PopSyndicate.com

Susan Kandell (Pop Syndicate): Pleased to meet you. Sorry – I wish we could have brought you a sunnier day. It’s unusually foggy. Remind you of England?

Stephen Walker: (He laughs) It’s worse then England!

PS: Sorry about that, we would have liked to have done better! Tell me the genesis of the project. You were going to a performance in London. Did you know when you went that evening……(he jumps right in with his response)

SW: Not at all. The situation is this, my partner and I started a production company, we were both in the business for along time making all kinds of films, not just documentaries, but narrative feature films and such, and we had a development deal with one of the networks in the UK and we were looking for the right story – it was just the two of us in the kitchen at that point. We had just enough money to keep going. And we had to find the story that would enable us to grow. We were looking and looking and looking and one day Sally George, my producer came up to me and said she got this flyer from a theatre around the corner where we live about a bunch of old people singing rock & roll music. “Do ya wanna go? It might be interesting”. And I said, “Ummmm. Not sure……” Maybe some of the reactions people have when they first hear about the movie. Ya know? And it’s a pity if you just stop at that point because in this instance, of course, I went along – it could be a bit gimmicky, maybe a bit patronizing, not quite sure if I was going to like this or not.

First thing that struck me was that the audience was young, I was in my 40’s and I was the oldest person there, which is unusual, unexpected. Second thing was, that when (and indeed I start the film like this) when this amazing 93 year old woman came up to the microphone and screamed the opening lines from The Clash - Should I stay or should I go? Not only is there some shock value when that happens, I mean a 93 year old singing The Clash, but very quickly it became obvious that she was singing about life and death. And it was a very moving moment which I also duplicate in the film, where at the end of it she says one more time, Should I stay or should I go? The whole audience says – STAY – and I came away from that thinking, God – this is could be really interesting. What we have here is a possibility to make a musical about old age. And that’s how I saw it! I didn’t see it as a documentary to begin with; I saw it as a musical. I still see it as a musical. Music is going to be a very important part of it. So that’s really how it started and a musical about old age was kind of an exciting notion. Because people don’t talk about old people – it’s kind of a taboo area and thought this could be fantastically interesting, creatively very challenging.

So that’s how it started. I went up to the television network and they said yes and then we had a nightmare trying to persuade Bob Cilman to do it.  Understandably he was very protective and had a lot of offers, but we were really persistent. And I’m slowly going bankrupt, which actually helped us being very persistent. With no money coming in at all – for god sake, Bob – make up your mind! Do the bloody thing! And finally, before Christmas he agreed to do it. Which was a great holiday present for us!

PS: It’s musically driven, it’s character driven - lot of things going on. I’m a filmmaker myself. I made a film where music was integral to the documentary – so I know how difficult it is to obtain the rights – how much of a nightmare was that?

SW: Total nightmare! You’re talking about some of the greatest artists in the world!

PS: Your cue sheet is amazing! Right from my IPod.

SW: Most of the guarantee I got from Fox Searchlight, when they picked up the movie in Los Angeles after the film festival, was to pay for the music.  Not all of it obviously. The music was really hard – it took months and months and months of negotiations to clear our music theatrically for world. And one or two pieces we couldn’t get through.

PS: That was my next question. What didn’t clear?

SW: We couldn’t get through a wonderful version on U2 (entitled) One, which Joe sang. Which I recorded and one point I had a sequence which will never been seen by anybody – except privately. The film has a moment, where you know that Joe is in the transfusion clinic – blood transfusion and at one point we intercut that sequence with him rehearsing a few weeks prior to this performance of U2’s One. It has one line that’s really so on the money and we couldn’t get clearance. We tried – I never got to U -2, it was stuck somewhere in middle management – stuck like a piece of paper in a drawer. I wrote personal letters, I said this guy died – this was his song and you gotta let this happen and I never got anywhere with it.

PS: That’s just sad.

SW: I know - and it’ll never be shown. It is sad actually, the sequence as it is now is still pretty powerful, but that sequence (he pauses)..……. We had a guy come into the cutting room with a cup of teas and he was just blown away by it. It was really powerful. He sings about life and death. That’s what he thought about it. But we got most of it, 90% we got.  They have a performance of Hey Ya by Outkast – brilliant – kids love that ya know – because it’s their kind of music. Couldn’t get that cleared either.

PS: I’m surprised!

SW: But we got a lot of stuff cleared and most of the key ones are in, so I was happy in the end.

PS: What’s your next project?

SW: Well, that’s a very good question. I’m in this situation now where I’m getting lots of scripts from Hollywood for a movie to direct. I’ve got a ton of them to read over the next few weeks. And I have various meetings in LA in the middle of this trip as well, through my agents at William Morris. So, I’m looking for the right project. It needs to hit the right nerve and I don’t know what it’s going to be yet, but I would like to think that I would be in production in a movie by next year. It maybe a documentary, it maybe a narrative feature – whatever hits.

PS: Well I hope you’re as passionate about whatever you’ll be doing as you were about Young@Heart and it’ll be a hit.

SW: Can’t rush into the next thing. You gotta be careful.

PS: Absolutely!

SW: It’s also very hard because – it’s very beloved by a lot of people and you don’t want screw up on the next one, because people are going to think….

PS: You’re a one-hit wonder?

SW: Yeah - # 2 is really the scary one. Isn’t it? Well, were getting our signal that it’s time to play musical chairs. But we got the important things covered!

PS: Yes, we did! Thank you so much! Enjoy your stay here in Dallas

SW: Thank you!

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