'The Cat in the Hat', Director, Bo Welch

0:06Jawad MirThank you so much for, agreeing to do this. I appreciate it.

0:11Bo WelchHow do I pronounce your name?

0:13Jawad MirJawad.

0:14Bo WelchWhat?

0:15Jawad MirJawad.

0:17Bo WelchOkay, Jawad. Okay.

0:18Jawad MirYeah. Yes. And

0:20Bo WelchNice to meet you

0:21Jawad Mir... Nice to meet you, too.

0:23Bo WelchAnd where are you?

0:24Jawad MirI'm based out of Toronto, Canada.

0:27Bo Welchhuh.

0:27Jawad MirAnd you're in California, I'm assuming?

0:30Bo WelchToday we're in California, yeah.

0:33Jawad MirJust wanted to start off, Bo, with how did you get started, in the world of production design and your work in the very beginning? I know you worked with Tim Burton a lot in the beginning stages. But just kinda run me through how did you wanna decide that you wanna become a production designer, and your journey through it.

0:52Bo WelchI was trained to be an architect, and I went to architecture school, got a professional degree, passed the test, and was working at a firm in Los Angeles. And even though I loved the education, and I love architecture, and still do, I hated the job. And I was tipped off... I was living in LA, and I was tipped off that, "Well, with your skill set, you should go, look into set design and art direction and production design." So I did. I went to Universal Studios in 1977 and met with, Hank Myers, who ran the set and design department. And m… more or less, I went twice, and the second time he hired me on the spot and said, "Start tomorrow." Then I went back to the architecture firm, it was a big, stuffy firm, and said, "I quit, and I'm done today."

2:00Bo WelchAnd they made me take a psychological evaluation test to make sure I hadn't just gone crazy. And, they said, "How could you leave the profession?" And I said, "Well, for starters, tomorrow I'm going to, I see people having fun at work, and I'm going to make twice as much money." and so prior to that, I really had no awareness of, you know, art direction, production design in movies. But as it turns out, it was a very good fit for me. And I worked at Universal for, like, a year and a half, and then I went out and... That was one of the last big art departments within a studio, and then it, everything started to change and everyone became more or less an independent contractor. And I went out and worked as a set designer and an art director, and eventually, you know, a f… couple years later I got lucky and, was asked to design a TV movie and then a Showtime movie.

3:04Bo WelchAnd then my first, production design job was Lost Boys in 1985 or something. Yeah.

3:18Jawad MirOkay.

3:18Bo WelchSo it's, it's a combination of luck and just, you know, I respond to characters and narrative more than I do return per square foot on the dollar investment.

3:31Jawad MirWell said. But were you always at any point when you were making that transition before that, were you into film movies? Like, were you, like, an avid moviegoer? Like, '70s was a big year for films like Godfather and, the Dog Day Afternoon, and obviously Star Wars came out.

3:50Bo WelchOh, yeah. No, I w… I was a huge fan of movies then. And to this day if Godfather II especially comes across the screen, I can't look away. I can't, I can't not look at it. But I really, you know, as a kid growing up, you know, my dad taught at Sunday school, and he would take his class repeatedly to Ben-Hur.

4:19Jawad MirAh.

4:19Bo WelchAnd I remember going to see Ben-Hur and that was fairly mind-blowing at the time. And you just assume that they went and filmed Ben-Hur when you're a kid. You don't realize that it involves, you know, hundreds and, of craftsmen and people and stuff. So, early on I loved movies but I had no awareness of who, you know, who did what. Because I was raised in rural Pennsylvania. After I came to the West Coast, of course, you can't, you can't avoid it. But even then in, it was entirely different, I would say when I got into it in the mid to late '70s. There w… it was, there was no internet. There was no, there weren't entertainment magazines. There weren't the television shows that, you know, da. There was none of that back then.

5:21Bo WelchSo nobody... The job was sort of mysterious and not as, well-known, which made it better.

5:31Jawad MirFor sure. And how did you get involved into Tim Burton's, I think it... Correct me if I'm wrong. I think w… his, one of his major films, first major films was Beetlejuice. There was the other one, the Frankie, I think it was, the dog movie that he did, the black and white one. But was that, was that…

5:49Bo WelchYeah

5:49Jawad Mir... Your first film with him? And how did you get involved with him?

5:53Bo WelchI think his first, his first feature at Warner Brothers was Pee-Wee's Big Adventure.

5:59Jawad MirThat's right. Thank you.

6:00Bo WelchAnd, so I was at… I was at, Warner Brothers doing Lost Boys and, he was, he had just set up an office at Warner Brothers where he had done Pee-wee, and was about to do, Beetlejuice. And I heard about it, and my agent at the time managed to, get Tim to meet me. And he... I think we had a big, we had a big set built for Lost Boys, on the stage and he wandered through there on his own and saw enough evidence of design that, he then, met me. And so we met and, then we, you know, he hired me and we did the movie. We did Beetlejuice.

7:01Bo WelchWhich base… which, you know, really, that was a huge jump. I mean, Lost Boys was very well received and did well, and it kind of has its fan base. But Beetlejuice kind of launched me so that after that, you know, I had no shortage of work.

7:25Jawad MirYeah, Beetlejuice was an incredible film, but I remember when I first saw it was in the early '90s, and I loved it because it was... I mean, I was 14 years old and I loved it for what it was, like, just like an en… entertaining, fun movie. And I ne… it never dawned on me at that time the amount of work that goes behind it, like, you know, in terms of production design or art direction and whatnot. But being, you know, now that I'm a f… basically a full-time filmmaker and I look back at all those films, and I was watching it with my wife a couple of weeks ago, and the amount of art direction that went in it and production design, and all the little details that I'd noticed that I never did before was phenomenal.

8:10Jawad MirSo I... That and Edward Scissorhand to me are... And I think you worked on…... You know, you worked on that, too

8:16Bo WelchYes

8:17Jawad Mir... Were very... And it's funny because, you know, there's always this thing, oh, that's a Tim Burton feel film, right? Like, but you don't realize there's so many people behind it, and obviously you being one of them. So I wanna thank you for, you know, making those worlds because those are embedded in our, in our heads, at least for me, and I'm sure millions of other fans. So thank you so much.

8:41Bo WelchOh, please. You're welcome. And it was, you know, it really turned my head around, working with Tim on that. Prior to that, everybody in art direction was, "Oh, well, this has to match that, and this has to feel real" and, "Oh, you don't wanna distract from the narrative and, by, you know, pushing it too hard." And his, animation background a… and his artistic sensibility, led me in a completely different direction. And it was a, it was a real great, education to work with him and to, like, just go for it, you know? So I feel very lucky to have had that opportunity then. Who knows what might have ha… You know, at the end of Lost Boys, I was trying to get my next job, and I think... I don't think I had met Tim Burton yet, and I went in and did an interview for,...

9:47Bo WelchWhat was that movie? Tony Scott did it.

9:54Jawad MirCri… well, there was Crimson Tide. There was the one before that

9:58Bo WelchOh, it was, yeah, it was way before that, and it was the second one of those. I'm blanking. You know, it was only about a million years ago. But that... If I had gotten that, and I didn't get it, the job, if I had gotten that, my career would've taken a completely different course, 'cause that was a more regular film set in a real world, and it was an action adventure, kind of shooting and smashing and, it was a different, it was a different film. So I feel very lucky to have, done Beetlejuice.

10:40Jawad MirYeah, no, I think that was something you were destined for because it shows in your work. It cl… clearly does. And even, you know, kind of, moving on to, the conversation that we're supposed to have, I think you were talking about Beverly Hills Cop II. Is that what you were talking about?

10:57Bo WelchThat's it. Thank you. See how I've blocked it out of my... Beverly Hills Cop II, yeah.

11:04Jawad MirI mean, that…

11:04Bo WelchWith the late Tony, with the late Tony Scott, who I, who we met and we really got along well, but when I, then when I went in to meet the producers, Jerry Bruckheimer and Don, and the late Don Simpson, that part of it did not go as smoothly.

11:21Jawad MirI think, I think if you had gone that route, obviously with Bruckheimer and late Don Simpson, you probably would've gone the direction of Don, Michael Bay films and, you know, because they have worked with him a lot. But I'm glad that you had the, you had your route the way it was. So I appreciate it.

11:37Bo WelchOh, thank God. Thank God. Yeah. And for a variety of reas… other reasons as well. Yeah.

11:45Jawad MirI'm sure.

11:47Bo WelchYeah

11:47Jawad Mir... For Cat in the Hat, so The Grinch came out in 2000 or 2001, I think. By Ron Howard directed it, Brian Grazer, Imagine, producing it.

11:58Bo WelchYeah.

11:59Jawad MirAnd it was very successful. You know, Jim Carrey…

12:01Bo WelchYes

12:01Jawad Mir... And it was a Christmas movie. So h… is that how the birth of Cat in the Hat started? And if you can just run through the story of that.

12:12Bo WelchHere's what happened. We were at the cottage in Muskoka where we go a lot, and I got a c… a phone call out of the blue, from Mike Myers.

12:25Jawad MirYeah.

12:26Bo WelchAnd, he called and, was looking... He was wanting to talk about, he was going to do this movie, Dieter, which I don't know whether you recall that. He had a… he had an SNL character.

12:44Jawad MirOh, right. Yes.

12:45Bo WelchDieter. And he was gonna make a film version of that, and would I be interested in designing it? And I, at that point, you know, I was still... I was designing for, you know, Men in Blacks and Mike Nichols and that sounded l… a little strange design-wise for me. But I also, by then in my career, was interested in trying to direct. And I said, "Oh, I don't wanna design it, but I'll, I'll direct it." And he went... And he was, his curiosity was piqued. And I... You know, he's smart enough to know that if you, when you get a first-time director, you can control them to a certain extent. So, later on, that came together and we started to prep Dieter. And the script, was really funny. And, we were, I don't know, we were a month or two away from shooting.

13:47Bo WelchWe had our, we had this read-through at the office, in LA, and we had people like Will Ferrell and, you know, amazing comedians came in to read with a, with a, just an audience of people. We picked about 30 people, and it was hysterical. However, the, all the laughs came on the heels of other people, and Dieter being kind of... He was not the person who generated the jokes. He, you kind of, he created... Y… y… you would react to his reaction, and I don't think he liked that. So, he thought, he thought, everyone else thought it went well. He thought it did not. And therefore announced after... Oh, we went away. It was like a three-day weekend. Everyone was like high-fiving and, "Yeah, this went great." And then Mike decided he didn't wanna do it.

14:47Bo WelchHe said, "The script is broken and cannot be fixed." So, that was horrible. That was a terrible thing. But what happened was, Universal, rolled that pretty much into Cat in the Hat and said, "All right, can we make a deal where we absorb the, what you've spent on Dieter and roll right into Cat in the Hat?" And that's more or less how it happened. There was a little bit of time between the two. And to be honest, you know, I was in… interested in directing. I thought it'd be fun. And when someone offers you the opportunity to direct a $100 million movie, I think you'd have to be kinda insane not to say yes, or maybe you're insane to say yes. I'm not sure.

15:47Bo WelchNow I'm not sure which is the right answer. So that's how it evolved. You know, Mike hired me and, we commenced production, pre-production.

16:06Jawad MirIt's interesting you mentioned the $100 million, you know, insane to do it or insane not to do it. The amount of pressure, I mean, the, you know... Directing a film is a pressure by itself. Obviously, you have to be crazy enough to make a film, first of all, which is why people in our pro…

16:23Bo WelchYeah

16:23Jawad Mir... People in our profession are literally crazy because it's not an easy thing to do. But to be able to have that on your head, the $100 million budget, not that it's going to you, but still

16:35Bo WelchRight

16:36Jawad Mir... You know, and a team of people just sort of like literally relying on you, and you're the center of attention aside from being the cast. How was like, what was like, w… how did you deal with that pressure, if that there was any?

16:50Bo WelchNo, the pressure was mind-boggling for…

16:55Jawad MirYeah.

16:55Bo WelchAnd you know, I had, I had, as a production designer, I'd, I had worked on a lot of big budget movies. I'd been around it. I, it wasn't like I walked in blindly. I know what the pressure is like, having, you know, been around directors on big movies and, but you still underestimate it because... Oh, it's just, it's just staggeringly, painful. But it's also intoxicating because you get to, you get the deluxe playground toys, everything to do your thing. What's, what's a little misleading is you get a $100 million movie, and we assembled a tremendously talented group of craftsmen. You know, we had Chivo to shoot it, Alex McDowell designed it.

17:57Bo WelchWe had amazing talent up and down for that, for that, 'cause I, these are people that I had worked with and met and I said, "Hey, you wanna do a movie in town?" you know, and people with kids would say, "Yeah." and it,.. But that just compounds it. The pressure is… So I had all of that worked out, all of the, you know, I knew how to do it. The part that you, the part that's misleading is when you're a first-time director, you bec… you're respon… you're, as a director, you're responsible for the result. But you don't have complete control over every aspect of the making it, even though you're called director. So it's a little bit of a trap. And there were things that, you know, I could not do how I wanted to do for a variety of reasons.

19:02Bo WelchNot to say that it would have been better or worse, but you get called director, you're responsible, but you don't really have complete control as a first, as a first-time director.

19:17Jawad MirYou said there were some things that you had planned that didn't go your way. Can you give me some examples or one example of those? Without... I don't, I'm not, I'm not looking for any controversy. I'm literally just…

19:32Bo WelchYeah

19:32Jawad Mir... Trying to understand your vision, that's all.

19:33Bo WelchTo be perfectly honest, everything was, everything worked out fine until post, and that's where, that's where it started to go awry. 'Cause we sh… we shot basically everything the way we wanted, the best we could, at that time. And then we started, we did a director's cut, and it was going very well. After that, it kind of started to get, it started to deteriorate. I can't, I c… I can't say bad things about people because…

20:21Jawad MirNo, not, I'm not…

20:22Bo WelchEveryone tries to do their best when you, when you enter into an en… enterprise like this. So it would be unfair for me to point fingers. But, that's what happened is it kind of, there's a better movie in there had we been allowed to just follow through.

20:46Jawad MirCompletely understandable, and I don't like to get, hear names as well because it's, it's such a big thing, right, making a film, whether you're making an independent film or a $100 million film, and there's so many…

20:58Bo WelchRight

20:58Jawad Mir... And there's no formula to any film that can be a super hit or a super flop. You, everybody does desire…

21:05Bo WelchRight

21:05Jawad Mir... Desire to make the best film possible, and everybody's making decisions based on the market, based on the audience reaction, the screenings.

21:12Bo WelchYeah.

21:13Jawad MirDid, was the director's cut a lot longer than what came out to be?

21:18Bo WelchIt was not really much longer, but it allowed other characters to be, more time.

21:29Jawad MirYeah. And it…

21:31Bo WelchAnd…

21:31Jawad MirSorry, go on

21:31Bo Welch... I think that the theory is, it was, it was very difficult to make, first of all, 'cause, there's a, there's... It's really weird. You take a Dr. Seuss character like Cat in the Hat, and you're f… the first part and the hardest part is how do we represent this character that is so beloved in the, in the book in a human form? So you spend a lot of time doing, you know, makeup and, prosthetics and tests. And I swear, if I had to do it again, I would, I would tech… I would use a different technology and probably use motion capture…

22:18Jawad MirYeah

22:18Bo Welch... In order to get, to get a less static human-based, you know, character tied to the physics of being a human. At the same time, you know, they had paid for Mike Myers, and they wanted to see what he would do. They wanna see his face. He needs to be comfortable. So that's a real conundrum that, you know, in hindsight I might, I might, execute differently in the... But it, that's, it just wasn't gonna happen that way at this point. So…

23:01Jawad MirRight

23:01Bo Welch... I for… I forget what I was talking about. The other trap is you take a book like Cat in the Hat, which was, which has its dearly beloved fan base of people who have some nostalgic memory of this book that is so thin. There's no, there's no real narrative there. So as soon as you start to tamper with it, you piss off everybody who loved the book, but if you were to just adhere to the book and shoot that, you'd have a really boring piece of cinema. So you're kind of screwed either way, is what we find out.

23:48Jawad MirRight.

23:48Bo WelchAnd, you know, the Grinch had an advantage in that the character was kind of fun nasty, and it also had a musical component that everyone was familiar with. So, Cat in the Hat, we had to conjure that all up. But ultimately, harder to translate that character from the book to a live action person dressed in a cat suit. It's just, you know, we had the best people in the world executing it, and there was a lot of brain power went into trying to find the exact level of How much do we see versus how much do we don't? And ultimately, it, for on some level it works. On some level, in some ways it did not work. Sometimes it's funny. Sometimes it borders on a horror movie, to be honest.

24:46Jawad MirI don't know, I don't know about that. I actually, I…

24:50Bo WelchIf you think about it, if you took that... If you think about taking a man and dressing him up as a cat, and then having him invade the home of two lovely little kids while the parents are away, tell me that isn't a horror premise.

25:08Jawad MirYeah. I can, I can see that now that you've put that in perspective.

25:11Bo WelchSo y… it's easy to like there's something fundamentally creepy about that concept. But that wasn't our goal.

25:22Jawad MirYeah. But it's, it's funny you mention that, right? Like, Winnie-the-Pooh, there's a, there's a new horror movie that's coming out. I don't know if you've heard of it.

25:31Bo WelchWhat is it?

25:32Jawad MirYou know Winnie-The-Pooh? The classic book?

25:34Bo WelchOh, yeah.

25:35Jawad MirYeah, the Blood and Honey, because the rights were open and they just made a complete like crazy movie out of it.

25:41Bo WelchOh, good.

25:43Jawad MirSo I wouldn't be surprised if there's a Cat in the Hat horror version down the road.

25:50Bo WelchThe one thing, the one thing we were successful at is that the, Ted Geisel's widow, Audrey Geisel, and the estate of, you know, all of his properties, were so horrified at Cat in the Hat that she banned any further live-action representation of their characters. That's how, that's how good we were. So I saved some people the embarrassment of trying to do it live action again. So I don't know whether that's, a good thing or not. But, she wa… she was horrified.

26:33Jawad MirRight. I…

26:36Bo WelchBut as I said, I don't know how you translate. I, we all did the best we could.

26:41Jawad MirWell, that's the thing, right? Yeah.

26:43Bo WelchAnd to be honest, there a very interesting, not entirely small fan base that likes this movie, 20 years later. It's, it's very interesting.

26:56Jawad MirAnd that's what was, I was gonna say. So when I saw it first, when it came out, I'll be flat honest with you, I didn't like it, right? Like, I just did not like it. And

27:07Bo WelchSure

27:07Jawad Mir... Then I saw it with my kids, and I liked it. And I think that's, and I, and I think what I... I just saw it again like a couple of days ago before our conversation just to kind of refresh my memory, and I was trying to analyze it, you know, in the most hardcore way possible. What went wrong?

27:25Bo WelchRight.

27:25Jawad MirWhat went wrong with this film? And from the standpoint of, you know, box office and critics and everything. And I just, I noticed that it was just a fun movie, and I think if you don't dissect it as a proper s… you know, like a three-arc, like a th… not, three-act story, it actually works.

27:47Bo WelchYeah.

27:48Jawad MirIf you, if you wanna be entertained. The visuals are just so breathtaking. I mean, they're just…

27:52Bo WelchYeah

27:53Jawad Mir... Out of this world, that you, even if you don't like the story, you're still, you know, kind of just, brought into the film, into the s… into the visuals, that you don't wanna get out. And I enjoyed it watching it a third time, like, you know, obviously the first time I didn't like it.

28:08Jawad MirSecond time with kids, and now this. So it's not as bad as you think as it is. I mean, if you, if you…

28:14Bo WelchNo, I know. And also, you know, we had, you know, the writers, Schaefer, Berg, and Mandel, they were, at that time were called the Seinfeld writers. But who are very talented writers, and went on, and have individually gone on to, you know, incredible careers. Their script, I loved it, and it was, it was even more, there was even more anarchy in it in their earlier drafts that people got scared of, you know, meaning the studio and Mike. And so… and a lot of that was supplanted with kind of a lowbrow humor that, you know, I could've done without. So it was a little ahead of its time, because I think now people can handle that irreverence and that, and that anarchy a little, a little better.

29:18Jawad MirYeah.

29:18Bo WelchBack then it was, it was just, it was, Cat in the Hat was just too precious a piece of kiddie literature. And it's that old problem of, okay, you try to make a four-quadrant movie, and or it's, so it's for the kids, okay? But then we want the, you know, the teenagers and the grownups to like it too. So you try to, you try to mix. You know, your tone becomes sometimes too rough for kids, and sometimes it's too juvenile for grownups. So another trap. I've always w… In design work as well, I always, I do it to serve the narrative, illustrate characters, but also almost entirely to amuse myself. If I, if I like it and I can sell it always seems to work out. So if anything, I'd have made, I'd have made Cat in the Hat, more anarchic.

30:26Jawad MirOkay.

30:26Bo WelchBecause ultimately it is. This weird-ass cat comes into your house and destroys it and tries to…... You know, alleviate you of your symptoms of boredom, and then, and then leaves, and then, yeah, and then everything's fine. It's a crazy idea, so why not, you know, lean into that, as they say?

30:48Jawad MirYeah. And that, and I think that's how you sort of learn too, right? Like, you make certain mistakes based on your certain decisions, but at the same time, the bottom line that I've obviously learn… I have learned, I'm sure a lot of us learned, is that if you are, if you are enjoying something, that if your gut tells you that this is something that I'm liking it, more than likely the audience…

31:09Bo WelchYeah

31:09Jawad Mir... Is gonna like it. And…

31:11Bo WelchYeah

31:11Jawad Mir... That's the formula that everybody should sort of tangle on.

31:15Bo WelchYep.

31:17Jawad MirIn terms of your casting, obviously Mike Myers came with it, but…

31:24Bo WelchYeah

31:24Jawad Mir... Your other cat… actors, Dakota Fanning was up and coming at the time, you know…

31:29Bo WelchYeah

31:29Jawad Mir... And there's Alec Baldwin in it.

31:31Bo WelchI had seen her in that film with Sean Penn.

31:35Jawad MirOh

31:36Bo WelchI…

31:36Jawad Mir... I know, the one where he plays, a handicap, right?

31:41Bo WelchYeah, that one. And I tr… I could, I was just stunned at how angelic she was. And what a great actor at that, at that age, and she was, she was bulletproof. Man, she was so good, and sh… just shockingly smart for a kid that age. So yeah, no, I recommended her. I've, I had worked with, Alec Baldwin, so, and of course love him, and he was perhaps the most fun aspect of, the job for me, was w… when he would come to work, I would, when he was on the call sheet, I would look forward to going to work because he was so fun and would try stuff and was, he just has a great presence and energy.

32:46Jawad MirAnd I, and I couldn't agree more, about Alec Baldwin's performance in Cat in the Hat. I've never seen him in that kind of a role, at least to my knowledge, like, just completely…... Completely out of the box. Like, normally, you know, he does thrillers, dramas, action.

33:02Bo WelchYeah

33:02Jawad Mir... But that was, that was good to see. And that movie that, with Dakota Fanning and Sean Penn was I Am Sam, just to refresh your memory.

33:09Bo WelchWhat was it called?

33:10Jawad MirI Am Sam.

33:10Bo WelchOh, that's right, I Am Sam. Yeah.

33:12Jawad MirYeah.

33:13Bo WelchAmy Hill was great, you know, Mrs. Kwan. Sean Hayes is fantastic as the voice of the Fish and Mr. Humberflub.

33:30Jawad MirNo, the casting, the casting was bang on. I'll, I'll just say in terms of Mike Myers, I think he was amazing, but I... You know, in Austin Powers or other films of his, like, the expressions were there, but I think because obviously it required, you j… a… at least for me, I didn't register with his performance that much as I wish I had, but overall, I mean, he was, he was phenomenal.

33:54Bo WelchYeah. You know what? He would, it was... Here's what made it really hard to do also, is, right off the bat, and I, our line producer, Eric, had said, "Oh, you're not gonna get Mike in the, in the, on the set until late in the day." And I said, "Why?" And he said, "And Mike says, 'I'm not funny before noon.'" So that, with that, how that really translates is he doesn't even get into the m… makeup chair till noon.

34:28Jawad MirYeah.

34:28Bo WelchSo he's ready to shoot, around 3:30 in the afternoon. Meanwhile, you've got kids who are, you know, they're done at 5:00. And so there were, there were, you know, weeks and weeks go by where you're shooting the bad stand-in version of Cat in the Hat, who really was scary looking, you know, opposite these kids, and then you're shooting Mike with small people in the scene. So there was, you had a very limited amount of time to get, to get everybody in a shot, w… which is a real handicap when you're trying to do a comedy.

35:14Jawad MirHow... I mean, o… o… obviously I've read about that many times. It, sometime it becomes very evident in a film that when you have two actors who are not in the same, who are not filmed the same time, or three actors, or four. Being on the set, how does that make, how did that, how did that make you feel at the time? You know, like, is this even gonna work, or what am I doing, or…

35:40Bo WelchYeah, no, you know, I never saw a complete, you know, cut of a scene, until, like, six weeks into it. It was all just pieces. So you don't really know. And Don Zimmerman, the editor, who's, who's a very talented editor, and he did, you know, Hal Ashby movies, and, he, was kind of a genius about it. But really, it, y… you don't know what you got un… un… till you're deep into it and it's too late. I must also say, Kelly Preston, the late Kelly Preston, oh my God, what a, what a doll she was. And so talented and beautiful, and man, that's… yeah. And a, and a very important part of that cast because...

36:45Bo WelchOh, I don't know, I was just, she was great.

36:48Jawad MirI genuinely think with the amount of time the film had, you know, as an audience member watching it, everybody, you know, really hit the chord really well. And I think that to me stands out more than anything else. Yes, the visuals were great, but it was just a very different type of humor, that kept you engaged, at least for me.

37:17Bo WelchYeah, for me too, and there were, you know, I must admit, there were times on set when Mike was really in the zone, as they say. And, shooting in person when the cast and crew are around was just ridiculously hysterical and fun, and I, and you think, "Oh my God, this is gonna be the greatest thing ever." But a lot of that stuff is not necess… not necessarily what you're filmed and doesn't, has nothing to do with the narrative. It's just him entertaining us, and he was really good at that, at that on a, on a number of occasions, I gotta say. We were just, like, choking with laughter.

38:08Jawad MirAnd I think that's what separates from a situation that you did The Cat in the Hat with films or TV productions where everybody's present because you could feel that comedy right there if it's not there, right?

38:20Jawad MirLike, if the, that chemistry.

38:21Bo WelchYeah.

38:21Jawad MirLike Seinfeld, for example, I mean, you have four of them in one room, and if something is not funny, it will, it will come up immediately.

38:30Bo WelchOh, yeah. Yeah.

38:31Jawad MirAnd Bo, how difficult, or it wasn't difficult, was it that you were directing this film for the first... Like, you were a first-time director, but you had been production designer all your life. S… trying to separate the two and not in any way micromanaging and kinda making sure that your job is just sticking to the directing job, how was that experience?

38:56Bo WelchWell, you know, y… it's hard not to gravitate towards your comfort zone, especially when it's, there's so much pressure. I would, I would get together with Alex, and it was almost, like, relaxing and therapeutic to spend time with him, you know, reviewing stuff and picking colors and, but really, he assembled an amazing team and is very talented. And you know, I, we would talk. We would, you know, you'd, we would do our thing and, go back and forth a bit. But pretty much he ran that, and I was able to stand back because I c… you can't, y… there's just not enough, there's not enough, hard drive in your head to get involved in both things on something of that scale. So i… he was fantastic.

39:57Bo WelchAnd I hi… I, you know, I, at the time, I was looking for a production designer, and people would say, "Who are you gonna hire for a production designer? Who?" And, you know, I had a couple people, but they weren't in, available. But I, in researching it, I really liked Fight Club, and I know it had nothing to do with what we're about to do. But I can te… as a production designer, I can tell, you know, who's got, who's got the talent just by looking at totally unrelated work. And, so that's what, that's what I liked of his. And you know, and there was other stuff as well, but... And then I met him and hired him on the spot.

40:45Jawad MirOne thing that, I really... I mean, this is a little tidbit, just a comment. I re… it came out in 2003, and I think there was a scene where Dakota Fanning's character was holding, like, a cellphone with a screen on it, and this was, like, way before iPhone ever came out.

41:01Bo WelchRight.

41:01Jawad MirIt was foreshadowing. And then there was even, like, a scene which is kind of very, fresh in mind with the... There was a scene where they have, like, a hygiene, like a... What's the word I'm looking for? What's that liquid that we use with COVID nowadays that you have to go in a room? You know what I'm... You know, when you go to a store…

41:26Bo WelchSanitizer

41:26Jawad Mir... When you have a l… you rub it on your hands? God, it's, like, a such a common word.

41:31Bo WelchOh, right, the, hand sanitizer.

41:33Jawad MirHand sanitizer.

41:34Bo WelchYeah.

41:34Jawad MirThere's a scene of that in there.

41:36Bo WelchYeah.

41:36Jawad MirYou know, like…

41:36Bo WelchYeah, there's that where, Sean Hayes' character, Humberfloob, was, he carried it on his belt, and he was, he was a germophobe. Yeah, that, so that is funny now that you mention that. I hadn't even thought of that.

41:49Jawad MirAny kind of s… obstacles that you c… came across on the set, and how did you overcome it as a director?

41:56Bo WelchYou know, it, I really didn't ha… aside from that time thing where you get the kids early in the day and then you get Mike from, you know, from like 3:00 to whenever he, kind of wears out, that was the biggest, that was the biggest obstacle was, for me, was not having everyone, having more overlap. Then there was, we built that... The other thing that was a pain in the ass was the, we built that, you know, that, the collection of houses which when I look at, I go, "Oh, my God, this is so cool looking." We built that in a, in a s… in a valley out in, Simi Valley. We had selected it during one season, and then when we came back to shoot it, I guess it was in the spring, and there was some weird phenomenon where, in the morning, the, you know, the ocean is cold, the desert's hot, and it would pull fog into that valley.

43:06Bo WelchAnd there were days when you would, you would drive up to that set and you could just see the lilac and blue tops of houses peeking out above the fog, and it was phenomenally gorgeous, but a horrific, nightmare for us, where we ended up doing sky replacement to get rid of fog. It was just a nightmare. Beyond that, you know, the actual… we had such a great crew, assembled for it and, you know, a $100 million movie, you have no excuses.

43:49Jawad MirYeah.

43:49Bo WelchThe shooting went as well as it, as it could. Post, which was very new to me, started out great and then went, then went a little south.

44:01Jawad MirAnd how did you work in post? I mean, a lot of directors work differently. Were you, were you sitting with the editor most of the time, or was it, like, a weekly kinda come in and more, like, more coming in at the end of the wrapping up of the post?

44:16Bo WelchHe had a great rough assembly by the time we were done, and I would hang out with him every day and, you know, because it was new to me, I was really curious about it, too. But I was there every day until we finished the, you know, the 10-week director's cut. And at that point, then we showed it to Mike and he said… and Mike said he was so relieved. He said, "Normally, at this point, I'm ready to blow my brains out. This is the best, first cut of a movie I've ever seen that I've worked on." And we thought, "Wow, great." but that was a little bit not true.

45:12Jawad MirBut here's the thing, right? And this is not talking about The Cat in the Hat, and I think a lot of films go through this, is, you know, you make a film. You know, there's pre-production, there's production, there's post-production. We talk… always talk about the three aspects, but then there's a thing called marketing, right?

45:28Jawad MirLike, putting it out there. And a lot of times, based on, screenings and test screenings, the marketing team, again, because they're doing their job, because at the end of the day, it's about making the profit, right?

45:42Bo WelchRight

45:42Jawad Mir... They come back and they're like, "Okay, this needs to be done. That needs to be done." So how, eh... Not even talking about Cat in the Hat, just in general, how do you feel about that aspect? Because sometimes the marketing teams do make the wrong call, right? Like, they do, they do screw up.

46:01Bo WelchOh, sure.

46:01Jawad MirRight? And I think I was speaking to, Dean Parisot, the director of Galaxy Quest. I'm not sure…

46:08Bo WelchYes.

46:09Jawad MirYeah.

46:09Bo WelchYeah, I know him. He's a great guy.

46:11Jawad MirYeah, he's a wonderful guy, and he was telling me that how Galaxy Quest faced a similar marketing fiasco. Even though it was a great film, it was received really b… well, and then Jeffrey Katzenberg called him couple of weeks later and he said that, "You know, look, w… we screwed up," you know, b… because they marketed the film not the way that it should've been. So how, in your view, how much you feel the marketing team should have a say after it's been, you know, given the pass from almost everybody at the studio or the actors or the producers?

46:49Jawad MirAgain, we're not talking about Cat in the Hat. It's a very s… general question.

46:53Bo WelchYeah. I th… I think very, too often, the marketing determines the movie, where it, where it should be the other way around.

47:05Jawad MirYeah.

47:05Bo WelchI think very often, or especially, you know, maybe back then, it feels like they would put a deal together, cast the actors, you know, the two leads, work out the marketing, and then write the script and shoot it. It's like the priorities were back asswards.

47:32Jawad MirAnd I think that started after the internet age started. I believe it became more…

47:38Bo WelchYeah

47:38Jawad Mir... More of a thing once the internet kicked off, that, "Okay, we gotta do it this way."

47:44Bo WelchRight. That the marketing precedes all the other oh, all the... You know, it's, it's like ready, aim, shoot. You know, that idea.

47:57Jawad MirAnd h… what do you feel about this question? I bet that…

48:00Bo WelchI mean, ready, shoot, aim.

48:02Jawad MirRight.

48:04Bo WelchYeah.

48:05Jawad MirAnd Bo, one thing that I feel that I wish, I don't know how you feel about this now, is that you directed Cat in the Hat, and I don't think you directed anything afterwards, right?

48:19Bo WelchNo, I have directed, I directed five hours of A Series of Unfortunate Events, of which we did three…

48:29Jawad MirOh, right

48:30Bo Welch... For Netflix.

48:30Jawad MirRight. Yeah.

48:32Bo WelchSo I desi… I designed and directed, in that case, with my friend Barry Sonnenfeld, with whom I've done more work than anyone, and with whom I share… a lot of sensibilities in regards to movies and life. So I was, I did that, you know. We did three seasons, and each season I did a block, so.

49:00Jawad MirAnd how was that? I haven't seen it, so I don't know.

49:04Bo WelchIt's... You should see it. I, it's, it's some of my favorite work, period. And, it's a, it's great, it's a great design job all three seasons. And if you like Patrick Warburton, who I love, it's great. It's just... I highly recommend it. It's in… it's insane.

49:33Jawad MirOh, wait. Is wa…

49:34Bo WelchYou should check it out

49:34Jawad Mir... Is this on Netflix?

49:35Bo WelchSo th… I directed, I don't know if you're familiar with A Series of Unfortunate Events. You remember they made the movie Lemony Snicket?

49:43Jawad MirYeah. With Jim Carrey one.

49:45Bo WelchThis takes the books, and we shot, you know, all the books. So, in the first season I did The Miserable Mill, and then I did the second season, The Ersatz Elevator, and then I did the la… the end, you know, the last episode. And each one is insanely different but really fun. You know, we shot all on stage, so everything is constructed except a couple of exteriors on Miserable Mill. So it's very controlled, and was utterly exhausting to do both. But I, again, I put together a great team. And I would always direct towards the end of the season so that I would, I would get a… as far ahead as I could design-wise, and then I would rely on, you know, a great crew to execute while I'm prepping to direct.

50:54Bo WelchSo it was an insane amount of work, but, it was really fun and it's like living an alt… a parallel life.

51:07Jawad MirI'm gonna, I'm gonna…

51:08Bo WelchYeah

51:08Jawad Mir... Check that out. And I'm a huge fan of Barry's work, by the way. Men in Black, I mean, God. Amazing.

51:13Bo WelchSo am I.

51:14Jawad MirYeah. He's…

51:15Bo WelchAnd, so I did that directing, and that was really fun. I think I did, I think I directed a couple episodes of the Tick, the original one with Patrick Warburton. I think that may have been... Was that before Cat in the Hat? I don't re… I, it's a blur. So and after the Cat, after Cat in the Hat, you know, I tried to, get a few other jobs going and couldn't ha… couldn't make it happen. I had some, you know, smaller, you know, more independent kind of movies. And, that's a whole different, that's a whole different world. Wow. Trying to put those together, and they say, "Well, you, here's who you need to cast in order to make this foreign sales thing," and…

52:03Jawad MirYeah

52:03Bo Welch... Yeah. Couldn't quite pull it off.

52:06Jawad MirYeah. That's a challenge now, right? It goes back to my marketing thing. It's like now everything is about so many other things…

52:13Bo WelchRight

52:13Jawad Mir... First, then the art.

52:16Bo WelchYes.

52:18Jawad MirAnd it…

52:18Bo WelchAnd it's all sort of mysterious, too, as best I can tell. You know, as far as, "Well, you need this person s… so that we can make a sale in, wherever. Eastern Europe."

52:37Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. No. I didn't know you had worked on Color Purple as well.

52:43Bo WelchYes. That was, that was my last, job as an art director, and it was the last year they included art directors, in the Academy Awards. So we were nominated. And, I, my dear friend, again, the late Mike Riva, I had worked with him, and he was a good friend of mine as well. And at the end of Color Purple, he said, "You should be designing your own movies." And I said, "Yeah." and he's the one, he got called to design Bright Lights, Big City with, and Joel Schumacher was going to direct it at the time. And Mike couldn't do it because he had something else to do. And he said, he said, "You should do it." So we went, we went to Joel Schumacher's house and knocked on the door.

53:44Bo WelchAnd Joel came to the door, and Mike said to Joel, "I can't do it. Here's who you should hire," while we're standing on his doorstep. And Joel was, thought, "Okay." And but then he ended up not doing that movie. In the meantime, he produced a television movie for Showtime that I did design. And then, and then when he did Lost Boys, he, hired me. So I o… I owe a lot of that transition to production design to Mike Riva.

54:25Jawad MirYeah. No, I didn't know that, art director used to be a category at the Oscars at any point in history. So…

54:32Bo WelchYeah, they, I think they, it used to be way back when, and then they gradually, you know, in their effort to thin out statues…

54:42Jawad MirYeah

54:43Bo Welch... Eliminated it. And I think, even then, Kathy Kennedy and the people on Color Purple had to, had to write a letter or something say he did more than his, than a normal art director. E… 'cause I got, I got sent basically to North Carolina. Mike stayed in LA and worked on the sets there. And he sent me in advance down to North Carolina to work on the stuff there. And, you know, this is all pre-internet and…

55:15Jawad MirYeah. Yeah

55:17Bo Welch... So, it was fun, you know.

55:22Jawad MirCool. I would love to, I mean, if you are, down for it do… later on, maybe would love to talk to you about, Color Purple and maybe even Men in Black and have Barry on as well.

55:33Bo WelchSure.

55:34Jawad MirGreat. One last thing that I wanted to ask you is what are your upcoming projects that you're working on?

55:43Bo WelchI have nothing…

55:47Jawad MirAre you able to talk…

55:47Bo Welch... I can talk about right now.

55:49Jawad MirGot it.

55:49Bo WelchNo. When people say they don't want, "It's soon to be announced." I, you know, you can't talk about anything in the future. It's bad luck.

56:03Jawad Mir100%. You actually, they say that you shouldn't talk about your plans, you know, till you're…

56:08Bo WelchTill they're done.

56:09Jawad MirYeah, till they're done. Exactly. Which in Hollywood is impossible because, one, you have to make a formal announcement and all that stuff and get the buzz going and get the release date going. But l… listen, Bo, this has been fantastic. I will be in touch, and maybe we can schedule this on the next…

56:25Bo WelchSure

56:25Jawad Mir... Coming once again.

56:26Bo WelchYou bet.

56:27Jawad MirAll right.

56:27Bo WelchOkay.

56:27Jawad MirTake care, Bo.

56:28Bo WelchCheers.

56:28Jawad MirBye-bye.

56:28Bo WelchThank you.