“People joke about the ‘80s,” comments Lawrence, “but I think a lot of people also have a perverse affection for it.”
Music and Lyrics Movie Trailer. While the vast majority of the film takes place in present-day, many of the details of Alex Fletcher’s life would be found in the now infamous “Decade of Decadence.” “The movie lives in two different time periods because Alex hasn’t entirely moved on,” says the writer/director. “The production design needed to reflect that.”
“It was difficult taking an ‘80s rocker who once lived like a huge rock star and turning him into a guy who’s basically ready to lose the lease on his apartment,” notes production designer Jane Musky.
Musky and her talented graphics team designed a catalog of ‘80s memorabilia for the film. “We created an entire campaign for PoP with posters, records and CDs. We did a photo shoot with the band in their ‘80s outfits and then another shoot with Hugh where he was photo-shopped into all different sorts of situations,” explains the designer. “We visually created his entire career over a two-day photo shoot with many costume, prop and makeup changes. With these photos, we made memorabilia; posters, magazine covers and articles, giving PoP a graphic history.”
The production also made keepsakes of places Alex had been all over the world, including a picture of him hopping the Berlin Wall and hanging with the band in Egypt. These insights into his past can be seen in the film, planted all over Alex’s apartment. Lawrence tapped Susan Lyall to create the costumes, citing her experience as “a bit of a rocker herself” to give her inside knowledge of Alex’s world.
“I just dove into the ‘80s research,” states Lyall. “The fashion is all about shoulder pads; they have to be a good foot on each side. It’s also informed by the hair and high-waisted pants, things that seem strange to us now even though it wasn’t that long ago.”
Much of Lyall’s source material came from ‘80s pop band Duran Duran, particularly band front man, Simon Le Bon. “For Alex, I wasn’t trying to make a caricature of some fallen pop star,” she explains, “I was going for the handsome, once-upon-a-time pop star who is looking for another moment to come back and maybe reach a new, younger audience at the same time. Even in the present day, Alex still carries little touches of his ‘80s look, like a scarf wrapped around his neck in a certain way, or by wearing lots of rings. He also wears a little necklace and dark glasses. And he kind of has a fetish for sneakers like other former rock stars.”
By contrast, Lyall had to do a fast-forward for the costumes of her contemporary pop star. “Cora is still a teenager so she always had to be very youthful looking and very ‘of the moment,’” notes Lyall. “Her songs and everything about Cora are overtly sexual, so whatever she’s wearing had to be just a little off-putting… unless of course, you’re a teenager who desperately wants to be up on stage.”
For the climactic “Way Back Into Love” duet, Lawrence wanted his pop star to look classy, and also to be a strong complement to Grant’s Alex. To accomplish the look Lyall designed a costume transition that actually takes place on-stage. “Haley is wearing one costume for a number and then she takes off her little silver mesh hoodie and puts on a satin tuxedo jacket that gives her a kind of modern Judy Garland look. She’s wearing hot pants and the suspenders are hanging down and she has knee socks with pirates on them. For the song, she’s right beside Hugh in his black velvet suit and they look great together.”
Lawrence believes that the song “Way Back Into Love” taps into the film’s theme in the most concise way. “A pair of lines reads ‘I’m looking for inspiration, not just another negotiation,’” he notes. “I think that life, to some extent, is a constant struggle between those two things. We’re all looking for inspiration and those moments of transcendence where your fairy tales or fantasies come true.”
He continues, “The reality is that most of life is closer to a negotiation…especially the dayto-day, mundane aspects of how we live. Deep down, we know you can’t have the inspiration all of the time, and we hope not to have to negotiate so much either, so somewhere in the battle between those two is magic. Alex and Sophie find that magic and I think we all deserve more of that in our lives.”
Location: New York
Lawrence, Grant, Barrymore and company filmed “Music & Lyrics” in Manhattan. “I think it’s a sign of the best kind of writing when all the locations are within a few blocks of your apartment,” teases Lawrence. “At the beginning of pre-production I drew an eight-block radius around my apartment on the upper west side and said ‘all the locations will be here.’”
“I do my own scouting,” adds the director, putting kidding aside. “I think you are a better filmmaker when you have firsthand knowledge of the world you’re in.
“Alex pretty much lives in my apartment,” he goes on to note. “The exteriors are my building. The lobby is my building. His apartment is modeled after the style in my building. I even named the doorman Khan, which happens to be the name of my doorman.”
When the script required Lawrence to move outside of his comfortable “eight-block radius,” he continued to shoot in familiar locations on nearby Long Island. The production ventured to the town of Farmingdale to film a scene where Alex sings at Adventureland, a small local theme park where, not coincidentally, Lawrence worked as a teenager.
Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York, doubled as Madison Square Garden for Cora’s concert, where Fletcher & Fisher’s “Way Back Into Love” makes its public debut.
The cast and crew enjoyed working in the Big Apple. “New York is the type of city that really brings people together,” says Barrymore. “If you look at an apartment building from the outside, there can be hundreds of windows and there are complete worlds going on in those windows. I love that about New York.”
Costume designer Susan Lyall adds, “New York informs everything about a production. There’s a beat to this city and everything you encounter here.”
Singing and Dancing
“When I first spoke to Hugh about ‘Music & Lyrics,’ he told me he certainly didn’t play any musical instruments, definitely didn’t sing and couldn’t dance,” confides the director. “It was then that I knew I had to write a musical role for him and force him to do every single one of those things. He went through agony not to mention tremendous hatred of me for putting him in this position,” Lawrence laughs. “And then he went through lots of singing lessons, piano lessons and dance lessons. I have to say, he really applied himself. Hugh’s work ethic is unbelievable.”
“When I took the part of Alex I couldn’t sing or play. I’d taken a year of piano when I was nine years old with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s mother as my instructor, but I gave it up,” laments Grant. “But they hired the very best people to knock me into shape musically for the film and I actually started enjoying it. I didn’t realize how soothing playing the piano could be. I’d get back from a long day’s work and I’d play and sing deep into the night. I came to frankly adore the sound of my own voice though no one else did.”
Michael Rafter, who served as voice and piano coach for the film, helped train the cast to sing. “Hugh and I began with voice,” says Rafter. “And then about a week or two into it I started teaching him basic piano. He’d faked playing on other films, but on this movie he really learned to play the instrument. In fact, he plays the entire song ‘Don’t Write Me Off’ on stage in front of thousands of extras in the film.”
Coaching Barrymore was a bit easier for Rafter because, unlike Grant and Bennett’s characters, Sophie doesn’t have to sing live in front of thousands of extras. “Drew does sing in one scene of the film. She was a bit nervous at first,” admits the voice coach, “but she opened up and surprised herself. She’s a joy.”
Choreographer Dan Karaty’s biggest challenge was to turn Hugh Grant into someone who moves like an ‘80s pop star. “We looked at footage of groups like Duran Duran and Wham and then discussed what we liked and disliked,” notes Karaty. “We found some funny hip movements—Tom Jones style. I told Hugh that the most important thing was for him to go out there and do his own thing. He really played it for the adoring 40-something fans. The scenes are hysterical.”
While the film marked Haley Bennett’s first time acting and singing professionally she trained in both disciplines. Dancing like an internationally recognized mega-star was another matter.
“Teaching Haley to be a stadium concert performer who does full-on dance routines with backup dancers behind her was fun,” says Karaty. “There are two big production numbers in the film. One is called ‘Buddha’s Delight,’ which features 15 dancers and Haley. It’s got pyro blowing up and the 16-foot Buddha turning around for Cora’s reveal. Style-wise, it’s a mix between yoga and sexy hip hop. Haley really rose to the occasion. I believed she was a genuine pop star.”
Music and Lyrics (2007)
Directed by: Marc Lawrence
Starring: Drew Barrymore, Hugh Grant, Sherman Alpert, Kristen Johnston, Jason Antoon, Blake Baxendell, Haley Bennett, Brooke Tansley, Campbell Scott, Aasif Mandvi
Screenplay by: Marc Lawrence
Production Design by: Jane Musky
Cinematography by: Xavier Pérez Grobet
Film Editing by: Susan E. Morse
Costume Design by: Susan Lyall
Music by: Adam Schlesinger
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual content.
Distributed by: Stüdyo Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: February 14, 2007
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