'The Dark Crystal', Director, John Stevenson

0:00John StevensonI have a strange history with it 'cause I worked on it, you know. And I, even at the time, and I was, you know, I said this to Jim very presumptuously at my... You know, he's the director. I'm just a sprog. I did ask him why the Gelflings couldn't be children in makeup, because that would give you scale.

0:30John StevensonAnd Jim said, this was his entire right, that he wanted the film to be an all-puppet film. I think that film would have, if the, if they... This is just, this is just my opinion, but if the…

0:43Jawad MirSure

0:43John Stevenson... If the, if the Gelflings had been human, I think that film would have a different effect. I think it would have a different place in film history.

1:02Jawad MirHow are things? It's been a while.

1:05John StevensonThings are good. I'm just wrapping up shooting the last episode of the second season of the TV show I'm working on for Nickelodeon right now, which is called Max and the Midnights. And the first episode, I think, drops at the end of October. So in about a month's time. And we're just finishing up, the end of season two right now.

1:31Jawad MirThat's awesome. That's really good to hear that, you know, you're working on something special, and looking forward…

1:36John StevensonYeah

1:36Jawad Mir... To checking that out whenever that comes out end of Oct… end of October.

1:39John StevensonI think it is special. I think, it's, you know, it's, it's... I think it's a un… it's a really good show. I mean, it's, it's got great scripts and, it's right in my wheelhouse. You know, it's sort of monsters and a quest and big, silly comedy. But we're making it in a really interesting way so that the cinematography will be, I think, a lot more sophisticated…

2:03John Stevenson... And cinematic than most TV shows, kids TV shows certainly, 'cause we use Unreal. And I'll be very curious to see what people think of it. I mean, I've had a blast working on it. I think it's a great show. We have a great team. And it's been fun, and I think it looks spectacular. You know, we shoot in 239, so it's, we shoot in scope, although we change the aspect ratio. But it does look very cinematic. We've got very sophisticated lighting. You know, I don't know. You never know. You know, you think you've done something really good, and people look at it and go, "Meh." So, you know, I hope people like it. I know we're all proud of it. And it's, it's probably, like, you know, one of maybe only... Can only think of two productions I've worked on where you get really lucky. You get the, you get the really good project, and the people you're making it with are great, and you love your crew, and you love the people in charge, and you love the project.

3:11John StevensonThat, you know, I've been doing this for, like, 50 years. I've only had that happen, like, twice. You know, Kung Fu Panda was one, and this is the other. Normally, you get a kind of a meh kind of a project, but you love your crew, so you…

3:28John Stevenson... You have fun working on the thing, but the thing itself is not that great. In my career, I would put, a lot of things, but the project that brought me to America, which was to do the animated, Saturday morning show of, Back to the Future, I would describe that the show itself, you know, is a Saturday morning show. You know, we tried to make it better, but at the end of the day, that's what it is. But the crew of people that I met in San Francisco, you know, are still some of my very best friends, you know, I've, I've, I've met in my life, and I had a great time, you know, making that show even though the show itself was kind of like, you know, meh. You know, just one of those things. But the experience was great. So usually it's that, and very rarely you get everything. You get the show that you think, you know, movie, TV show that you think is really good, and a great bunch of people to work with.

4:31John StevensonAnd if you get a, if you get a few of those in your life, you're very lucky.

4:37Jawad MirThat's amazing. You know, it's, it's really nice to hear, the authenticity in your conversation about, you know, how in 50 years you've done all these projects, and only two of them where you know, felt that it was a good project, the crew was good, and Kung Fu P… Panda being one and this being the other. But speaking of, you know, your career, and you talked about Back to the Future, no better segue than to kind of go into your beginnings, which is, I think you worked on The Dark Crystal, Jim Henson and Frank Oz's, film…

5:15John StevensonYeah. No, it was…

5:16Jawad Mir... As well as Labyrinth.

5:17John StevensonYeah.

5:17Jawad MirI'll give you a little bit of context about both of my segues.

5:21John StevensonYeah. Sorry. No. I beg your pardon, George. You go.

5:26Jawad MirNo. Please tell me if I, if I've mistakenly

5:31John StevensonNo. That's no mistake

5:32Jawad Mir... Said something that I wanna be, I need to be corrected at.

5:34John StevensonNo mistake. I worked on both of those, but I s… I started on The Muppet Show. I went to Dark Crystal from having…

5:40Jawad MirOkay

5:41John Stevenson... Worked on the D… on The Muppet Show, and then from the, from The Muppet Show, I worked, the first feature film I worked on was The Great Muppet Caper. And then from… ... The Great Muppet Caper, I got to work on The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, and then Little Shop of Horrors with Frank Oz.

6:00Jawad MirAwesome. So my little con… you know, history with Jim… Jim Henson growing up with the shows that I grew up with was Fraggle Rock, right?

6:13John StevensonYeah.

6:13Jawad MirLike, the original Frag… not the remake, the one that's on Apple TV, the original one. And Labyrinth, I never saw Dark Crystal as a kid. Never did. I did see Labyrinth in 1988, '89, I would like to guess. And I was 11, 12 years old, and it had such an impact, that I've seen that movie so many times. I mean, you know, the scenes and it reminded me even at the time of Wizard of Oz, which I had seen recently, just because, you know, there was a, there's a quest, you stumble into three different characters who are different, and you get to where you want to go. It's your des… you know, with Dorothy she wants to go home. With, Labyrinth she wants to find her brother and go home. And Labyrinth is one of the most special movies I think it's ever made. I don't know if it's considered to be a classic by a lot of people, even though it is. I feel not many people talk about it. I just feel it's very underrated, at least from my perception when I talk to people, 'cause nobody talks about it.

7:17Jawad MirLike, people talk about Star Wars, people talk about Willow. Nobody talks about Labyrinth. Before we get down to, you know, Dark Crystal, just tell me about your work on Labyrinth. What were you involved in from day to day, and your experience working on it with Jim Henson?

7:36John StevensonWell, my experience on Labyrinth was, probably less than my experience on Dark Crystal. I'd left full-time employment at the, with the Muppets sort of, I'd been with them for, like, I don't know, five years I think, starting in '77. So I think I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd left. But what would happen, you know, once... If you were sort of in Jim Henson's sort of sphere and he liked you, and you, a… and he liked what you did, you know, even if you left you got reeled back in. So every now and again, and I could always, weirdly I could always tell when it, when I was gonna get a call from Jim. I would just get a tingling in my Spidey senses that... And it might be months, you know? But I'd suddenly get a sense, "Oh, Jim's gonna call." And he would. Within, like, an hour I'd get a call, or maybe the next day, but it would be r… you know, from that feeling it, always I would get a, there would be some kind of thing from Jim, and he would be on the phone and he'd, and he'd be like, you know, "Oh, I've got an idea and I'd like you to, you know, maybe help me out working on it."

8:53John StevensonAnd that was kind of what it was with Labyrinth. He wanted me to come in and, take the three main, puppet characters, Hoggle, Sadimus, and Ludo, who had been designed by Brian Froud. Brian Froud, again, was the conceptual designer, as he had been for The Dark... Excuse me, The Dark Crystal. So I wasn't, I wasn't coming up with any designs for Labyrinth. What I was being asked to do by Jim was to take Brian's, designs and do kind of, rotations of the characters, and expression charts, and lip sync and things like that so that the sculptors and the puppet builders would know, you know, A, would have more information. 'Cause Brian would do a beautiful design, but it would be like a, you know, watercolor painting or some sketches.

9:55John StevensonAnd the essence of the character would be totally captured and be there, but the sculptors and the builders needed to know what happens when that thing got turned around. What'd it look like from the back, you know, or from three-quarters, or, you know, for the animatronic, mechanism builders they needed to know how many facial controls they needed to build in. So what were the extreme expressions that this character was capable of? Those things were not in Brian's painting. His painting would define the character. But Jim wanted me to, you know, take Hoggle and run him through a gamut of, y… extreme expressions, 'cause he was probably the most extreme character and actually was the most critical to the, to the plot. So I did, you know, turnarounds to help with the sculpting, and then I just did a wh… you know, pages and pages of different expressions in… including really far out ones that I knew would probably be too much, just to see where the breaking point is.

11:01John Stevenson"Okay, that's got too grotesque." And then they became a, you know, a guide, you know, between Brian's, you know, paintings and sketches, and his, you know, h… m… he was the overall control and kind of, you know, quality control for r… the representations of his creatures. But my things were also to help, you know, the sculptors and the modelers, you know, the, and the builders with information they didn't have from Brian's, paintings and sketches. So that's what I came in. And I, and I would... And I also did some kind of, like, production drawings. And I sent all this... I found them, s… like, a year or so ago, and I sent them all off to the Henson archive. I found original drawings from Dark Crystal and La… and Labyrinth, and The Muppet Show. And, so they now reside in, the Henson archive. But I did some sort of, like, conceptual sketches of things that were in the script, that were indicated in the script, just to sort of give Jim an idea of, "You know, this kind of thing.

12:12John StevensonWould you, was that what you were thinking? Is that how you'd see it?" So it was a l… it was a sort of mix of those things. But it wasn't a very long gig, you know? I wasn't there for shooting. I, you know, once Jim was happy that I'd, I'd, I'd sort of… Nailed the turnarounds. You know, since Didymus I did, 'cause he was gonna be seen as, full... Ludo was a giant costume, so he was easier. So Didymus was a small character…

12:39John Stevenson... So he was mostly a hand puppet. But, I think for, you know, some long shots, I can't remember if he was marionetted or sometimes he was seen as a full-length puppet with an operator working. So there were some sort of drawings I had to figure out about how to transition from one, from the hand puppet to the full length to, you know, he would ride on, you know, there was a big sort of sheepdog he would ride on and things like that. So it was a lot of, it was a lot of that kind of stuff. But it was, it was, I don't know, I can't remember exactly w… how many weeks or months it was, but it was, it was a short gig. It wasn't certainly for the duration of, the film, you know? And, you know, up until Jim's death, this would be the kind of thing I'd get a call a few times a year for him, where he'd want me to come in and work with him on something, helping him develop it, you know? And that was, that was great.

13:43Jawad MirYou mentioned Didymus. You know, the great thing about that character is even I remember when I was watching it as a kid, you knew it was a puppet, and that's what makes it more interesting because the personality Didymus had and the character Didymus had, it wouldn't have worked in any other way in my view. Because of his, you know, his persona that he presented. And you imitated Jim Henson. I've never met the guy.

14:09John StevensonVery badly.

14:10Jawad MirSorry?

14:10John StevensonVery badly.

14:12Jawad MirBut, you know, it's funny because I've never met the guy. I just, at, Toronto International Film Festival, Saturday Night, premiered. Which is, like, 90 minutes leading up to the Saturday Night Live first episode.

14:25John StevensonRight.

14:25Jawad MirIt's by Jason Reitman. And Jim Henson is a character in the, in the film.

14:31John StevensonOh, because of The Land of Gorch.

14:33Jawad MirYeah. So, when you…

14:35John StevensonI think that was an early try. In a sense, you could... In The Land of Gorch, which wasn't successful and didn't last very many episodes on Saturday Night Live, but those are the very first seeds of Dark Crystal. That was Jim experimenting with different kind of puppets that were kind of not fuzzy and goofy Sesame Street or Muppet characters. That they were kind of slightly more monstery and, a… a… and dark and creepy, which Jim definitely liked, you know? Jim liked that stuff. And I think that those Land of Gorch characters, you know, were the very first building blocks that led to Dark Crystal and Labyrinth.

15:16Jawad MirAnd yeah. A… a… a… and w… he doesn't have a lot of, you know, scenes. I think he has, like, two or three small s… scenes, and he seems confused and lost, and he talks in a very, like, you know, low voice, not confident enough. And when you start ta… when you were imitating him or trying to, it just reminded me of those scenes from Saturday Night. And Jim Henson's, you know, I saw Dark Crystal recently, and I saw it again this morning just before we started chatting. I, personally for me, when I was watching The Dark Crystal, I didn't like it as much as Labyrinth.

15:58Jawad MirHowever, if I put myself in that time period, the nin… early 1980s, to have something like that come out at that time 45 years ago when, you know, it was like four years after Star Wars, is mind-boggling. That if they were to do something like that today, they'll probably make it completely CGI.

16:16John StevensonYeah.

16:16Jawad MirRight? And it's just amazing the amount of character in those m… you know, puppetry went into, despite the fact that the film I personally didn't enjoy it as much as I enjoyed Labyrinth, but there was just so much technicality and so much hard work and so much character in those, in that film.

16:35John StevensonYeah, no, it's, it's absolutely a film that, you know, is unrepeatable. No one, you know, e… even if y… l… when they did the sequel for Netflix, you know You know, they were using, you know, a lot of puppets, but there's a lot of C… CG stuff in there, you know. And when they did Dark Crystal, you know, you know, there was puppets out on location, up in, you know. And I, even at the time, and I w… I was, you know, I said this to Jim very presumptuously at my, you know, he's the director and I'm just a sprog, you know. I did ask him why the Gelflings couldn't be children in makeup because that would give you scale.

17:28John StevensonAnd Jim said, as was his entire right, that he wanted the film to be an all puppet film. So he d… he wanted everything to be a puppet, you know, and that was the choice that w… that was made. There are a couple of shots in there, where they do use, you know, either, Kieran Scharre I think i… is seen running very briefly, in a, in a wide shot. And there are, I think, a s… a, there's a shot of s… the Gelflings on a river where they had to use children for the, for the very wide. They used, went to the puppets for the close-up. So there are a couple of quick cutaways to actual human beings. I think that film would have, if the, if they ha… this is just me, this is just my opinion. But if the…

18:20Jawad MirSure

18:20John Stevenson... If the, if the Gelflings had been human, I think that film would have a different…... Effect. I think it would have a different place in film history. I think o… one of the things that was, that was much in, you know, happening right there as possible. And, it was a strange time. You know, and I think it was only, it's five years after Star Wars when it was released, but it had been…

18:50Jawad MirYeah

18:50John Stevenson... We were working on that thing for years, you know. I mean, we were working, it was a at least a year of research and development, before they started shooting that I was sort of part of in, which happened in London in this big workshop in Hampstead. So when we were making Dark Crystal, it was probably, actively making it was probably only a couple of years after Star Wars, you know. And what you could actually do on movies even with the success of Star Wars, you know, the scope of Dark Crystal are fully, a fully built world. Basically everything in the world other than a few natural landscapes is a puppet or is a created, you know, environment. At that time, that's amazing. I mean, e… you know, even Star Wars isn't doing that, you know. So, you know, it, I sh… it, I have a strange history with it 'cause I worked on it, you know.

19:53John StevensonAnd I, even at the time, and I w… I was, you know, I said this to Jim very presumptuously at my... You know, he's the director and I'm just a sprog, you know. I did ask him why the Gelflings couldn't be children in makeup because that would give you scale.

20:19John StevensonAnd Jim said, as was his entire right, that he wanted the film to be an all puppet film. So he d… he wanted everything to be a puppet, you know, and that was the choice that w… that was made. There are a couple of shots in there, where they do use, you know, either, Kieran Scharre I think i… is seen running very briefly, in a, in a wide shot. And there are, I think a s… a, there's a shot of the Gelflings on a river where they had to use children for the, for the very wide. They used, went to the puppets for the close-up. So there are a couple of quick cutaways to actual human beings. I think that film would've, if the, if they ha… this is just me, this is just my opinion. But if the…

21:12Jawad MirSure

21:12John Stevenson... If the, if the Gelflings had been human, I think that film would have a different effect. I think it would have a different place in film history. I think o… one of the things that was crazy 'cause I sort of heard people, 'cause I went to see it, when it first came out in London. And, you know, some of those sets for Dark Crystal, particularly the crystal chamber at the end which is like three stories tall…

21:44Jawad MirYeah

21:44John Stevenson... And if y… you know, a Garthim warrior, one of those giant bug kind of creatures, is like almost seven feet tall. And so you can see, if you know the Garthim warriors, they're like seven feet tall. You can see the scale of that, of that set. It's absolutely huge. No one got that because they're all weird creatures. Peop… I heard people s… talking as we came out of the theater like, "Oh, it's all done with models on a table," you know. Like, people thought, they didn't understand the scale of that film. They thought it was like Thunderbirds or one of those kind of puppet shows we had on English television.

22:21Jawad MirRight. I remember that.

22:22John StevensonAnd the huge expense of building these full-scale sets got completely missed them because they didn't have anything human to grab onto. If they'd seen a human being in that set with all these giant creatures and, you know, they'd have gone, "Good grief, that's like a James Bond set. It's enormous." But because it was monsters and weird things that they'd never seen before, they assumed that everything was like a s… you know, a small puppet and they'd been shot on a model stage. So a lot, a lot of it I think just missed people about how technically complicated and how epic and huge it was because they just, they didn't understand what they were looking at. And I still think that if the Gelflings had been human, that you, that film would feel very different. And a human talking to a creature versus another creature talking to a creature I think is a... And actually this is proved weirdly, the, I s… I saw the stand-in kids, who had dressed up as Gelflings when they were between sh… takes

23:39John Stevenson... Would talk to the, to the people who were in the, i… in the s… s… mystics and, you know, creature outfits. And they were just very honest. You know, they would, you know, they would be like, "Oh, why have you got such a big nose," and things, you know. And there was this kid talking to this weird creature. It was really magical that kinda, you know, s… something... And the puppeteers would say in character too, and they would respond as their character to the, to the kids. That interaction was really interesting. But then when you swap out and put a rub, you know, a sort of rather stiff…

24:21John Stevenson... You know, because they were constrained by the size they had to be, you know. Basically y… you know, it had to, I think it was a very tight puppet 'cause Jim had big hands to do Jen. But you know, a rubber, stiff rubber puppet talking to a rubber monster is different to a child or a human that's got all these little micro expressions happening as they talk to this creature. So I understand what you... I mean, I still love The Dark Crystal just for its ambition, and the fact that it exists at all. There's no reason in the world a film that weird and that complicated should've got made, and no one will ever make another film like that ever again. Even if they wanted to do something like, they wouldn't use that technology. No one's gonna be building everything, you know, the way that it was built for Dark Crystal.

25:17Jawad MirRight

25:17John Stevenson... So it's a unique artifact, you know, and I…... And I appreciate it, but it doesn't have the emotional connection I think it should.

25:28Jawad MirYeah.

25:28John StevensonAnd I think it could have if the Gelflings had been human, you know, e… e… either children or small actors, because then you really would have understood, you know, the Skeksis are big and the Garthim are freaking huge. You know? And that I think would have added a whole level of scale and scope, you know, for an audience that they didn't understand when they watched it.

25:58Jawad MirYeah. I mean, aside from the scale and scope, I think maybe if you look at films like Willow, if you look at l… films like, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, I mean, Labyrinth, right? There is that human connection, and then there's that relatability.

26:16John StevensonYeah.

26:16Jawad MirAnd that's, that's why I probably didn't connect to it either, but again, in terms of a production, I could tell that a lot of effort and work went…

26:28John StevensonOh

26:28Jawad Mir... Into that. It's not just even about the production, but the designing of the characters, and then making sure that things don't fall apart or, you know, all that stuff.

26:40John StevensonWell, Jim went about Dark Crystal in a, in a sort of weird way, but a very Jim way, where he basically designed the world first, and then… ... The script came out of the world rather than the other way around. He had this p… big period of, research and development when he had Brian Froud brought in, and basically was funding, you know, a year or more of playtime, where Brian was designing creatures and things, and we were building stuff in,.. Well, I say we, I wasn't building anything. I'm not a puppet builder, but stuff was being…... Stuff was being built in the Hampstead workshop. So they were building like, y… doing e… experiments on what the Skeksis could be like and what the Mystics could be like. They brought in a mime, a director, a Jean-Pierre Amiel, I think, to try and teach the puppeteers how to do full body movement. They were, you know, they were building the, these Garthim suits of armor basically, you know, and they were trying to underst… You know, there was no animatronics industry.

27:58John StevensonThere wasn't like a whole bunch of people… ... Who understood how to do animatronics at that time. So people were being brought in from the theater. They had people, you know, who'd worked on costumes for the Royal Opera House. They had toy designers who did remote control cars, and knew how to do remote control. They had, you know, all these sort of craftspeople really trying to figure out, you know, how to, how to do things which hadn't actually really been done before. You know, this is still... You know, the film I think released in '82, but the R&D was happening like years before, you know, the filming. So I think, you know, we're, we haven't got The Thing yet. We haven't got American Werewolf in London yet. You know, we've, we've maybe just had Alien, which…

28:47Jawad MirYeah

28:47John Stevenson... We interestingly, I don't know if anybody knows this, but Jim told me this. He was approached to do the creature for Alien.

28:56Jawad MirThat makes sense.

28:57John StevensonAnd he was also approached to do, the aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and you know, I was a huge, big special effects, you know, nut, and I was like, "Why didn't you, why didn't you say yes?" You know, "Why didn't you do that?" And the Close Encounters, I think Jim very honestly, he said, "I'm not quite sure we could have pulled it off." He wa…

29:27John StevensonHe was worried that at the time that Spielberg asked him that they might not have been able to do, you know, the, what was needed for the film. He didn't think that they, everybody had that, the necessary skill set yet. And then for Alien, he said, he said, "I couldn't do it. I read the script, and I just thought that won't fit with our, you know, kind of image." You know, the…

30:00Jawad MirRight

30:00John Stevenson... The... And he said there were things in the script which got taken out in the final film which he said, "I couldn't have done." You know, I mean, it would have, it would have been bad for us as a company if we'd have done that creature. E… a… again, even if we could have done it.

30:16Jawad MirYeah. Okay.

30:17John StevensonBut there were some things in there…

30:18Jawad MirCost the family brand.

30:20John StevensonYeah.

30:20Jawad MirYeah.

30:21John StevensonBut he was... But Jim liked weird, dark stuff. You know, it wasn't the, you know, he... So, and so he was trying, you know, and you know, as I said, Muppets always, you know, they began as late night. They were never kids stuff. They were sort of o… on late night TV talk shows originally, and they sort of migrated to Sesame Street, and then that kind of… Gave him a different image. But Jim was always, he always liked dark, weird things. So he liked... He thought the Alien script was great. And I went... I remember going to see Alien with Jim in London, and, you know, we went to see it at, yeah, Odeon Leicester Square with, you know, I think a lot of the crew from either Muppet Show or Dark Crystal. It was a big outing. We, like, booked up a row of seats and I sat next to him as we, you know, and he thought it was a really amazing, you know, film. And again, I think he said to me that he did, you know, he said, "I don't think we would've, you know, I don't think we would've made the Alien as good."

31:26John StevensonBut he wanted to. And that's why…

31:30Jawad MirYeah

31:30John Stevenson... Yoda was kind of a sort of test run for a different kind of puppet-making that led into, you know, what they were gonna do in Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. You know, Yoda was sort of the f… the first, you know, can we, can we get a main character that's not Muppety, you know, that can, that can work as a, in a big close-up, you know, on a 70-foot screen, you know? And

31:58Jawad MirRight

31:58John Stevenson... That was a collaboration with Stuart Freeborn, you know, sort of makeup, you know, senior, you know, veteran makeup guy from,... But a lot of the, you know, Wendy Miden, you know, Brian Froud's, now wife, you know, she was working with Stuart Freeborn on the fabrication of Yoda, you know. And I went to see when they were shooting Yoda, and, you know, that was really interesting, you know. S… that was the first time I'd sort of seen a non-Muppet, you know, puppet from the sort of Jim Henson organization in a very different kind of environment than what I was used to from the Muppet Show and things. And it was like, "Oh, yeah, that can work. That can really work." Especially when you've got Frank Oz performing him.

32:51Jawad MirYeah, of course, of course. You know, it's funny you mention Frank Oz. He obviously co-directed, Dark Crystal. Yeah, that's... Yeah, he did. And, him, his voice as Yoda. But to me, like, one of the, we're kind of segueing here, but w… to me, one of the, my favorite Muppets, I think there was a relaunch of the Muppet Show in the early '90s…

33:21Jawad Mir... Where they had Michelle Pfeiffer on one day, and the next day they had some other guest. For me, hands down, the best puppet, Muppet ever is Miss Piggy. And Frank Oz, you know, he has done remarkable with the voice. And

33:38John StevensonWell, it's not l…

33:39Jawad MirHe…

33:39John StevensonIt's not just the voice

33:40Jawad Mir... And for him to…

33:40John StevensonYou know, he's the performer of those characters, you know. He…

33:43Jawad MirYeah

33:44John Stevenson... He's, he's…

33:45Jawad MirExactly, yeah

33:45John Stevenson... Doing the voice…

33:46Jawad MirYeah

33:46John Stevenson... At the same time as he is performing Piggy or Yoda or any of his characters. So it's n… it's not voiceover work. He is, he is the, you know, the life in that…

33:57Jawad MirThe puppeteer

33:58John Stevenson... Character both vocally and in terms of its acting, physical acting, is all Frank, you know. And it's Frank…

34:05Jawad MirI knew that about, I knew about that about Miss Piggy. I didn't know that about, Yoda.

34:09John StevensonNo, Frank…

34:10Jawad MirI didn't know that he was performing

34:11John Stevenson... Frank was performing Yoda in Empire Strikes Back. You know, Yoda's performance, e… every part of Yoda's performance is Frank. Absolutely. And, you know, and that's why Jim would always say Frank Oz is the best puppeteer in the world. And, you know, he is, you know.

34:27Jawad MirAnd he directed films, too, like, obviously Dark Crystal, and he also did the Return to Oz for Disney.

34:34John StevensonI don't think, I don't think Frank did Return to Oz. I, it, I think…

34:37Jawad MirYou sure?

34:38John StevensonYeah. I'm pretty certain that's not, that's not Frank. I think, I think that was Walter Murch, who was a, you know, a genius…

34:48Jawad MirYou're right. You're right

34:49John Stevenson... Sound guy

34:49Jawad MirYou're right. I don't know why I thought it was Frank Oz.

34:52John StevensonBut Frank went on…

34:53Jawad MirAnd the…

34:53John Stevenson... To do a whole bunch of kind of, you know, good comedies, you know, like D… you know, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which is, you know, genius, you know. So Frank kind of got away from, sort of fantasy and puppets. He wanted to get into, you know, like, sort of straight live action. And was very successful with a, with all of his films. You know, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is my favorite. But I worked on…

35:19Jawad MirI…

35:19John Stevenson... You know, Dark, Little Shop of Horrors with him, which is I think his first solo film. Kind of a transitional film… ... Because it had a giant puppet as a central thing. But you could see in that film, apart from Audrey II, the giant part, you know, the plant, you know, Frank is, you know, flexing his directorial muscles, you know, with the musical numbers and with the d… you know, the acting and the drama and he sort of... I think in his future work, he really kinda left anything special effectsy or puppety behind because he'd just already done so much of a, an interest…

36:00Jawad MirYeah. I... Go on, go on.

36:02John StevensonYou know. Well, I, when I was on Dark Crystal, I know we're kinda jumping around between Labyrinth and Dark Crystal, but one of the…

36:09Jawad MirNo

36:09John Stevenson... Things that Jim asked me to do, when I was working on Dark Crystal, they had, they had a brilliant storyboard artist, a guy called Mike Ploog, who came from comics. And he was, like, a brilliant, you know, draftsman and a great comic artist. And he was gonna do, you know, the storyboards for, Dark Crystal, the production boards. But Jim wanted me to do some pu… Pre-production storyboards, which I guess were ways of Jim just trying to explore scenes and work some things out before he got Mike to do the kind of the production boards for the film. And I mean, we did this really weird thing because Jim and Frank were co-directing. So I would get a week where I would, I'd probably meet with Jim, I know, on the, on the Monday, and he would give me a scene to work on to show him on Satur… to show him like, I don't know, m… midweek.

37:22John StevensonSo I get a couple of days. You know, these were not elaborate. These were sort of, you know, just a step beyond chicken scratch really, but they were, they were explorations.

37:33Jawad MirRight.

37:34John StevensonJim would tell me how he saw the scene, and then I would go and I'd get a f… few days to do my version of that scene, and then I'd show Jim the scene and he would give me some notes, whatever. Then I'd do exactly the same scene for Frank, but they wouldn't talk to each other. So I'd get the, I'd do the Jim version for Jim, and then I'd do the exact same scene the Frank way, and then on Saturday we'd merge the two things. So Saturday I'd, I'd come into the workshop and we'd put up the Jim version and the Frank version, and they'd both look at each other's versions and they would sort of mix and match. "Oh, I like that bit from yours," or, "We could put that bit there." And then I'd do a Frankenstein of the two, of the two versions, and that would be a kind of a, you know, a guide of how they were gonna go about that scene that then Mike Ploog would, you know, do the final, you know, much better drawn, you know, version of. And it was a very interesting experience because they had very different, not surprisingly, approaches.

38:41John StevensonAnd I will say that I've, as, you know, and you know, I adore, I adore Jim. And, but I found that Frank's cinematic, vision was actually more interesting than Jim's. You know… Jim knew how to tell a story for sure in the e… but Frank would have the interesting, you know, cinematic angles and way of approaching, the scene usually that Jim, I, you know, had less of. Let's, let's say it that way. You know, Jim ha… had a slightly more TV…

39:31Jawad MirYeah

39:32John Stevenson... Kind of approach to the scene. I, you know, a… a… and Frank was sort of thinking of the most cinematic way usually to, you know... He's, that's my memory anyways. This is going back a long time, you know? And so it was very odd. You know, you'd, you'd sort of s… sitting in a room with Jim hearing the scene and then sitting in a room with Frank hearing what he wanted to do. Very educational, you know? Especially for me as I'm sort of, you know, very raw and starting out. And then they would, as I said, merge them and…

40:05Jawad MirRight

40:05John Stevenson... You know, it would, it then go on its sort of journey to evolve into whatever it became in the final movie. But, that was, I don't know too many movies that have done that.

40:18Jawad MirYeah. No, that's, that's interesting that you shared that, and I remembered after, you corrected me on, The Return of Oz being directed by Walt Murch, I was mixing that up with The Indian in the Cupboard, which was directed by Frank Oz.

40:30John StevensonOh, yeah. Yeah.

40:32Jawad MirRight. Which was a great movie.

40:33John StevensonI think it's actually underrated…

40:35Jawad MirYeah

40:35John Stevenson... Film. It's actually, you know, I don't know why people really didn't like it at the time, and I think it's, it's actually, you know, a very good adapt… adaptation a… a… and very sweet and good-hearted and it has, you know... I haven't seen it for some years, but visually I thought it was great. And, but people d… really…

40:53Jawad MirYeah

40:53John Stevenson... Didn't seem to like it, and I th… one of the reasons they didn't seem to like it was they didn't like the kid. The, you know…

41:00Jawad MirOh, is that so?

41:01John StevensonThat's what I heard. A lot of people just found the kid u… unappealing, and that kinda killed the movie for a lot of people, which I thought was rather unfair.

41:14Jawad MirYeah, no, it was a good film. I haven't seen it ever, since the mid…'90s. I gotta watch it again. But Frank Oz, you know, going back to him and then Jim Henson, what a great duo. And you know, you talked about two separate versions. I've always wondered about this experiment, like if you took a script, you know, like let's say a 20-page script or even a feature script, and if there was a studio that had a budget to get three of the top directors in Hollywood, let's say Spielberg, Scorsese, the Mechas, I'm just kinda tossing out names, or maybe even Clint Eastwood, and give them the scripts, go make your own movie, and how they would do it with different actors or same actors or overlap would be interesting experiment to see that, not that whose film is better, it's just how different and what kind of personal elements do they bring to the table.

42:07John StevensonIt would be, it w… they would, each one would be absolutely, you know, with the same material would come out absolutely differently, I guarantee.

42:14Jawad MirYeah.

42:15John StevensonYou know? Y… y… you know…

42:17Jawad MirYeah

42:17John Stevenson... It's, it is. You know, it's such a, it's such a personal thing. You know, the things that…

42:25Jawad MirIt is

42:26John Stevenson... You know, the things that sort of motivate you or inspire you or that you want to, you wanna see are different for everybody, and everything gets filtered through that. You know, I mean, I'm doing it on my, you know, on the shows that I'm doing for this show for Nickelodeon. You know, I bring all my, you know, obsessions and likes and, you know, all those kind of things that I've, I've had all my life and that I've used in other projects. They just, you know, I, everything gets filtered through that, so when I'm approaching, you know… A script, it's colored by all those experiences and kind of, you know, things I've retained over the years from films that I've loved or things I've s… I've seen that I want to do my version of, or see if I can get a little bit of that to enhance the scene. And then, you know, that's gonna be true for every single director on the planet.

43:23Jawad MirYeah.

43:23John StevensonAnd that will mean that anybody could take the exact same script and shoot it in, you know, a million completely unique and different ways, you know?

43:34Jawad MirYeah.

43:35John StevensonFor better or worse, but they would all be different just because it says, you know…

43:39Jawad Mir100%

43:40John Stevenson... You know, you know, man walks down the dark street, you know, i… in the rain at midnight, you know? There's, there's 1,000 ways you can shoot that same, that s… that same thing, you know? You know, a big crane shot and, you know, a closeup on his face. Whatever. E… I think that's what makes movies magical and wonderful, you know? The fact that if, that you know, you can always be surprised by how someone has interpreted the material.

44:11Jawad MirSo true. The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, when they came out, I mean, you kind of talked about Dark Crystal already, like what you thought. Even though your work on Labyrinth was not as intense or…

44:25John StevensonYeah

44:26Jawad Mir... More as, you know, Dark Crystal, when L… when Labyrinth came out, you know, Jennifer Connelly, who was beginning her career, David Bowie was already established.

44:36John StevensonYeah, he was. He was.

44:38Jawad MirWhat did you feel? Yeah. What were, what were your feelings watching that film as an audience member, also as a somebody who worked on it a little bit?

44:49John StevensonHonestly, my feeling about Labyrinth, a… a… yeah, again, you know, there's, there's a, there's a part which is just boggled by the imagination and the invention and the sheer bloody willpower to muscle a film of that complexity into life, which is true of…

45:10John Stevenson... True of anything that Jim did, whether it was the, you know... It's Jim, you know, we used to say, you know, that Jim had a whim of iron. You know, if Jim wanted to do something, it was going to get done, you know? If he decided, "I wanna make a weird fantasy movie," you know, he would make that weird fantasy film somehow. If he wanted to make a, you know, a puppet variety show, it was gonna happen. He, once he deci… set himself to this is gonna happen, it would happen. He would, it would just make it happen, and nobody quite ever figured out how he could do that, you know? Especially when he made such big creative turns in his career, you know? Like, to jump from, you know, the Muppets at the height of their success to doing The Dark Crystal, obviously the s… the height, you know, the success of the Muppets, you know, gives you some leeway to try and do things.

46:03Jawad MirSure.

46:04John StevensonTo make a gigantic, expensive, you know, all-puppet fantasy film, I mean, that is a serious left turn that, you know, however successful you've been with other things, people are going, "Why?" You know, "Why not make another big Muppet movie? We'll give you lots of money to make another Muppet film." We get that, but a big, weird fantasy? And Jim was like, "No, I wanna do that. I'm gonna, and I wanna do it this way. This is the way it's gonna be," and that was the way it was gonna be, and that was the way it got made. So his ability to do that was, you know, still unique and I've never seen anybody, you know, have that kind of quiet power that Jim did. He didn't do it, you know... Again, this, it didn't happen with lots of Sturm und Drang and shouting and drama. It was just, "I wanna do this," and then somehow he would just gather the forces of the universe and make that happen. But very quietly and benignly, you know?

47:04John StevensonIn… inexorably, but gently, you know? It was amazing, you know? He was the quiet force. So I'm boggled that Labyrinth exists as well as, you know, Dark Crystal. I don't love Labyrinth, I have to say. I love, I love bits of Labyrinth a lot. I find Labyrinth quite a hard film to watch from soup to nuts, as we say, from... You know, I like watching bits of Labyrinth. I get exhausted by Labyrinth. It partly is very, it's…

47:39Jawad MirFair enough

47:39John Stevenson... Very tense. But it has that Alice in Wonderland problem for me, which is you go into a weird land, and then this weird thing happens, and then this weird thing happens, and then this weird thing happens, and then this weird thing happens, and then this weird thing happens, and then this weird thing ha… you know? It's a little, you know, there's, there's not that much variety or, you know, it's like there's an encounter with this strange creature, and then we go into this, you know, land of farting bogs, and then we go, you know, we... It's, it's very episodic. And I think individual scenes in Labyrinth, this is just one, you know, this is my personal opinion. Individual scenes…

48:24Jawad MirYeah, of course

48:25John Stevenson... Are absolutely brilliant, you know? But over the course of 80 minutes, I find it, you know, I find it emotionally uninvol… uninvolving, quite honestly. Or I did. Though I haven't seen it in maybe 10 years. Maybe I, maybe I've m… mellowed and I would feel differently. I definitely felt that at the time when I saw it. I was, you know, boggled at the art direction and the technical finesse of the puppets and, you know, the way it looked and as I said, some of the individual set pieces… But overall, it didn't touch me. You know? It didn't, it didn't, I didn't really care, honestly. You know, I… it felt, in a way that Dark Crystal doesn't feel for me, weirdly, Labyrinth feels very manufactured.

49:19Jawad MirInteresting.

49:20John StevensonAnd I don't really know how to quantify it more than that.

49:23Jawad MirDo you think it's kinda like now in the world that we live in today where too much ex… you know, ex… excessive of CGI turns people off, do you think it was the excessive of Muppet, like, the puppets and the sets and all that turned people off, or turned you off at least?

49:42John StevensonAh.

49:43Jawad MirAside from the lack of emotion, human element that you mentioned.

49:46John StevensonWell, I think, I think the primary thing is the lack of emotion. I don't know. You know, the, that's what a movie is. You know, it should be, a m… movie should be. It can be any emotion you like, or a whole bunch of different emotions, but it, you know, the m… a movie is supposed to make you feel something. You know, make you laugh, make you cry, both at once. You know, s… be frightened, whatever. You know…

50:10Jawad MirYeah

50:11John Stevenson... It, you know, that's what movies are supposed to do. So if you're not feeling anything, and I have to say I really, other than, "Wow, that looks cool," and, "Those puppets are great," and, "The art direction's nice," but I really wasn't feeling anything particularly. I found it didn't, it didn't really get, it really didn't get to me. And I actually had more emotion involvement in Dark Crystal. You know, even though I had problems with Dark Crystal because of the, of the, you know, the Gelfling puppets, you know, sort of a, they're pretty inexpressive. And, you know, the, one of the things in The Dark Crystal that's kind of, it's, which kind of shows you the power of puppets in a weird way, like the Podlings, which are very Muppety. They're the most Muppety, they're sort of the potato people. They're the most Muppety kind of creatures in Dark Crystal, and they're very unrealistic. You know, they, you know, they literally do, you know, they got the wobbly hands from the, you know, the Muppet Show, and they look very goofy and their eyes are all offset.

51:20John StevensonAnd, you know, they are much more appealing and much more empathetic than Jen and Kira, who are sort of living in that uncanny valley of not quite human enough to be human and, you know. Whereas the Podlings, you know, who are clearly a puppet, you know, are funny and you empathize with them, and, a… a… and they're given more license because of their abstraction than you get when you try and be human. You know, we all know what a human being look. No one knows what a Podling looks like, so you don't care if it's got wobbly arms and it doesn't move in a realistic way. And then that sort of lowering of your, you know, sort of whatever resistance you have to it allows you to empathize with…

52:09Jawad MirYeah

52:09John Stevenson... Those characters, you know, which is why you empathize with puppets, you know? And then you have emotion. You know? It's, and I have more emotion involvement watching The Dark Crystal than I do watching Labyrinth. I al… I just, I find I'm watching Labyrinth on a very technical way and being amazed by that, but I don't find myself ever sinking into the story. I always feel, you know, the story's very, it's very episodic and it's very manufactured from one event to another event, and then a happy ending at the end. And I'm not carried along by it. I still, you know, I still love watching it from, you know, a technical way and, again, celebrate it for the fact that it's unique and will never be repeated, but it doesn't, it doesn't, doesn't get me in the feels, I have to say.

53:07Jawad MirYeah, that's okay. No, that's okay. I haven't seen it in a while, but I've seen it a few times. Once when I was 10, 11, and then a few times after that, maybe in the '90s and the early 2000s. But you know, having said all that, I feel that what Jim Henson has done for storytelling, you know, there's only one Michael Jackson, there's only one Elvis Presley, there's only one Jim Henson.

53:37Jawad MirAnd it's incredible, the amount, what he, what he has done not just for kids, but for adults. And recently there was a documentary that Ron Howard directed, which I have to see.

53:49John StevensonYeah.

53:49Jawad MirI don't, I don't... Did, have you, have you had a chance to see it yet?

53:52John StevensonYeah, no, I watched it. It, you know, it's, it's, it's…

53:55Jawad Mirhuh

53:56John Stevenson... It's, it, you know, it's very nicely made, you know. You know, and it brought a lot of things back, you know, for me, you know, watching it. Yeah, you know, the world doesn't throw up too many Walt Disneys or Jim Hensons. You know, they happen very occasionally. You know, there's a handful of people in the history of film that you could put into sort of roughly the same basket. I guess, you know, Disney the most obvious, Jim Henson, you know…

54:27Jawad MirYeah

54:27John Stevenson... Ray Harryhausen, George Pal, you know, Georges Méliès, Carroll Zemmin. You know, there's, there's a small…

54:35Jawad MirRoman

54:35John Stevenson... Y… yeah, there's a s… you know, you could make a small list of people who had a very unique vision and saw it through and made stuff that the world had never seen before and inspired lots of people because of that unique vision and, you know. But it's a very small club, you know. I don't, you know, I'm, I'm trying to think whether you get much above 10 names in that club of people who've made… That kind of a contribution to the history of films…

55:05John Stevenson... That have, you know, made things... You know, I... The reason I got into movies, wanted to get into films without ever understanding what that meant, was 'cause I saw, you know, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, which a Ray Harryhausen film, when I was like eight years old, and I had no idea what I was looking at. It was, you know, monsters and Cyclops and a dragon and a skeleton and all this crazy stuff, you know? And I didn't know what I was looking at. I just knew I wanna do that, without any understanding of stop-motion photography… you know, cinematography or direction. I didn't know what it was. It was just an experience that hit me so hard in my imagination that it just made me, you know, just s… set me on some path of I've got to find a way of getting into that business. And, you know, I think probably The 7th Voyage of Sinbad maybe started more people on their, you know, careers in movies than maybe any other film.

56:12John StevensonI mean, I know Phil Tippett has said in documentaries that The 7th Voyage of S… of Sinbad was a seminal movie for him, and I think Roger... I think John Landis and, you know, maybe Dennis Murren. Lots of people who went on to have…

56:27Jawad MirYeah

56:28John Stevenson... Enormous careers, you know, that was... But you could say the same thing about, you know, probably, you know, Disney and Jim Henson and, you know, that these people put something out into the world that just triggered something in certain people who are in the audience watching it that affected them so deeply that they wanted to have a career of their own kind of like that. And that doesn't happen very often. I mean, I don't know, last... How many movies today have that effect? I don't know that…

57:03Jawad MirYeah

57:03John Stevenson... That's happening.

57:04Jawad MirI agree. I, completely agree. I mean, 7th Bad… 7th Voyage of Sinbad, I probably saw it when I was six, seven years old, and I still remember that one. And then also Jack and the Giant Killer.

57:17John StevensonYeah. Yeah

57:18Jawad Mir... That was… I still remembered that very vividly. But you're right. You know, I feel, and maybe, I don't know, maybe because we're maybe not in the same age group as younger people are, but I feel like after movies like, you know, Gladiator, Sixth Sense, and maybe a few handful of movies like, you know, Transformers, I don't think there has been any movie where people would be like, or any director... Maybe Christopher Nolan is one. Maybe. You know, "Oh, I wanna do this." Because, you know, back in the '80s, there was Lucas, there was Spielberg, there was Ron Howard, there was... I mean, there's dozens of names. Tony Scott, Ridley Scott, M… James Cameron, Michael Bay in the '90s. Yeah, you're right. I just don't... And I don't even feel inspired by watching movies. It's a very rare thing, like one in every few years that something will, like, have a hard impact on me. I just saw,.. Sorry, go on.

58:16John StevensonWell, the o… the one I saw this year that I think if I'd seen it, you know, maybe if I'd seen it, you know, at a younger age might have got me all fired up and, you know... Have you seen Love Lies Bleeding? You know, Rose Glass? It's…

58:35Jawad MirNo, I have not

58:36John Stevenson... Great. I just... Blew me out of my socks, that film. I love that movie. I mean, completely different from 7th Voyage of Sinbad, of course, but it's, it's just s… I found that film so, invigorating and in… inspiring and exciting, and someone who is like, you know, just doing really adventurous, interesting stuff all over the place, both in terms of the visual storytelling and the emotion and, you know, imagery. I don't know. I... It, so it, obviously... And that's a, that's just the film that I've liked the most this year. It, you know, your mileage may vary. So obviously it can happen, but I think, I think, you know, the thing in the... Yeah, tho… those kind of filmmakers from the '70s and the '80s that still have sort of huge cultural influence that, you know, you could tell a Spielberg movie from somebody else's movie. You could tell a George Lucas film from somebody else's.

59:36John StevensonYou could tell a John Carpenter film from somebody else. You know? They had, you know, even though they were making kind of Hollywood product, if you like, they were making big entertainment that was obviously designed to have mass appeal, there was a very individual voice. There's a big difference between a, you know, John Carpenter film and a Steven Spielberg film. Both are fantastic. I adore, you know, John Carpenter and adore Steven Spielberg, but you can... Just their filmmaking style is very different. Today, I couldn't tell, you know, other than occasionally when you get someone like, you know, Rose Glass and, you know, other filmmakers who... But for Hollywood, a big Hollywood film, I don't know who made it. Could be anybody. They all look the same. They all feel the same.

1:00:20Jawad MirYeah.

1:00:20John StevensonThey, you know... A… and visually they're the same because they're all relying on CG so much. Other than Chris Nolan, who, you know, gets a special mention for, you know, tending to do things…

1:00:33Jawad MirPractical effects

1:00:33John Stevenson... For real.

1:00:34Jawad MirYeah.

1:00:34John StevensonBut there's just a generic way, a kind of committee-led way of making Hollywood films, you know, that makes everything just... It's just stuff. It's just noise and color, and there's no excitement about seeing, you know... You know, and there was a real excitement about, as a new John Carpenter film. I would be really ex… you know, "He's got a new film."

1:00:55Jawad MirYeah.

1:00:55John Stevenson"I loved Assault on Precinct 13. I loved Halloween. The Fog, I've gotta see The Fog." You know? So, you know, sometimes you'd like it more than the other, but it, you know, a John Carpenter film or a Spielberg film… You know, a Brian De Palma film. They were, they were meaningful. It was like that person's work is special, and it speaks to me, and I wanna see that. I mean, I couldn't say I've got to go see, you know, this superhero film or this action film…

1:01:24Jawad MirYeah

1:01:24John Stevenson... Because so and so's directing it. I won't know. It'll be completely generic. You know, it'll be very professional and slick and everything, but it will have absolutely no personality of its own.

1:01:36Jawad MirIt has no voice. It has no voice. I…

1:01:39John StevensonNo voice

1:01:39Jawad Mir... I... Have you ever seen History of No Violence, History of Violence?

1:01:43John StevensonYes. Yeah. I loved it.

1:01:45Jawad MirOkay. Yeah, I saw that yesterday after a long time, and I had completely forgotten. I mean, what an amazing film by David Cronenberg. Like, it's just so s… you know, focused on l… a family and that's it. That is it, and it carries through the emotion for two hours, and it hooks you on and just doesn't let you go. It could've go… it could've gone in so many different directions, but, you know, again, that whole style, that appeal that we were talking about kept it grounded. And I hope to see movies like that now, but I'm... I think we talked about this last time when we spoke about Kung Fu Panda, I just keep going back to the older stuff more than I wanna watch the new stuff.

1:02:25John StevensonYeah. I mean, it's funny you say that, you know. When we have so many streaming choices, you know, these days, you know, and more and more I find there's less I want to watch. There's the…

1:02:37Jawad MirYeah

1:02:37John Stevenson... There's the occasional thing like, you know, I love Slow Horses on Apple TV, but, you know, I mean, there was that joke, you know, like, you know, 300 channels and nothing on in cable, you know…

1:02:49Jawad MirYeah

1:02:49John Stevenson... Back in the days of cable where you'd just scroll through the thing for, like, 45 minutes and end up not watching anything 'cause you'd spent all your time just scrolling through stuff that you just didn't care about. I kinda feel it's, that's the way it is with streaming.

1:03:05Jawad MirOh, it's the same. 100%.

1:03:06John StevensonThere's a few, a few little nuggets here and there, but most of the time I just look at this and it's just, there's so much stuff, and it's so generic and so ordinary and so uninteresting. I'm, I, you know, I'm... I spend my time watching, like, 1940s film noirs right now. I, you know, I would rather watch, you know…

1:03:27Jawad MirYeah

1:03:27John Stevenson... Even just a, an okay, not even one of the great ones, but an okay film noir from the '40s or, you know, early '50s is more interesting to me than watching whatever generic, you know, thing on Netflix or Amazon or what… whatever. I'm, you know, I mean, I'm an old fart, okay, so, you know, I get it, but.

1:03:50Jawad MirThat's okay. I relate to it, and I think, you know, talking to you about Dark Crystal and Labyrinth has been very fascinating, and I appreciate your honesty and your straightforwardness. I'm really looking forward to your next project. I should be in LA next month for a couple of days. If you're free, we could, we could grab a dinner.

1:04:11John StevensonI'd love it.

1:04:12Jawad MirYeah, it'd be, it'd be nice to do that. But yeah, thank you so much, John, for your time, man.

1:04:17John StevensonAny time. Always fun

1:04:18Jawad Mir... I'm excited.

1:04:19John StevensonNo

1:04:20Jawad MirYeah

1:04:20John Stevenson... I don't know what, I don't know if your listeners got anything out of that, but it's always, it's always fun to talk to you, and, would love to see you if you come to LA and, you know, we'll talk about anything else you wanna talk about in the future.

1:04:34Jawad MirPleasure. Thank you so much, John. Appreciate it. Have a good weekend.

1:04:37John StevensonYeah, you too. You too.

1:04:38Jawad MirBye-bye.

1:04:38John StevensonThanks. Bye. Bye.