by MATTHEW HAYS

For filmmaker Bill Condon, the journey has been as strange as it has been pleasurable. Since he first became noted for making low-budget horror movies like Sister, Sister (1987) and Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995), he has managed to master a number of genres.

In 1998, he would win an Oscar for his homage to horror film director and gay icon James Whale, Gods and Monsters. The film managed to incorporate movie lore while also speculating about Whale’s private life. But as Condon tells it, his love of horror was only matched by his love of the musical. An avid theatregoer, Condon loved to see stage musicals, and closely followed the work of Michael Bennett, the legendary stage director behind such smash Broadway successes as Dreamgirls and A Chorus Line (sadly, Bennett would die of AIDS in 1987). And Condon was always a Supremes freak—he even convinced his father to take him to one of their concerts in Britain, when he was just eight. In 2002, Condon would make his first foray into musical turf, writing the screenplay adaptation for Chicago, the hugely successful film that would ultimately take the Best Picture Oscar. He followed that up with his exquisite biopic of the legendary sex researcher, Kinsey.

Dream gig

These two key successes led to his landing the gig he’d always dreamt of: the big-screen adaptation of Dreamgirls, the ’80s smash stage hit that was clearly based on the rise-to-success story of the Supremes. Apparently, Condon approached David Geffen, the multimillionaire mogul who owns the rights to the musical, with his ideas. Geffen liked what he heard, and Condon was in.

As it turns out, Condon was the right man for the job. Starring Beyoncé Knowles, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls is a totally fun and engaging movie, part pop culture parable, part old-fashioned musical. Condon talked to the Mirror about the project from New York.

Mirror: You seem at home with the musical. You were there for the opening night of the first stage production on Broadway in the early ’80s, right?

Bill Condon: Yes. I think it was Michael Bennett who drew me there, though I loved the Supremes too. I had seen him grow from Company to A Chorus Line. This was his first show in three years. And that anticipation was more than met by the brilliance of his staging. The most fluid staging I’d ever seen—people accurately described it as cinematic. It took off at this speeding-train pace that never stopped.

M: People still see musicals as a thing of the past. You had success with Chicago, but were you worried that people might not be able to accept characters breaking into song?

BC: I did, because that was something we didn’t do in Chicago. All those numbers took place on stage, so we had the device to help you accept that. Here, we had to have people breaking into song, and had to have people accept that as reality. I did know it was a convention that some people resist. So I was nervous about it, and really spent a lot of time thinking about how to do it. When it was on stage, there was more of that—so where possible, I tried to turn book songs into performance songs. And then when we were going to do it, I worked to delay it as much I could. Then you were so used to the fact that these people were performers, that it’s not such a jolt. By the time Jennifer [Hudson] goes into song, you’ve gotten so used to her voice, there seems like there’s a very small distance between her screaming and her singing. So I think people go with it. Just as Bennett’s production was very cinematic, I’m hoping that people embrace how theatrical this movie is. Rather than pretend where it comes from, I think if you embrace that, it’s much easier to accept. I think the idea that these are all performers makes it seem much more believable that they might break into song.

’50s influence

M: Were there any models you thought of while making this?

BC: Absolutely. The backstage musicals of the ’50s: [Vincente] Minnelli’s Band Wagon, Singin’ in the Rain, Love Me or Leave Me, A Star is Born. The way that Minnelli would tell so much of the story through camera and colour. All the key people behind the scenes, we all looked at those films together. There were also some more obscure films, like Lovely to Look At, we adapted a number from that film for a number in Dreamgirls.

M: When I interviewed Liza Minnelli last year, she said there would always be room in the public’s heart for musicals, as long as they are done right.

BC: I think that’s true. There’s this sort of weird resistance, but I think that an audience wants you to break through, because there’s pleasure waiting on the other side. But you can’t underestimate the resistance though, because it’s a real thing.

M: Was there ever any resistance to you doing a musical? You have a background in horror movies.

BC: Well, the horror movies are a while ago. But there isn’t any question that I wouldn’t have been in the mix for this if it hadn’t been for writing Chicago. That’s why I went after that so strongly, because I did feel that that would be my university education in musicals. To figure out how they work, doing it from the inside, you learn how they work in a way that you don’t, even if you’re the biggest fan, as I have been.

The gay/black axis

M: Gays obviously have a longstanding relationship to the musical. How much do you think your sexuality had to do with your connection to this film?

BC: I think a lot. The original show was a collaboration between gay men and an African-American cast. I think that’s why this show has meant a lot to both communities over the years. In a sense, it’s about wanting to be embraced by the larger culture but wanting to make sure that you don’t give up who you are, and that you’re not presenting an image that’s not true to who you are. That’s a very basic gay predicament.

M: And so you feel that connection with the African-American community?

BC: In this show, certainly, but I have always felt strongly politically that way. They are different movements, but they intersect.

M: Did you ever feel like you wanted to incorporate some of those original Supremes songs? They are so incredibly catchy.

BC: They are so great. No, I think this is its own theatrical creation. Somehow, I don’t think that introducing those songs would have worked—I don’t think they would have fit together.

Outsider status

M: Some have argued that you were bringing Bob Fosse’s directorial style into this film.

BC: It’s interesting that people have said that. I think he is the greatest director of musicals we’ve ever had, and certainly I think Cabaret is the greatest movie musical ever made. I love his work, but I don’t see it as much as Minnelli or Stanley Donen. They are more the models for me.

M: This is such a switch from Kinsey, which was also a very fine film.

BC: For me, it’s just like, you get older and you just want to do something that you really connect with. If that’s the impetus for doing something, then it’s bound to work out better ultimately.

M: Do you ever feel at odds with the Hollywood studio system, like you’re an outsider?

BC: Always. I always feel like an outsider, but I don’t think it’s about my sexuality though. Even with Dreamgirls, even though it’s a big budget movie, and it needs to be, but where I come from, my interest in it is very personal. I feel like an outsider in much of that studio culture because the movies that they make and the audience they’re intent on getting, I don’t know that I connect with. n

Dreamgirls opens Monday, Dec. 25

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