, what element did you plan meticulously for? Did you work incredibly hard to go a certain way, and it ended up exactly the opposite of what you'd hoped for? And was it actually better in the end? I hope that's okay. It's a little wonky, but, you know, one director to another.
For those who don't know, I've recently interviewed Bart about his play. He was directing McNeil.
He's executive producer of Lincoln Center Theater and is currently working on the Broadway adaptation of the movie musical La La Land. Wow, that's great.
That's a good question. It is.
That's a really good question. That ended up the exact opposite and maybe even better.
I don't know if it got to the exact opposite, but there are areas that I didn't know where we were going to end up and how deep it could go. There's a scene in the Ozdust ballroom where Elphaba comes in and she's wearing a hat that Glinda told her was cool.
And actually it's meant to humiliate her. And in the show, it is emotional by the end, but it's sort of a silly dance that she does.
She does like a witch dance because that's the conceit of the show and in our movie that just doesn't work even Cynthia is like I'm not a joke I'm not going to come in there and when she felt the humiliation I sent her and Christopher Scott our amazing choreographer and they worked out like how does she find her space, her emotional space and what they found is just these little just these little movements. And it's not a defiant, like, this is who I am.
And screw you. It was like, instead of the control that she's being asked to have over her emotions, she surrenders to her own powers.
And she just barely is there. And the fact that it's silent.
Like, I didn't think that could survive in this movie, in a movie like this, in the middle of a musical number. And the way Cynthia and Ari play this, these two women finding each other in this humiliation and being totally vulnerable.
And then Glinda has to walk in and strip herself of all the things that she holds dear. And they're both there not knowing what to do next.
And when their hands touch, she offers her hand out and they touch. To me, that was the most beautiful.
It's like she's going to teach her and they're going to do this together. And I did not think that we could retain that kind of silence and emotion in this movie for that long.
And it really speaks to people. Right.
That's not something you planned. Not something.
I mean, we didn't plan it at first. No, that's for sure.
Right.'s only when we saw it and started to get. Yeah, it could have gone a number of different ways.
So one of the things you also do, because that was a very human moment, right? That was an extraordinary human moment. Through the end of all these films, the importance of finding and appreciating your own identity, which is what you're just talking about there.
That hasn't been smooth sailing. You said you regretted the depiction of South Asians and crazy rich asians um and there was criticism after in the heights that the afro latino community felt underrepresented have you changed your casting and pre-production process at all to address that and wicked has a very diverse cast but it's quite effortless actually it feels like an effortlessly it doesn't feel like you're i'm seeing it happen if that makes sense yeah i mean i think that was that was the intent with with Wicked that it was that it's if you're re uh retelling a a timeless story a story that feels like it should have been there for all these years in Hollywood then it should feel like all these iconic characters are just it's just normalized that the kids in the in the school um are all sorts of people and shapes and sizes and, and the design is made for that.
That accessibility is just a part of a fantasy world. We might be the first fantasy movie where we have accessibility ramps and stuff for characters that exist there, and it's not really a big part of the story.
It's just these people who live there. And I'm really proud that we do that because that takes more thought in design.
It breaking out of the mold of thinking and in casting it's like Madame Morrible can she be Michelle Yeoh yeah she can be and you're not compromising anything I think that's the main thing is we're this is not this is not some exercise to compromise anything this is the way the world looks now in these classic fairy tales to actually imbue that is is something that was very important to me did you learn something from the previous experience when you thought that maybe you hadn't done it quite right? Yeah, I mean, in Crazy Rich Asians with the South Asians, it's hard because those are, I think, I didn't know, the argument was like, do you have more South Asians in those scenes? Yes, I would have, I didn't know Singapore as much as I did eventually when I went in there and I would have had a lot more different people and cultures that were in some of those scenes and I would have treated some of the characters in there a little differently give them a little more human side to them the fact is the book itself doesn't have those characters so it's hard to like just create characters out of nowhere so there are things that I'm much more hyper aware of that I ask a lot more questions because sometimes I think it's these blind spots that you just are learning at the same time and what I really learned was you got to talk to everybody, but also like you got to keep going. Like if you're on the front lines of this stuff, there are things that are happening all the time that you're learning.
Oh, you call them Latinx or not Latinx? Like that debate was happening even to this day. And I don't still know what to say.
Say nothing. But being aware of it is really important in hearing the conversation.
Thank you. So those are things that are hard, but that's what I'm made for.
I made a decision that if you're going to be on the front lines, you have to be able to take the bullets and you have to be able to keep going. If you can't, then what are you doing? Yeah, what are you doing? Absolutely.
So you did full physical sets, but you still are still a tech freak. I read you edited Wicked using Vision Pro, so editing virtual reality.
Did you really? I mean, I did it when I was remote. Yeah, when I wasn't going in.
Because usually if I go remote, we made a whole little system at the house because I have all these kids now. And we built this whole system.
But once I got the Vision Pro, I found it. It changed the game for me because I put it on, and I wasn't on a computer with my editor over somewhere else, which feels very limiting.
I don't get interactive with it. My blood's not pumping.
But with the Vision Pro, I could make the screen as big as the room. Right.
And I could walk around and pace the way I do in the edit room. I could lay on the couch the way I do in the edit room.
and then I could bring it closer. We were doing visual effects on it, and so I could give notes and use my finger to mark things.
And this is people in the Bay Area. This is people in London.
This is people in Canada. And 40 people are on this, and I'm on my couch, and I can look at it, what it looks like 20 feet wide, and what it would look like on an iPad.
And I love that. Do you see you doing that more?

I do see that.

I mean, listen, being in person,

nothing quite beats that yet.

But I could see us eventually, if we could see the same things in the same room.

I look at monitors, physical monitors now,

and I'm like, oh, that's going to go away.

That's going to go away.

As soon as these things are small

and are in contact lenses,

like physical monitors,

why do we even have the space for that? It's crazy. I'm'm always doing that i'm like but it'll get there yeah i'm a big i'm a big proponent of vision pro other people aren't i'm like it's the future doesn't matter directly it's correct um yeah so you played around with uh ai in the past as i understand it there's no ai in wicked that, if that's correct.
How do you envision using AI

in movie making? Well, I'm learning every day about AI. And this is just for creativity.
Like, of course, AI and all other walks of life are much bigger issues and bigger things that it's going to be doing. But in just our business alone, it's extremely powerful.
I think it's a new democratization of how you express yourself and just like digital video editing or having programs like in the 3D Studio Max or things like that a kid in their bedroom like me would be creating stuff and that would be a medium of something. There's no doubt that that is here.
I think when we think about how to tweak that, and we don't know the answers of how you're going to tweak that to make it what we are actually thinking is really hard. So I don't know exactly where it goes.
I do know it's really important for us to play with it and understand it. Because if we don't, we are the only ones who know what to protect or not to protect in our in our creative process and someone else is going to determine that like they did the last time uh if we don't aren't fully immersed in this so we can't be scared of it and this is happening at a rate that is way faster than anything we've ever seen and we've watched we've seen a lot of technology you know this this is happening.
Everything was built for this moment.

The internet, the computers, the flat screen, all that stuff goes away because it was only made for these connected connections that are happening right now.

No matter how many times we repeat that, people don't fully get that.

So creativity is like one little rock in that.

And we'll figure it out.

And we put value on what we want.

An audience ultimately puts value on what we think is valuable.

It'll be interesting because it's getting better.

Thank you. is like one little rock in that and we'll figure it out and we put value on what we want to audience ultimately puts value on what we think is valuable it'll be interesting because it's getting better but you're going to lean into ai you're going to obviously listen i will tell you this thing where do you see you using it in ideation you know when we're designing something it takes me two months with artists a group of artists to figure out kind of the zone that we're going in then another two months to hone in in on that.
So I think we'll get those two months out of the system. And I'll just be like, here's a hundred different things.
Here are the five that I really like. Let's start here.
And let's use these artists to start here. I will say that when I'm working with Cynthia and Ari, for instance, you cannot predict the things that they do in this movie.
Even if you had all the information of what they've done in the past, no computer could create the moments that happened.

Her wink at her when she ties the thing up.

These are all things that happen in the moment.

And that's what we mine in the movie.

Our editor, Myron Kirstein, is very good at mining the things that you could not have thought of in your bedroom.

You could not have thought of in a meeting.

And that is actually the power of movies.

And those things will always be sacred.

And I don't know how to even measure that.

We'll be back in a minute.

I want to talk about the moment we're in. Obviously, this is premiering after the election.

Unusual timing for you, but Wicked has deeply political messages and they actually dovetail

with today. She's

obviously pushing back against technocrats who want to spy and control Oz. We're right in the

middle of a surveillance economy. There's a huge misinformation campaign, and you make that rather

explicit. There were also, by the way, Dreamers protests in the Heights, but were obviously

in pretty fraught political times for immigrants, for women. The day after the election, you know,

everyone was like, are you scared of, Elon Musk doesn't like Kara Swisher, but they said, are you scared of him? And I wrote, no wizard that there is or was is ever going to bring us down. And I said, and if you want to call us wicked witches, so be it.
We look good in green. And I really did feel that.
It was an important movie to see for me at the time because what do you think the messages are? Because they do dovetail. You know, you can see Elon Musk as the wizard, someone who became mutated and toxic when starting off delightful, perhaps.
He was never delightful, but Steve Jobs was delightful. May I just tell you Steve Jobs would have hated Elon Musk today.
Thank you. I just i keep putting 100 fucking percent thank you okay i love you i love you um i think it's all of us first of all i a old man gaslighting a whole nation that this woman is wicked because she's confronting him about alienating a whole group of people in the society.
It's pretty clear. The issue is that didn't exactly happen when we were making this movie or when it was written.
Wicked was made in 2002, where we're coming out of 9-11 and we're about to go into war. It's America in transition.
Wizard of Oz came out of when America was in transition. Even the movie was made at a time where everything was in transition.
And I think L. Frank Baum always wanted to make the American fairy tale with American parts, which I think he was saying it was like optimism, self-reliance, and resilience.
And so for me, the real timelessness of it is that this is something that is a process that we go through and we get choices. Which road are we going to take? Do we rise or do we go along with it? Do we keep walking on that road? I think we always rise.
But we need artists and we need people to then remind us of who we are. And I think because I grew up in this American fairy tale myself, I feel very, and having kids now, I feel very defensive that these ideas are still on the table, that we do not have to go into fear mode in order to get something done.
And I think that this movie hits on that. Yeah, it certainly does.
I think it's going to be politicized. I'm sorry to tell you, but I think it is.
But Trump's rallying of anti-Chinese sentiment during COVID and even before that to lead attack on Asian Americans, for example, you wrote about that in your book. Are you concerned? And again, Elon Musk is anti-immigrant, but he has a special relationship with China, largely financial.
Are you worried about that returning? Do you think about that? You're making Crazy Rich Asians 2, by the way, or developing it, right? We're developing it.. Elvenist development of that movie.
I know, I read the ups and downs. But is that something you wrote about it in the book itself? Are you worried about that? Yeah.
I mean, I didn't think that would exist in my world until it did during COVID. It was shocking.
And in a weird way, I remember my sister calling me, and she was like like do you remember when we were walking across the street from the restaurant and that car pulled over and told us to go back to our country and it was just you and me and we were like really young we're going to the tower records and I was like no and she kept she kept describing it and suddenly I was like oh yeah I remember it but I laughed at that I didn't think it was that I just thought it was these people were ridiculous. And it hit me that there were all these moments that actually those things were happening all along that I just sort of ignored.
And, yeah, I'm worried that because it was just underneath the surface this whole time and seeing this election, you realize, oh, yeah, it's all underneath the surface. No matter what we've tried to paint over, it's just underneath there.
And in order to confront it, we actually have to deal with the ugly parts. Right.
That feels both scary and nobody wants to do this. Even in our movie, you know, we have this song, what is this feeling? And it's not loathing.
We always decided it's not loathing. It is you resist the person that's going to change the rest of your life because nobody wants to change.
And I think we have to get ready for the uncomfortable fight and the yelling at each other. We are all roommates all of a sudden.
Technology has made us roommates. And we're like, you live here? Yeah, I live here.
Put the dishes away. No, I leave dishes there.
And I think we're growing up in a way that now we have to look at our roommate in the eye and figure out how the fuck we're going to live with each other. Right, right, right.
I wish they were as charming as Cynthia and Ariana. But Hollywood and Silicon Valley are now intertwined more than ever.
I was talking to Ta-Nehisi Coates about the role of writers and journalists last week, and he said journalists need to remember that risk-taking is part of the job. At the end of your book, you write, considering what I've seen of Silicon Valley and Hollywood, I don't feel hugely optimistic about the future of that relationship.
I can imagine the face of the job at the end of your book you write considering what i've seen of silicon valley and hollywood i don't feel hugely optimistic about the future of that relationship i can imagine the famous old studios ending up as minor divisions of tech companies movies would act as a little bit of sugar to get your data for the benefit of advertisers not just your credit card number but your taste your sense of humor qualities that lie much closer to your soul i don't like the look of that future but if it comes to pass it becomes more important not less that we flood the system with our dreams and visions that we keep telling new stories about who we are and who we want to be this feels mis risky to me calling out the tech bros i like it i don't dislike it i do it all the time but and they do not like criticism. Are you concerned as this moves,

the kind of films you want to make?

Many of the movies require big casts,

big sets, big money.

Do you think filmmakers can continue to play

the role of truth to power?

And do you feel conflicted making sugar

for this data?

Well, yes and no on all those things. I think that the storyteller has a role, 100%.
We've always had it. People need leadership.
People need something to head toward. They need a horizon line.
It's why people go to strongmen. It's because when things are not known, they go to the person that's taking the lead.
And we need visionaries. Like the wizard.
Like the wizard. And we need those visionaries.
Now, I'm selling a movie right now. So of course it's like, oh yeah, movies, movies, movies.
But the reality is between you and me and your listeners, it's like, I don't know where movies are going to go. But the number one thing that I always learned was I'm a storyteller.
And that storytelling can be done in sound. It can be done in a design of a font.
It can be done in words. It can be done in many different things in podcasts.
And I think that the storyteller, as someone who embraces these mediums and owns these mediums and is able to put in the dreams and hopes and the optimism of what we, I think, all want this world to stand for, the great experiment to still live.

I think that's where we have to flood the gates on.

It may not be movies.

It may just be the other things.

Something else, yeah.

But we have to know that that's what we're doing, be conscious that we are storytellers in all these mediums.

And I believe that the human spirit will always live through those things. But we have to be clever.
You sound like Steve Jobs. I am indoctrinated.
He was always selling a phone too, just so you know. So my very last question then, you have part two of Wicked coming out in November 2025.
We talked about the development of Crazy Rich Asians 2. You also have have a musical adaptation of Crazy Rich Agents on stage.
Another movie musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. A Dr.
Seuss animated movie. A Britney Spears biopic memoir, The Woman in Me.
I'm trying to figure out how that fits in, but I kind of see it. How do these tie together? What do you want to make next? Because you're a maker and so is Steve Jobs and I really appreciated that about his life because he was a maker.
What do you want to make now given all these different things? What is your mood right now? I really appreciate you saying that about Steve because I feel that about him. I feel him whispering, make it, make it, figure out what was next and make it.
And also, you don't have to plan so far ahead either. Like, listen.
I always say we can plan as much as we want in this movie. But at some point, the movie starts to speak back at us.
And you better be listening. Because when you hear it, then you can lean into those things.
And I am not a destination person. There's not one movie that I dream of making and that's it.
Maybe Wicked was a piece of that, but it wasn't like once I make that, I'm done. I love process and I love starting with the idea, working with people, figuring it out and trusting that where we're going, we're going to build the thing that we need and love, that it's precious to us and it will be precious to others.
And so that's what I focus on. It's maybe why I have so much in development because I'm like, I don't know, it could be this, it could be this.
I'm going to work with these amazing people like Pasek and Paul, who are amazing music writers and Andrew Lloyd Webber, and we'll see what feels the right moment and what I'm supposed to be doing at that time. It's hard to do that.
Yes. It's hard to be quiet.
Well, my parents said to me was, you can do anything, John, because we have a restaurant, you'll never go hungry. We have a house, you'll never go homeless.
So any decision you make, do it fearlessly. And you have the biggest, if you think you don't have any advantage because you don't know people in Hollywood, you have the biggest advantage.
And I, that really is true. It's really is true.
Well, in getting back to your dad,

when we started, um, what I think real artists are as chefs. Anyway, what you've done here is

made a beautiful movie. I recommend, I have never liked a movie more recently than this one.
It's,

it has a heart. Thank you.
It's really beautiful. Thank you.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate

it. And I hope everyone goes and sees this movie and you make a billion dollars.
Thank you. And Thank you.
It's really beautiful. Thank you.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
And I hope everyone goes and sees this movie and you make a zbidillion dollars. Thank you.
And it's an honor to be speaking with you. So you don't have to go home and stay at your parents' house.
Pot stickers all day. Let's go.
All day. Hey, they're delicious.
On with Kara Swisher is produced by Christian Castor-Russell, Kateri Yoakum, Jolie Myers, Megan Burney, and Kaylin Lynch. Nishat Kirwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio.
Special thanks to Kate Gallagher and Corinne Ruff. Our engineers are Rick Kwan and Fernando Arruda, and our theme music is by Trackademics.
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