{"id":3819,"date":"2021-12-03T13:24:23","date_gmt":"2021-12-03T13:24:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4guysmagazine.com\/?p=3819"},"modified":"2021-12-03T13:24:26","modified_gmt":"2021-12-03T13:24:26","slug":"jonathan-butterell-gives-birth-to-a-drag-superstar-in-everybodys-talking-about-jamie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/4guysmagazine.com\/?p=3819","title":{"rendered":"Jonathan Butterell gives birth to a drag superstar in \u2018Everybody\u2019s Talking About Jamie\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Butterell cut his showbiz teeth as a dancer and choreographer, leaving behind his native Sheffield, England for the lights of London. He didn\u2019t have to look far to find brilliant collaborators, as he trained in dance under the tutelage of Matthew Bourne (of the all-male Swan Lake<\/em> fame), and began choreographing for future Oscar-winner Sam Mendes. Opportunities to direct and choreograph followed, with Butterell moving to Broadway to choreograph Nine, Fiddler on the Roof,<\/em> and The Light in the Piazza. <\/em>A chance viewing of a documentary about a teen drag queen inspired Butterell to begin development on a new musical with Dan Gillespie Sells and Tom MacRae at the tiny Crucible Theatre back in Sheffield. That show became Everybody\u2019s Talking About Jamie.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now Butterell brings his baby to the big screen. Everyone\u2019s Talking About Jamie<\/em> follows the titular 16-year-old (played by newcomer Max Harwood), a blue-collar kid aspiring to become a drag performer. His interest in the art form leads him to Hugo (Richard E. Grant), a middle-aged queen who passes on some tips for becoming a drag star\u2026along with some history of the queer community. Jamie also plans to show off his new drag-o-riffic look at his senior prom\u2026if his teachers and the school bully don\u2019t stop him first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We caught up with Butterell just ahead of the much-anticipated release of the movie. Everybody\u2019s Talking About Jamie <\/em>arrives on Amazon on September 17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congratulations on your first movie.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a crazy thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So this has been a long road from the Crucible Theatre to here. How do you feel that your baby has grown up?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hard to wrap my head around in many ways. I\u2019ve been around the block a bit; I\u2019m not a kid. If you would have told me when we started this process that this is where we\u2019d finish up, I\u2019d say you were crazy. But on some other level, the power of this story has its own life. I saw this documentary Drag Queen at 16 that went in. It literally just went in. And I thought I need to continue this story. And I continued it in the medium I knew well: to create a musical about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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EVERYBODY\u2019S TALKING ABOUT JAMIE<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sure.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I felt it naturally sung. Then, from the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield\u2014which is my home town, a community I knew well. Remember, this was an unknown story for them. In the beginning, we hadn\u2019t even sold many tickets. We had an open dress rehearsal in which people paid one pound to come to see it. At that dress rehearsal, something happened in the audience and went [click] like that. From that moment in time, we sold out. Warp Films, who actually had an office in Sheffield literally across the valley, not very far from the theatre, came to see the stage show. They rang me and said they wanted the right to make a movie. That was on week two of our run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s incredible. Wild.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wild.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Were you offered the director\u2019s chair right away then?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was not<\/em> offered it. There was never a moment they suggested anyone else direct. So I just kept going, and nobody told me not to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s an amazing attitude, though you\u2019d never directed a film before. Obviously, directing a film is very different from doing a stage show. Did you ever have a moment of self-doubt?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every day of the shoot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Laughter]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every day of the shoot. But I think that every creative has that conversation with himself. It felt like such a responsibility. I felt like I had enough transferable skill to take what I already knew from the theatre in terms of holding space, holding a group of people. I also felt I had the most amazing team of people around me. Chris Ross, our DOP. Jane Levick, our production designer. Guy Speranza, our costume designer. Nadia Stacey, our make-up designer. So I knew that I had the best people around me. I felt like I had a thousand hands on my back telling me I can do it. But I also felt the freedom to be able to lead and say \u201cThis is a vision. This is what I think it should be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sure.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even from the execs. I think I pushed the vision so far the budget started to grow, but they followed me. And I\u2019m grateful for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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EVERYBODY\u2019S TALKING ABOUT JAMIE<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tell me more about that. The directing film is very different from directing stage. How did your approach to the material change?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was liberated. I really went this is the chance to let my imagination explode. I\u2019m very visual. I could see it. I could visualize it. I knew the community, the city really well. I knew the vista really well. I knew the world really well. And I knew the inner world of the character well. The wonderful thing about the film is the close-up\u2014getting in and seeing the inner workings of a character. The film does that as nothing else can do. The power and delicacy and strength of what\u2019s going on beyond somebody\u2019s eyes\u2014I love exploring that. I love what the camera can do with that. I love the scale of the camera. And I learned, in the post, to love to edit. Detail by detail, the moment you cut. Three frames can make a difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I adored the whole process. It felt very natural to me. Not that it wasn\u2019t terrifying\u2014I was terrified every day. But there\u2019s nobody out there when given this responsibility, who won\u2019t have imposter syndrome. But I needed to tell the story. That fueled me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s fantastic. You speak of the visuals. You use a lot of pink and blue imagery in Jamie\u2019s songs.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We call it Jamie pink, Jamie blue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is that deliberate\u2014to suggest gender fluidity?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Totally. I wanted to create a world in which nothing was binary in a sense. Jamie is a cisgender, gay man. That\u2019s his story. But I didn\u2019t want anything to land in a binary place, and that\u2019s with all the characters. I feel like we\u2019ve lived in this world of such entrenchment for a long time. One argument against another. One way of life against another way of life. I just wanted to step out of that. I\u2019ve been speaking to a few people that call the character Dean a bully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I never call him a bully. I call him a d*ck. Because he is! He\u2019s a stupid d*ck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Laughter]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He says stupid things, but he\u2019s more complex than just the role of bully. In the same way, I didn\u2019t want to assign Jamie to the role of victim that we\u2019ve seen a thousand times. Jamie, in this movie, was never going to be the victim. I wanted him to be strong with who he was. He\u2019s openly gay, he has no problem with that. His mom gives him a pair of shoes in essentially the second scene and says \u201cGo for it.\u201d The things that Jamie overcomes are some of the doubts he had inside. Some of that doubt was put in by his dad. Some of that doubt as a 16-year-old man\u2014particularly in the second song of the film\u2014he takes responsibility. He knows he\u2019s responsible for creating some of those thoughts and needing to step out of that thought pattern. It\u2019s that complex non-binary story I wanted to tell. And even his dad: I didn\u2019t want to make him an evil dad that turned on his son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Max Harwood stars in EVERYBODY\u2019S TALKING ABOUT JAMIE Photo: John Rogers \u00a9 Amazon Content Services LLC<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019re also using an untested lead in Max Harwood. Does that affect the way you direct him\u2014his lack of experience?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love working with young people. I work with young people both on stage and in the community as well. I work for two charities that work with young people. So taking a young actor, I found beautiful. I find they teach you as much as you teach them. They bring such freshness. And Max is super bright, super intelligent. He had many things naturally to him, but also an innate sense of what the camera is doing. He just knew. The same with Lauren who plays Pritti. She\u2019d never acted before. Max had some training. Lauren had none at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wow.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

She brought something so innately honest. You can\u2019t buy that, particularly on film. It\u2019s going to capture it, even if you\u2019re not conscious of it. I just loved working with those two. And actually, most of the young people in the film had never acted before. They\u2019re straight out of school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019re also personally connected to the material. I realize you didn\u2019t write the show, that it\u2019s based on a true story. I don\u2019t know how you identify\u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, I\u2019m a gay guy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Glad to have you in the family. But being a kid in Sheffield, you obviously loved to perform. You went on to become a very successful dancer and choreographer. And I couldn\u2019t find your age online\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m going to keep it that way!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I\u2019m guessing based on your body of work\u2014which begins in the 90s\u2014you remember the AIDS crisis.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was there. I was there at those marches. I lost close friends during that time. And I was a young man just arriving in London experiencing that. It felt really important\u2014that generational exchange. That passing on was really important to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Richard E Grant stars in EVERYBODY\u2019S TALKING ABOUT JAMIE<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It shows in that beautiful number Hugo\/Richard Grant has. John McCrea, the original Jamie, also cameos there.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Absolutely. He plays young Hugo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So even though this is a true story, how much of you is Jamie? How much of you is Hugo?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Long pause]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quite a lot. I was a young, queer kid from Sheffield who, when I was that age, wanted to get out of Sheffield. I wanted to escape. The school was tough for me\u2014very tough, tougher than for Jamie. But I never wanted to be a victim. I got that strength from the love of my mother and father. But the part of me that wanted to get out\u2014that took me to London and eventually New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s inspiring.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jamie\u2019s story\u2014he does what I did in many ways. In his little journey, he comes to a sense of himself on a Monday morning, after all, that experience of coming out and going to his prom. He puts the [trash] bins out on a Monday morning in his own fabulousness. I feel like I\u2019ve returned now with this piece to Sheffield. This is my love letter to Sheffield, and it\u2019s my version of putting the bins out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last question then. So, you\u2019ve shepherded this project all the way from concept to movie, every step of the way. How has it changed you? How has it pushed you as an artist?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It challenged me at every stage. I never used to call myself an artist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a really difficult word to call myself, probably because of my background, my own story. It felt like a big word. As the politics of the world changed and shifted not long ago, I claimed that word for myself. I said, \u201cThis is an important word.\u201d I have power. My artistry is my voice and my vision. It\u2019s important that I give voice to where I\u2019m coming from. If I can shift the world in any small way, I have to own my artistry. I think this has just made me more courageous. I want to make more movies. I want to tell stories. This makes me want it even more. I think of all the things I\u2019ve done\u2014and I\u2019ve done the most amazing things and worked with amazing people\u2014something as simple as Jamie has shifted me massively. It\u2019s a simple story. The power in the telling of that is what I need to hold onto for myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everybody\u2019s Talking About Jamie\u00a0arrives on Amazon on September 17.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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