'Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron', Director, Lorna Cook

0:04Jawad MirAnd I like your little painting in the background.

0:07Lorna CookOh, yeah. It's a beloved painting, so yeah.

0:12Jawad MirSomething that, a beloved of yours or...?

0:14Lorna CookWell, no. No, I have something I did on another wall, but, I bought this in, Santa Fe many years ago at a gallery, and I just, I quite loved it, and I thought, "Eh, I gotta have it." So, you know, we do that.

0:30Jawad MirI... Yeah, I get that.

0:32Lorna CookHow are you? You're good and everything is good and...?

0:35Jawad MirEverything is fantastic. Thank you so much for joining. This has been like 10 months I've been trying to get to you, so I finally

0:45Lorna CookOh.

0:45Jawad MirIt's, it's, it's, it's, it's been... Spirit is, has been an incredible film. I can't even tell you how much amazing it was and it still is… ... To this day. Not just in terms of groundbreaking visuals and all that, but just the arc of storytelling was just, you know, fabulous. So I wanna thank you and obviously Kelly, who worked with you on this, to make this such a beautiful film.

1:12Lorna CookYes. He was a great partner. We worked together on Prince of Egypt also, as heads of story. So I miss him dearly, and, it was a, it was a wonderful time to get to do both films, actually, together. And it takes that kind of commitment and teamwork just to get through these movies, 'cause they take, you know, a great deal of time, as you would know.

1:41Jawad MirYeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I'm sure wherever he is, he's in a better place, and may he rest in peace, and, you know.

1:49Lorna CookHe's a, he was a grand spirit, so I'm hoping, you know, he's well and good. And again, he went way too soon, but…

1:59Jawad MirYes

2:00Lorna Cook... We became good friends, and I'm grateful for that. That's what you do. You really have the gratitude for the people that are in your life while they're here.

2:10Jawad MirYeah. Life's short. Life is very short. Let's go back to beginning of your career. How did you get started? I mean, I was looking at your resume. I mean, Robin Hood, like way back, you know. I didn't realize you had started…

2:29Lorna CookOh

2:29Jawad Mir... So back, which is such an amazing…

2:31Lorna CookSo, actually, not Robin Hood. I was going…

2:34Jawad MirNot Robin Hood?

2:34Lorna Cook... To go onto Robin Hood if I had been,.. If I had made the cut for the second, training program that they had. I was in…

2:46Jawad MirOkay

2:46Lorna Cook... The Disney training program when I was very young.

2:49Jawad MirYeah.

2:50Lorna CookAnd it was such a, you know, an amazing thing, and Eric Larson was my mentor. He was fantastic. And, it was just one of those things. I thought I was gonna be a, an inbetweener on Robin Hood, and by the end of the day, they told me, "you just, you didn't make it because two of the nine old men thought your work wasn't Disney enough," which I find slightly ironic, you know, things later.

3:18Lorna CookBut that was the case, and I was just crestfallen. I thought, "I c… I can't, you know, I'm at the Taj Mahal of animation, and now"…

3:26Jawad MirYeah

3:27Lorna Cook... You know, now what? But I stuck with it. I stuck with it.

3:31Jawad MirYeah. No, the reason I said Robin Hood, it says on IMDb in between artist uncredited, I guess, which you just said, so it makes sense.

3:38Lorna CookNo, they're a little incorrect with that as…

3:41Jawad MirYeah

3:41Lorna Cook... They can be. But yeah.

3:43Jawad MirWell, then you started on Treasure Island and Oliver Twist, both of which I have seen.

3:48Lorna CookBoth.

3:48Jawad MirI mean, in the '90s I saw them.

3:50Lorna CookI was not on those films either, actually.

3:53Jawad MirReally?

3:54Lorna CookYes. I have to, just be very transparent here. I was already, by that time,.. You know, I'd left Disney Studios in 1979 to…

4:11Jawad MirOkay

4:11Lorna Cook... Join Don Bluth.

4:13Jawad MirOkay.

4:13Lorna CookSo I bypassed a lot of that stuff. And, we just... My last film there was The Fox and the Hound. And, you know, we did that crazy, bold thing of saying, "We're gonna strike out and make our own films," and we did. But it was,.. You know, you're young, you do that. So it's what we did.

4:37Jawad MirYeah.

4:38Lorna CookYeah. I'm... And sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but, you know…

4:41Jawad MirNo

4:41Lorna Cook... Those, I can't take credit for those films.

4:45Jawad MirOf course, of course. But tell me how... What inspired you to be an animator? Forget Don Bluth, forget Disney.

4:51Lorna CookBluth and all of that? Yeah.

4:53Jawad MirYeah.

4:53Lorna CookWell, I wanted to be a, an artist from a very young age, and I, you know, grew up in Burbank, and there was Disney Studios.

5:02Jawad MirYeah.

5:02Lorna CookAnd I was always cognizant of that. But more than that alone, I loved animation. As a little kid, I drew, you know, when I was very young. But I thought, my trajectory would be as a fine artist, so I was accepted to ArtCenter College of Design and was there for about a year and a half. I didn't graduate. It was, there were a couple of circumstances financially.

5:30Jawad MirSure.

5:30Lorna CookMy older sister was going to college, and it was just one of those things, and I thought, again, it was the end of the world, but it was not because I just had an epiphany. I s… I... It sounds crazy, but I went to see Lady and the Tramp in a theater, and there were, like, three people in the theater, and I just declared, I said, "That's what I wanna do." And the road opened up because, a neighbor of my family's was working at Disney, and then she told me about the training program. And I put together my portfolio, and they accepted me. So that was the flashpoint, you know, watching Lady and the Tramp with tears coming down my eyes. I mean, that's what I wanna do, so.

6:16Jawad MirYeah.

6:17Lorna CookYeah.

6:17Jawad MirYeah, no, that's, that's beautiful. You know, Disney films, obviously, you know, in the '30s, well, with Snow White in 1939, and '40s, '50s, '60s, were really some of the most memorable ones, the ones that you mentioned, right? Lady and the Tramp. You have '70s Robin Hood, you have 101 Dalmatians. But then for whatever reason, to me personally, it, I don't have any recollection of Disney animated films between, you know, after Robin Hood up until I would say Rescuers Down Under and Little Mermaid. That's when the sort of revamp happened.

6:55Lorna CookIt did, yeah.

6:56Jawad MirYeah. But between that time, I think with American Tail, you know, and we're back, Land Before Time, and all that stuff, kind of took a giant leap forward. What was it working on films like that? Because, I mean, to have somebody else in that domain besides Disney, you know, nowadays it's very common because of technology. But back then, what was, what was that leap of faith like?

7:25Lorna CookWell, you know, again, being young and motivated is a great tool right there. But…

7:35Jawad MirYeah

7:35Lorna Cook... Things were getting stale at the studio, at Disney Studio. And yes, by then I had met Don Bluth and my, ex-husband, John Pomeroy, and we just wanted to see if we could push the envelope and, you know, get back some of the qualities and the things that we grew up with loving, as you said. And it was just, it was a leap of faith. And, you know, they didn't like it. And competition, I think healthy competition is a terrific thing. We need it…

8:08Jawad MirRight

8:09Lorna Cook... In everything. And, I think it opened the doors for many people, and it also I think made the company Disney take a look at things and say, "Hey, we've gotta try harder," and, you know…

8:23Jawad MirYeah

8:23Lorna Cook... Really raise the bar too, which they did, you know, as you said, when the kind of second renaissance took place with, Little Mermaid and onward. But it was... You know, looking back, I thought, "H… how did we do that?" But we did.

8:40Jawad MirYeah.

8:41Lorna CookAnd we wanted to learn. We really wanted to teach ourselves and push further than we were getting at the time.

8:49Jawad MirRight. What did you learn from Don working with him, you know, all that time and all the films that you guys did in the '80s, early '80s, mid '80s?

8:59Lorna CookWell, you know, there are seasons with every person you work with, and I worked with Don Bluth for close to 11 years after leaving Disney Studios. And, you know, number one, he was very encouraging to women. When I was at, Disney Studios and I was one of five women who were made animators primarily because of him really saying, "Hey, these girls have some talent. Let's, you know, en… encourage it." So that was a, I'd say, a major thing. And I, you know, was, I was able to do many jobs. We were on our own, so you had to be very nimble. And, you know, he had a particular kind of storytelling. I mean, he was from the Disney legacy and all. But I think one of the most interesting times was when we moved to Ireland and were, you know, doing Land Before Time, training young animators, young Irish animators who, you know, the week before were, many were flipping burgers and doing things and, you know, some were…

10:11Lorna Cook... Out of school. Very talented bunch of people, really enjoyable, you know. And we were making movies, so it was kind of doing double duty, if you will. But I have ma… many memories. But I think towards the end of, being in Ireland, I was, I was ready to come home. I did a, like a two and a half year, stint there. Many people stayed, and, I wanted to move on with things. And then I got the…

10:44Jawad MirYeah

10:44Lorna Cook... Opportunity to work at Disney again. Don Hahn reached out and said, "Would you like to come and work on Beauty and the Beast?" And I thought, "Yes, I would." So, you know, that was a whole other new, journey.

11:02Jawad MirYeah. I mean, you worked on Beauty and the Beast, which was nominated for an Oscar. Then you worked on Lion King. I think it was as, for young Simba, right? At least that's what IMDb says.

11:13Lorna CookOn Lion King, I made a decision to go into storyboarding.

11:19Jawad MirOkay. Go into storyboarding.

11:20Lorna CookI did, do some animation on it. I did some adult Simba later. But I thought, "You know, I love being an animator." I could see where things were kind of going even there because there were some CG elements that they were using, starting to use.

11:37Jawad MirYep.

11:38Lorna CookThey did in Beauty and then in Lion King, you know, crowds and wildebeest herds and et cetera. And I thought I liked the idea of having, you know, a bigger playing field. And so when you're storyboarding and you get a sequence, you really are kind of mapping out the blueprint of the story. It's, it, you know, you're, you're posing the characters, you're acting, the cinematography, pacing, all of that great stuff just is to me a really enjoyable… Type of work to do, and I learned from my fellow story artists. You know, it was a drop in the mix there and off you go. And, I have Brenda Chapman to thank very much, in terms of just kind of guiding me and when you're an animator and you're working with pencil and paper and you're very tight and the whole thing, and I remember she handed me a China marker and said, "Try this."

12:41Lorna CookAnd I did, and all of a sudden the kind of visceral feeling it had, and you could get these, you know, really sharp darks, and it just felt really good to draw that way. And, I've since, you know, on Storyboard Pro, you know, I'm like, until I can get the right kind of texture out of, you know, my pen and everything, it's, it's, it's a different kind of thing. But I really enjoyed boarding and still do on occasion. It's very different now. You know, there's no paper anymore. And I'm, I, you know, it's just the way of the world, and there's a lot more that's being attached to even creating a storyboard. You know, the things have become more sophisticated. People wanna see more. I mean, you're really, to me you're, you're kind of overstepping in some areas where you're doing, you know, the editor's job and previs and there's so many new tools.

13:45Lorna CookI think at the end of the day, tell a good story.

13:48Jawad MirYeah.

13:48Lorna CookIf you can have all the bells and whistles in the world, but if you're not really telling a compelling visual story…

13:56Jawad MirYeah

13:56Lorna Cook... And making you feel something, even in the boards, that's where it starts. And, that's why I just really enjoy doing that. So, yeah.

14:07Jawad MirYeah, no. A fine example of what you just said is if you look at animations of the '80s, right? Let's say American Tail or Land Before Time, and you compare to what's taking place nowadays, nothing supersedes the story of a... You know, Land Before Time is a very special film, so is An American Tail. It's

14:29Lorna CookYeah. Yeah

14:30Jawad Mir... It's deeply rooted into, you know, Dinosaur I think was more like a fascination with the kids, but there was just so much good messaging in there. So many good characters. And An American Tail was all about just, you know, fitting in

14:44Lorna CookYeah

14:44Jawad Mir... As most of us, have.

14:46Lorna CookThe outsider. Yeah.

14:46Jawad MirAnd that's, yeah, and that's what resonates with people as opposed to, you know, generating nonstop sequels because that's just the way, you know, making money is. Which is, which I understand. There's a business side to things. I get that.

15:02Lorna CookYou know, I do, too. Commerce is there, you know? They wanna create…

15:07Jawad MirYeah

15:07Lorna Cook... You know, and make money, but I don't know. I feel very... I think there's so much content going on now. I mean, we know…

15:16Jawad MirThere was

15:17Lorna Cook... The era we're living in and, you know, how many hours can you spend watching streaming? How many thi… I really, I hate to say it, I think there's a lot of distraction going on, too, and I think that's a little, it's a little dangerous, you know? We wanna be entertained, and we want compelling stories, and there's plenty of it out there, but, you know, these stories we do tell really shape people and change people and they matter. They do. Honestly, Jawad, that's what I... They matter in ways that sometimes you can't even…

15:57Jawad MirSure

15:58Lorna Cook... You know, imagine. I mean, I'll tell you just a brief story.

16:03Jawad MirSure

16:05Lorna Cook... I was contacted by Netta DeMayo, who operates Return to Freedom in Lompoc, California, and that's where Spirit the horse that we used as the model is still there. He's 28 years old, feisty as ever, beautiful. And she reached out to me be… and I couldn't get to the phone at the time, and she said, "I have a young man here who came from Denmark to meet Spirit." and I am reading it, and she said that he was, going to take his life, and after he watched the movie he decided not to. And she sent me these photos of this young man, the most beautiful photos with him and this horse. And Spirit is a really, I mean, he's a stallion. He could, you know, buck that kid off, you know, 10 yards if he wanted to. He was just so compassionate with this young man, and the photos were so beautiful. And I thought, when I hear something like that, I, you know, it just, it really solidifies the idea to me, if you're going to make something, make it count.

17:17Lorna CookAnd it can have humor, and it can have all the elements that the studios are wanting and seeking and all of that, but the power of the story, it, you can't, you can't imagine how it will reach somebody. And I've had this throughout this, the last 20 years, believe it or not, Jawad, where, "I lo… I love your movie and I..." And people are hungry for hope, for goodness.

17:48Jawad MirYes. Yes.

17:50Lorna CookAnd…

17:50Jawad MirBecause I believe at the end of the day we are all vulnerable. We are all looking for something to boost ourself, boot us, b… boost us up, no, even if we don't admit it. And that's why when you see, like, what's the, what's that terminology? Oh, God. Underdog.

18:10Lorna CookYeah.

18:10Jawad MirYou know, like, you, everybody resonates with it and everybody roots for that character.

18:16Lorna CookOf course. Yeah

18:17Jawad Mir... Right? And that's, and that's what it is, and I learned this… You know, obviously I've been in interest of making films since Jurassic Park came out. But I, you know, made a lot of other stuff, but I genuinely started making films that, you know, socially, politically, human rights based…

18:38Lorna CookGreat

18:38Jawad Mir... At least for now, about 12 years ago. And yeah, they're not making box office killer money you know, like Lion King would or Jurassic Park would. But, you know, when you have a screening and you see people just coming up to you and just talking to you, and then you see in their eyes, they don't even need to say anything, that how much impact it has. And that's it. That's, that's pretty much... You know, at the end of the day, you have to pay your bills and mortgage, of course that's important too.

19:04Lorna CookYeah.

19:04Jawad MirBut that general feeling sits with you for the rest of your life.

19:09Lorna CookAbsolutely. Absolutely. And like you said, you know, it has to be... In our business, you're not an auteur, very few are. You're, you're going to be working with a large group of people, making hopefully something that's recognized on a commercial level, and you've got some real parameters a lot of times. You've got a lot of people to, answer to. Everybody's got an opinion. It's so subjective. It can wear you out. And I think just, you know, as a director, I mean, you've got to stick to your guns. You've got to be reasonable, you know?

19:49Jawad MirYes.

19:49Lorna CookHowever, there are a couple of times I remember in Spirit where I wanted to do something, and, "Oh, we can't, we can't do that." And I had to just deal with it, you know? And, I think it would have added to the movie, you know, but that's... What can I say? That's probably with every movie that gets made.

20:12Jawad MirYeah.

20:12Lorna CookAnd then you have to let it go at some point. But…

20:15Jawad MirYou gotta choose your battles, right? So...

20:17Lorna CookYou do, absolutely.

20:19Jawad MirYeah.

20:19Lorna CookThat's a, that's a very real, kind of mantra to live by when you're in film and making movies, because it can be so rough, and it's not for the faint of heart, that's for sure.

20:35Jawad MirYeah.

20:35Lorna CookYou know?

20:35Jawad MirYeah.

20:35Lorna CookSo when I'm talking to young, hopeful animators and people who wanna get into animation, and that seems to be happening lately, I've got a couple of young women I've been talking to, you know, I'm, I'm very, candid with them. "You wanna do this? There are a lot of people who are competing for these jobs now." It's very popular. There are more women in animation now than ever before, which is terrific. But you have to stay the course. You have to, you know, really commit to this. And like any job, you know. But…

21:16Jawad MirYeah

21:16Lorna Cook... Particularly film, animated films, as I said before, they take a while. And they, a whole host of things can happen during that course of time. People come, people go, your marriage goes away, a kid gets born. You know, it's, it's like a timeline, that how did... I look back and I go, "How did I even do these things? How did I work on these incredible films?" But, you know, it's just showing up every day to do it. And it's so strange and very different right now, you know, post-pandemic, if you will.

21:53Jawad MirI know. I know.

21:53Lorna CookAnd, like, I know people are reticent about going back to work and all of that. However, I think there's a real downside to not getting to collaborate. And it's, it's, you know, it's very wonderful that you made the entire film, you know, on Zoom and from home, and you were able to coordinate the whole thing. But nothing beats the immediacy and the nuances of being with somebody or a group of people, so we'll see how that all goes.

22:26Jawad MirYeah, no, I actually wholeheartedly ag… agree with that, is that, you know, even outside of the film industry, I get it. Like, you know, four times a week, three times a week, you want some family time. But…

22:38Lorna CookYeah

22:38Jawad Mir... I also feel that if you are doing more... Le… less work physically at the office or wherever that is on the set… ... It's gonna have a toll on you in the long run, because we are social creatures. We need to interact. And that's why there's a system that's designed that, you know, you go to work, kids go to school, you come home. The novelty is, you know, you h… you're not running into each other all the time.

23:08Lorna CookRight.

23:08Jawad MirAnd, but what, you know what I mean? Like that…

23:11Lorna CookYeah

23:11Jawad Mir... There's that buffer. You appreciate each other a lot more.

23:14Lorna CookYes.

23:14Jawad MirBut if you're seeing everybody all the time, th… that's what happened during COVID, you know, there were so many things that went wrong with families.

23:21Lorna CookYeah. I mean, it did have a... And I felt it before it was really taking hold, honestly, Jawad. I thought, "This is gonna be the law of diminishing returns, and it's gonna take some really strong attitudes and discipline to get through such a real shakeup, on every level to people, to humanity." It's not gonna be the same. Everybody wanting to, "Oh, we've got to return to normal." No, we are in a new age. We have to really look at things differently and what matters. And if it means being more, efficient at work and everything else, great. But to your point, I think we need to come together at some point and not just get lazy and not just, you know. And I don't wanna, downplay anybody's situation because…

24:18Jawad MirNo. Everybody has different situations

24:19Lorna Cook... Have their issues

24:20Jawad Mir... But I think people, yeah, capitalize on that too. I think that's just a fact. We, you know, human beings, we just kind of get… You know, a little bit laid back.

24:29Lorna CookYeah

24:30Jawad Mir... But, you know, then you moved from, to DreamWorks and, you know, you worked on Prince of Egypt. Tell me the genesis of Spirit. How did that come about and how did you get on board, on the project?

24:43Lorna CookYes.

24:43Jawad MirAnd what year was that?

24:45Lorna CookI remember being given a very thick kind of novella that John Fusco had written. I think it was 1999. And, you know, "Please read this." And Jeffrey was thinking about making a Western, and it was just kind of weird and just murmurings of things. Oh, yeah, Hans Zimmer is doing some music. Yeah, it was just kind of scattered, and then Jeffrey came in and we chatted, and he said, "I wanna do a film about a horse. I wanna do a film showing the opening of the West from a point of view of the horse." And I thought, "Okay, why not? I love horses." I ended up buying a horse and have, still have him.

25:39Lorna CookIt was, you know, a really wonderful challenge. And he said, "I know, I know they're really hard, you know, to draw." I said, "Well, quadrupeds are all challenging, horses particularly because if you see horses badly animated you just know instinctively something anatomically is off." And, but I was very positive about it. I said, "Well, yeah, I'd love to. Let's, let's do that," you know? And slowly but surely, more talk, more ideas of what the story could be, meeting with John Fusco, as I said. Wonderful gentleman, great to work with. So knowledgeable about the West and, you know, native culture. He, so he was such a real gem to have as a writer and as a collaborator. And, you know, the story was so big, we had to kind of break it down a bit, and this is the whole journey with storyboarding and, you know, creating the story.

26:47Lorna CookWe had to drop things. We had to combine things. I was working with a different director at the time, and sometimes the studios, you know, do this thing where, you know, it's kind of, "We're gonna put you guys together and we're gonna hope for the best." It's a marriage.

27:05Lorna Cook... And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. So, I really just thought, "Okay, let's see how it goes." And I could tell things were not great, but I wanted to be a good sport, and then the story was just not moving forward in a great way. And, I lobbied to get Kelly back on working with me on the story, and he did. The other director moved on, and that was, you know, just the way it was. I've been in that position, too, so I know how it feels.

27:43Jawad MirRight.

27:43Lorna CookBut it was what was best for the story, and then we really, you know, came up with... We only have so much screen time. We can't, use this one, idea about a frontiersman that we had originally. We had to let that go. And then we focused more on the story between Spirit and Little Creek, which was more satisfying anyway.

28:06Jawad MirYeah.

28:07Lorna CookAnd, you know, we had great artists on board. What can I tell you? James Baxter was, in charge of the S… the animation on Spirit, which he was so brilliant. All the animators were brilliant. I enjoyed working with them. We had a big crew.

28:25Jawad MirYeah.

28:25Lorna CookAnd, you know, the challenge was there, but boy, I think we met it and I really have to say, too, at one point we were struggling with talking horses and, you know, this is the time when you just, you gotta give in to what the better idea is. And once again, Brenda Chapman, we had a screening and she just said, "Well, what if the horses don't talk?" "Yeah, what if they don't? That would be much better because you would, you would be seeing the pantomime and the thinking process."

29:02Jawad MirYeah.

29:02Lorna CookAnd Jeffrey said, "Yeah, well, that's what, you know, that's the way we're going." And I think it was very liberating and, well done, beautifully done by the animators. I, this was not a character that needed to be... You know, you gotta find those right movies that will, it'll work well in that context.

29:26Lorna CookBut this was more poetic, and that's what I loved about it. We were trying to take it to another level with the music, with the scope of the film being wide screen. Give it a majesty…

29:40Jawad MirYeah

29:40Lorna Cook... It had. So yeah.

29:43Jawad MirIt certainly did, and I think, at least with me, but I'm pretty sure a lot of people, what resonated with me the most was the fact that the horses didn't talk. I mean, th… that was just such a majestic thing, and I, as a kid, I've, I've ridden h… horses, like all the way up to galloping, and…

30:02Lorna CookWonderful

30:03Jawad Mir... And that, and that, you know, seeing the movement of those animals, it was long time ago for me, but I could tell that how real they looked. Like it was just, it was breath… it was, they're just majestic animals. Like you look at them and you're like, "Wow."

30:21Lorna CookYeah.

30:21Jawad MirYou know? They've got this posture and this, the way they carry themselves and it's just such confidence, you know? And you guys really nailed it. And I remember when I first got exposed to Spirit…... Was when the first trailer came out, which was the opening of the film.

30:40Lorna CookYeah.

30:40Jawad MirAnd that just blew me away, like the eagle sequence of just…

30:43Lorna CookYeah

30:43Jawad Mir... Looking down and I think at that time you guys had Robert Redford's voice, I think, in the trailer.

30:50Lorna CookI know. I can't re…

30:52Jawad MirIf I'm not mistaken

30:53Lorna Cook... We even, you know, like pitched to Brad Pitt. We had a lot…

30:58Jawad MirOh, yeah

30:58Lorna Cook... Of different ideas, but Matt Damon, you know, we landed on that. Jeffrey really liked his voice. And I, and I dare say regardless of the great job he did, you probably didn't even need it. You know? People really were able to get the…

31:15Jawad MirYeah

31:15Lorna Cook... The whole feeling of the film. But... And so the dialogue was very, you know, it was few and far between with him com…

31:23Jawad MirRight

31:23Lorna Cook... His commentary. But, you know, the music was a joy. Working with Bryan Adams was…

31:30Jawad MirYeah

31:30Lorna Cook... Fantastic. What a great guy. Really wonderful, person to have arrived at. 'Cause there w… you know, we pitched to a lot of different musicians and, he was just the right guy at the right time and, put his whole heart into it. He worked beautifully with, Hans Zimmer. Again, just a genius of…

31:55Jawad MirYeah

31:55Lorna Cook... A guy. Wonderful to work with. So, you know, you get that kind of quality and ability, you know, and it... And Jeffrey very much believed in the movie. And it was... You know, the heartache is when these movies come out, what they're up against, what the weekend is gonna be, I cannot tell you, Jawad, what a… You know, you just wanna leave town. You don't wanna deal with it. You know, what's it doing? What's this m… you know. It's like, oh, my God, did we do well? Did we not? I mean, we didn't, by today's standards, we had a pretty decent weekend.

32:34Jawad MirYeah.

32:35Lorna CookBut it was not what they had projected by, you know, let's see, like 5 million or whatever it was. And, I just, I felt it needed more. I felt, there were things from publicity standpoints that I wish they could have done. I, you know, and I couldn't put myself into that territory. I couldn't have a big opinion, or Kelly and I. So it just, it finds its own journey, and the main thing is here we are. All these years later, people…

33:10Jawad MirYes

33:11Lorna Cook... Have been touched by the movie. That's all I care about. Young man who was not even born, you know, maybe by the time the movie came out, decided not to take his own life. I c… I'm at peace with it, you know? If it had made... If it had gotten the Oscar, I was there when, the Oscar went to Spirited Away. Even that…

33:33Jawad MirOh, that's right. Right

33:35Lorna Cook... It was like, how, what are the odds of two movies even sounding alike? It was crazy. And so I thought, okay, it just wasn't gonna happen. Because you can say, "Well, what would have happened to my career if I had w… won an Oscar?" It, who knows? I think the universe, there's a wisdom that I have to trust that's bigger than box office, bigger than all of that, so.

34:02Jawad MirYeah. And you know, to add to what you just said, who knows what would have happened if you had won the Oscar. Possibly a lot of great things.

34:11Lorna CookYeah.

34:11Jawad MirBut at the same time, you just don't know what else could have happened that m… couldn't have happened that's already happened that is good for you now. So you just…

34:20Lorna CookYeah

34:20Jawad Mir... You just never know.

34:22Lorna CookI know. I know. And I, again, without being redundant, I'm, I'm grateful for what I've been able to do.

34:29Jawad MirYeah.

34:29Lorna CookIt's, it's like I was just a kind of a shy, little weirdo kid who loved... You know, I didn't play with dolls. I had frogs and lizards and drove my sisters crazy and drew all the time. So, you know, I feel so blessed that I was able to follow my instincts and…

34:52Jawad MirYeah

34:52Lorna Cook... Make some really good choices about people and w… what I wanted to work on.

34:58Jawad MirYeah.

34:58Lorna CookSo.

35:00Jawad MirTo add, to make a comment about the box office thing, so I don't know if Simon told you this, or you, maybe if I told you over email or not, but at the time, from '97 to 2007, I used to own and run this DreamWorks fan site.

35:16Lorna CookOh.

35:18Jawad MirAnd it was a, it became, started off as absolutely nothing, and it became a really big thing.

35:24Lorna CookYeah.

35:24Jawad MirSo I used to constantly, like, you know, I have, like, all these press kits still lying around from Spirit, Over the Hedge, Prince of Egypt, all that stuff. And I r… I remember the box office thing. So I would literally, as if I was part of any of DreamWorks' films, which I clearly was not, I would look up every Saturday morning what the box office was like.

35:47Lorna CookOh, God.

35:50Jawad MirRight. And I…

35:51Lorna CookWell, so you understand. I mean, like, yeah

35:54Jawad Mir... Yeah, it's, and I, if I was in part of it, I was intense mode. Imagine people who are in it, right? And…

36:00Lorna CookOh, my goodness

36:02Jawad Mir... It…

36:02Lorna CookI think, and I have to say, Simon and Brenda and Steve were just a joy to work with on Prince of Egypt. And, you know, I felt so lucky that we were able to have that kind of a relationship, you know, on the first big film with DreamWorks. But yeah, I remember when, Prince of Egypt came out, we were all, I forget if we were at the Beverly Hills Hotel. We were all holed up, like, wringing our hands and trying to have a drink and, you know. And I thought, "This is crazy." I think if, you know, you gotta get out of town. You gotta…

36:38Jawad MirYeah

36:38Lorna Cook... Go hide in a cave, you know, that weekend, and then how did it do? But… Again, I would not change a thing.

36:48Jawad MirYeah.

36:49Lorna CookI hope, you know, I get a chance to do it again at some point. I'm gonna really try. But, we'll see.

36:58Jawad MirYeah.

36:59Lorna CookWe'll see.

37:00Jawad MirThe thing that I love about the film among a lot of other things was the ending. Right? The face-off. And then normally in any film, like, you know, you have the face-off, the hero wins, and the villain runs away or dies or whatever happens. But the way you guys did that mutual respect thing, you know, that to me, even at that time, just spoke to me in such, in such depth that, oh my God, you can actually ma… end a film like that?

37:34Lorna CookYeah.

37:35Jawad MirYou know? It was... Was that something that was always in the script or did that... Wasn't there and it became like that over time?

37:42Lorna CookYou know, to be honest with you, it could have evolved into that. Th… like you said, there's so many ways to, have a satisfying resolution. And yeah, you know, we had a bad guy with the Colonel. And it was... It would've been very easy to have his, he and his men just realize th… Little Creek and Spirit made it and, you know, to hell with them and... But to your point, this is necessary in our, in our humanity to understand the other. I don't…

38:33Jawad MirYeah

38:33Lorna Cook... You know, we all are very isolated and wary and it's, it's a, it's a... We're in kind of a sorry state, I think, right now, where we cannot disagree and be different and have a dialogue. You know, so in some way it was a, I think an elevated way to end the film and have him, the Colonel, realize, "I respect who that horse is," as crazy as that jump was and the getaway and all of it, and everybody agree that we're done. You know, it's not you won, but I see you. And I'll honor that. And we, you know, we need to be able to do that in our, as I said, without getting heavy-handed here. It felt satisfying. I mean, when the other soldier's raising the gun and when he puts it down, I thought, "Yeah, now I...

39:33Lorna CookHe finally sees who this horse is." And, you've gotta really admire that spirit of being too important.

39:45Jawad MirYeah.

39:45Lorna CookAnd that's what it was. But we have to, you know, make these kinds of decisions every day with people. And that's the only way we're ever gonna elevate humanity, I think, and…

39:59Jawad MirI agree

40:01Lorna Cook... You know, I may be long gone when that really starts to happen, but, it's the little things. It's the little things. And if, and if a film can gently, you know, show some child or even an adult, "Hey, you know, there's a better way to be in this world," why not? Why not? Nobody wants to be preached to, but we just have to be smarter. And, you know, I love the idea of being a little more sophisticated with this stuff. Why not? These are interesting times, Johan. We'll, we'll have to see how animation... It's, it's thriving. I'm very happy about that. And it's not formulaic. I think many of the studios wish it were. And then somebody will do something extremely new and unthought of, and it'll be, "Ooh, that over there."

41:07Lorna CookYou know? I... You gotta let things kind of evolve with new ideas and how storytelling can be done. And now the lines are so blurred between live action and animation. You know, I think people are hungry for real kind of soul enlivening content. And again, you can have heart, you can laugh, you can, you know... Because I know there's a big push on humor. And, humor's good when it's, I think, evolves in an organic way with the characters.

41:55Lorna CookI'm, I'm personally am not one for just cheap laughs and jokes and…

42:00Jawad MirYeah

42:00Lorna Cook... You know. Stuff is funny. I, you know, I have a sense of humor, but…

42:04Jawad MirYeah

42:04Lorna Cook... I know me, and I think you've gotta give people something that really resonates with them on some level.

42:14Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

42:14Lorna CookWhen I was a kid, you know, that's where I learned. And, you know, you're watching a Bambi or a Sleeping Beauty or a Pinocchio. ... By the way, the new P… Pinocchio I thought was fantastic. I loved…

42:32Jawad MirI haven't seen... Which one? The Marcus or…

42:34Lorna CookGuillermo. The Guillermo. Guillermo del Toro.

42:39Jawad MirGuillermo. Yeah, I don't know how to pronounce his name. That's why I didn't even say it. Gui… Guillermo, I think.

42:44Lorna CookGive him, give him the right, the right props. He did a fantastic job.

42:48Jawad MirI gotta check it out. I gotta check it out.

42:50Lorna CookVery different. Very interesting… Origin story interpretation. Very bold. So, you know, very poignant actually.

43:03Jawad MirWell, I'm looking forward to checking that out.

43:05Lorna CookYeah. I'd be curious to see what you think.

43:08Jawad MirYeah. In Spirit, what was the most challenging sequence to execute, whether it was in story, whether it was in animation? W… you know, there are some sequences that come to mind. Obviously, the ending was one of them, then there was the whole river sequence. You know, and then the train sequence where, when we…

43:30Lorna CookYeah

43:30Jawad Mir... So g… does anything ring a bell? I mean, it's been a while

43:34Lorna CookWell…

43:34Jawad Mir... That you can talk about

43:36Lorna Cook... The two you just mentioned were big action sequences, and, you know, in the river, the rapids and all of that, I mean, we had an incredible team, Previz team doing all that. And, you know, the artists had a lot of great material to work with, you know, how the camera was moving and all of it, and it was very, dynamic. I think the whole train sequence and the whole explosion and the train falling and all of that, and then into the forest fire and, was, we probably looked at that earlier in this, in the movie, if I recall right, as far as production. It was a massive sequence to do.

44:28Jawad MirYeah.

44:29Lorna CookAnd, very challenging. But then again, you know, the crew was amazing. We had the right people, the right, you know, the layout team, the Previz team, all the artists. And things, you know, it was just one of those kinds of journeys, and I'm sure Simon talked about this, too. You have to…

44:57Jawad MirYeah, he previously, yeah

44:58Lorna Cook... Try things out and say, "Is that, is that the right... Did we do this? Is it, you know, really resonating enough?" And when you've, you've got so many moving parts, w… and you need to move things forward, "Okay, we're gonna commit to this. You know, sequence is in. Let's, you know, move it forward," you don't wanna do anything that you then have to come back to. I remember just, this wasn't a big sequence, but it was enough of one that it was already in animation when, Spirit fights the cougar and saves…

45:33Lorna Cook... The two little foals in the, in the beginning. Originally, that was another horse he was fighting, like, another rogue stallion, and we showed the animation to, I think it was, a group of guys who were at, up north and at the studio, which I can't remember the name of at the moment. And one of the guys said, "You know, what if it was, you know, like, a cougar or mountain lion?" I'm like, "Okay." And, it was one of those, that's, that's crunchy, that's ugly, but that's the right way to go. So I had to tell the animator who had done all that great animation with the fight, I think it was Kathy Zielinski. What a wonderful…

46:19Lorna Cook... Talent she is. "Sorry, we're gonna go another we… we got a suggestion that makes more sense. It's more dramatic." And so, "Okay," you know. But you don't wanna have to go that far into the process.

46:33Jawad MirYeah.

46:33Lorna CookBecause, a… as you would know, it's pretty costly. But again, it was a beautiful team of artists and, again, I can't even quite imagine how we did certain things. You just, you would come every day and you knew, I had a slip of paper, it was a buck slip, every hour what I was doing, every half hour what I was doing. Same with any director. You just have to keep the momentum. And, frankly, I like the idea of a co-director if it's the right person because you can, you know, divide and conquer a little bit and it helps. It's, it's a lot to put onto one person unless they love that kind of challenge or masculine, whatever.

47:25Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. No, I agree. One of the films that I directed, I had a co-director who was also a protagonist in the film as a, so it does take a lot. I mean, so… sometimes it's a, depends on the chemistry, right? And sometimes, if not most times, it can backfire, but if you find the right person that, you know, sees eye to eye, but at the same time you both have that, strength to disagree without ruining, the project, then, you know, you've got the right person to work with. So I completely get it.

47:54Lorna CookOh, it really does help and, you know, I, Kelly and I didn't always agree, and we were so tired by the end of Spirit because we had done all of, you know, a European junket, lots of publicity. The film had already come out and it was like, well, it was good, but it didn't, it didn't, you know, do the box office that they wanted and we had to go out there and really publicize it and have all of these, you know, endless, interviews and meetings. And, by the end of the time with it, we had to then go and do a pan and scan on it. So here's this beautiful widescreen movie that, all of a sudden, you know, to me was being compromised so it could be on television, and that was, like, a breaking point for us. We were, like, so tired and fed up with everything and we were, like, grousing, butting heads, and then at one point we just kinda laughed and hugged and like, "Oh…" It's, it's, it's okay.

48:59Lorna CookWe're, we're, you know, we're cool, but we were tired. It's a long journey, and…

49:04Jawad MirYeah

49:06Lorna Cook... You know, we spent most of our time at work, truth be told. And, you know, you come home. I was married at the time, and that was hard. These things are hard on the spouse, and he was a creative guy, very creative guy. But it just, you know, it worked out that way.

49:31Jawad MirYeah.

49:31Lorna CookBut again, I have no regrets. When duty calls, and what a great film to work on. And again, as I said, I got a horse for myself to just understand what the relationship would be like and how it could work, and I don't regret a day of that. It's…

49:51Jawad MirYeah

49:51Lorna Cook... Pretty wonderful.

49:52Jawad MirNo, it is a great film, and like I said in my email to you, again, this is my individual perspective. I don't speak for anybody else. For me, the three ti… I… it's not that I don't consider computer animation. Yes, it is. But…

50:10Lorna CookIt is, of course. Yeah

50:11Jawad Mir... It i… it is, but for me, when I think of animation, the first thing that comes to my mind are three films, The Lion King, Prince of Egypt, and Spirit, and that's it.

50:22Lorna CookThank you.

50:23Jawad MirGreat films. They're, they're... And it's not because of just the traditional animation. There's tons of traditional animation that came before that. It's a mixture of 2D, 3D, sure, but it's the stories and the characters, all three films. You know, I actually literally was thinking about it this morning. I'm like, "Why does those three films resonate with me?" And all three films are about, and it has nothing to do that I'm going through anything like that in my own life. It's nothing like that, but all three films are about this one guy or one animal or whatever that is leaving home and then coming back.

51:00Jawad MirRight? And that, and you know, if you think about it, that's what Lion King was about. That's what Prince of Egypt was about. Spirit was about that, too. And I, my personal life is nothing like that, but somehow those three films and the theme just resonated at some level. I don't know why, and it's, they're masterpieces. But, you know, Spirit is, in my view, the last true traditional animation film, that was made.

51:27Lorna CookOne of the, yeah, one of the last, for sure. And I think, you know, it, all three of those are finding who you are, overcoming great hardship and adversity, and I think that speaks to people, incredibly strongly. And I'll, I'll be able to overcome something. We can find our heroes in many way, shape, or form, you know, be it a horse, Indian boy, or whatever. It's just the idea that we can, we can persevere and stay strong throughout hardship.

52:12Jawad MirYeah. When Spirit was first screened, not necessarily the release of the film, whether it was a, like a test screening or Jeffrey looking at it or just animators, what was, what was the reaction of, you know, some of the reactions that you can remember, whether it was Jeffrey, whether it was an audience member?

52:33Lorna CookAs I recall, generally pretty good. And I have, you know, mixed feelings about test screenings because every one of them is gonna have somebody that goes, "I hated it," or…

52:46Jawad MirOf course. Of course

52:47Lorna Cook... "I love it." So i… i… you know, but I think it's good when certain, there's a certain consensus about a moment in the film or a character or, and if you keep getting that, "I didn't understand that," or, "That character was, you know, why did you... " You gotta look at that and take notice and say, "Okay, maybe the, there's no clarity here. Maybe the, we didn't really create what we wanted to." So it can be helpful. But I think in general it was, it was positive. I think what's hard, too, if you watch a film as many times as we do when you're making it…

53:29Lorna Cook... You really lose,... That perspective. And, you know, there were times, "I don't wanna see the film anymore. Okay, well," and we would introduce the film, and then we would talk about the film and, you know, all of that, because people are seeing it for the first time. And I, that's something to always remember because that's a thing that can happen, too. The studio heads can see a movie, you know, a few times, and then it's, "That's not funny anymore." Well, somebody seeing it the first time, it'll be funny, you know? So I think the challenge of working in that kind of context, it is challenging and not always fun because…

54:16Lorna Cook... Everybody's got an opinion, and people wanna mark their territory, and…

54:22Jawad MirOh, yeah

54:22Lorna Cook... It's a whole kind of other game, if you will. And I don't wanna sound, negative, but politics in everything, in everything.

54:35Jawad MirYep.

54:35Lorna CookAnd you gotta be savvy, and I'm sure you understand that so well, how to kinda navigate through that and still hold your head up and do what you wanna do. So again, it's, you gotta, you gotta be ready for it.

54:53Jawad MirYeah.

54:54Lorna CookNow, you are a director. I'd love to know what you're doing, if you don't mind me asking.

55:03Jawad MirOh. So I'll just come summarize the last few years. In 2018, I started this project. I was introduced to this gentleman named Ahmed, from Afghanistan…

55:19Lorna CookOoh

55:19Jawad Mir... Who had, who had literally arrived at this refugee detention center, in, on Lesbos Island in Greece. I'm not sure if you're familiar, with it. It's the entry point to Europe, basically.

55:32Lorna CookRight.

55:33Jawad MirSo he arrived in 2018, and someone I was corresponding with, she introduced... She connected me to him over WhatsApp. He literally landed, you know, and then, through the dinghy boats, and we started communicating after like four or five days. So I said, "You know, you wanna do something?" Like, 'cause I was really trying to figure out what I wanted to do next, and she told me about h… he had fled Afghanistan because his... He made a documentary, and he came on Taliban's hit list, and they killed one of the protagonists in his documentary.

56:09Lorna CookOh.

56:09Jawad MirSo he f… he fled, leaving his pregnant wife and family behind without saying goodbye.

56:16Lorna CookOh my gosh.

56:17Jawad MirSo that part just, you know, spoke to me, and so he and I collaborated on that. I mean, he had access. He had a phone. He had a GoPro. And he started documenting. Then I went, and we did a whole bunch of stuff. So it's a, it's a very three-act narrative arc story about his journey and how he's surviving as a filmmaker, but at the same time remembering what he did and trying to find a place to reunite and home. So that took,.. Yeah, that took about two and a half years of production 'cause we were filming in real time. There was no, "Let's recreate this." It was as if things were happening. And, our last act changed so many times because the ending was one time going this way, then that way. It took a year for the last act, which is about 20 minutes, to complete.

57:13Lorna CookWow. Wow. Yeah.

57:14Jawad MirYeah.

57:15Lorna CookYeah.

57:15Jawad MirAnd then, same year I was introduced to someone, not once, but twice, and I took that as a sign, to a lady who is, an activist, a Uyghur activist. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Uyghurs.

57:33Lorna CookNo. No

57:34Jawad Mir... Uyghur Muslims are a minority in Chi… in China. So they live on northwestern part of China. So there's a whole history of that, which I'm not gonna get into. But basically her sister is taken, by the Chinese Communist Party in China due to her activism in United States.

57:56Lorna CookOh.

57:56Jawad MirSo sh… she goes on a journey, and we followed her in 13 countries trying to find the clues to her whereabouts and creating awareness. And yeah, so both films finished, and we have screened them, at festivals, universities, US embassies, Capitol Hill.

58:15Lorna CookBeautiful

58:15Jawad Mir... You know, with... Like which I was saying earlier, like just to get people's responses and, you know, it's, it's very meaningful. And one thing I learned from Schindler's List, as well as Spirit, which is why I asked you about the ending, is that it is so important bec… to tell the story from as many angles as possible, even if you disagree with it.

58:42Lorna CookYeah. It's…

58:42Jawad MirAnd I, and I... Y… y… if you were to see my films, if you ever get a chance to, you will see that because I... Not that I'm, you know, trying to take sides, and I'm just trying to find a human element, even if it's crazy, even if it's nonsense. Because there is reasons behind people's actions, whether they're right or wrong.

59:03Lorna CookThat's…

59:05Jawad MirYeah. So…

59:08Lorna CookAmazing. Yeah, I'd love to see that. Yeah. Wow.

59:11Jawad MirYeah.

59:11Lorna CookOof.

59:12Jawad MirYeah, nothing like Spirit in animation, but...

59:18Lorna CookWell, a whole other desire to tell that story, and it's, it's important. And, I'm glad you're, you've been able to do that. More to come.

59:31Jawad MirYeah, it's, it's been, it's been fun, but it's been challenging at the same time, as you can imagine. I mean, the things that…

59:36Lorna CookSure

59:36Jawad Mir... You talked about. You know, we all go through those things. And it's not just even about me telling the story, it's about the other side of the filmmaking, which is always challenging, and…

59:47Lorna CookYeah

59:47Jawad Mir... And then getting the eyeballs to see it and stuff, and then getting distributors to get interested. So it's…

59:53Lorna CookRight. Right

59:54Jawad Mir... It's challenging, but it's fun. It's fun at the same time.

59:57Lorna CookWell, you've got time and energy, so you're gonna do…

1:00:01Jawad MirI hope so.

1:00:02Lorna CookYeah. I think so.

1:00:08Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. Well, great. This has been fantastic. Thank you so much. I would love to chat with you more down the road about other projects if there are any.

1:00:17Lorna CookAnytime. Yeah. I would be delighted to.