STAGE TO SCREENS: Phyllida Lloyd and Dominic Cooper Talk About "Mamma Mia!" Movie
By Michael Buckley
29 Jun 2008
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Dominic Cooper in "Mamma Mia!"
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| photo by Peter Mountain © Universal Pictures | The film version of the hit musical Mamma Mia! gets released in July. Director Phyllida Lloyd and rising star Dominic Cooper, who plays Sky, discuss the project.
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Back in 2002, Mamma Mia! was nominated for five Tonys, but won none. Since then, not only has the musical prospered on Broadway (currently in its seventh year), and in London (where it just started its tenth year), but also has appealed to a worldwide audience. As of last year, it had played to 30 million people, and grossed $2 billion. (The "Dancing Queen" has proved ABBA-solutely amazing!) The movie version — made by the same director (Phyllida Lloyd), writer (Catherine Johnson), and producer (Judy Craymer) who created it for the stage — opens July 18. Will this be another instance when "The Winner Takes it All"?
Set on a fictional Greek island, the film focuses on Donna Sheridan (Meryl Streep) whose daughter Sophie (Amanda Seyfried, of TV's "Big Love") is about to marry. Sophie's choice is Sky (Dominic Cooper, who played Dakin in The History Boys in London, on Broadway and around the world), and the bride-to-be wants her father to give her away. But no one's sure of dad's identity. So she invites the prime suspects: American architect Sam (Pierce Brosnan), British banker Harry (Colin Firth), and Australian author Bill (Stellan Skarsgard).
Also arriving for the impending nuptials are Donna's two best friends: Tanya (Christine Baranski), a three-time divorcée, and Rosie (Julie Walters), who's never married. Two decades ago, they were a singing trio called "Donna and the Dynamos."
The stage show was the brain child of Judy Craymer, who realized the theatrical potential of songs by the Swedish pop/dance group (1972-82) ABBA — an acronym for the first letters of the quartet's given names: Agnetha Faltskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid "Frida" Lyngstad.
In 1997, Craymer commissioned Catherine Johnson to write a book for the musical, and the next year selected Phyllida Lloyd to direct.
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Phyllida Lloyd says, "Due to Judy, Cathy and I are along for the adventure, which is remarkable. When Cathy and I were developing the screenplay, our biggest challenge was to maintain the essence of Mamma Mia!, to not disappoint 30 million people who know and love the show.
"At the same time, we needed to give the story flight, to give it wings. For a theatre director [she has extensive British theatre and opera credits], directing a movie is like having the level of pressure and tension of an opening night, every day for 30 days. Far and away, this is the most challenging project of my career."
Were there changes for the screen? "Inevitably. We've made alterations in the story and the structure. We had to delete songs ["Under Attack," "One of Us," "Knowing Me, Knowing You"; "Thank You for the Music" is heard over the closing credits.] Some others have been moved around. 'When All Is Said and Done' [from the ABBA catalogue] has been added for Pierce Brosnan.
"'Dancing Queen,' in the stage show, takes place in Donna's bedroom. It would have been very hard to sustain that setting on the screen; it had to explode beyond there — to become sort of a pied-piper journey of rock 'n' roll.
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Meryl Streep and Phyllida Lloyd on set.
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| photo by Peter Mountain © Universal Pictures |
"The fundamental thing was to get inside the action. In 'Voulez-Vous,' for example, the only way to make it Sophie's point-of-view was to have the camera in my hand. That also told me where the energies and rhythms of songs were. The camera just sort of moved with the songs. There were other modifications: A lot of things necessary onstage don't need to be said on the screen.
"We've made adjustments to the dialogue, but the characters have remained fundamentally the same. Onstage, there's a separation between character and audience; onscreen, you can go to a deeper place. I hope that people feel that each of the numbers has been shot completely differently [than on the stage], in accordance with what's required in the story. The process of shooting it that way was crucial."
According to Lloyd, a fourth female in the formula was Meryl Streep. "Meryl and her daughter had seen the show many years ago. It was only a dream that, one day, she'd play Donna. Meryl had written a letter congratulating the [Broadway] company — a letter which we all had copies of pinned to our britches, for some time.
"Judy, Cath, and I have all been 'paid-up' members of the Meryl fan club, since at least 'The Deer Hunter.' We knew that Meryl could sing, and that she loved Mamma Mia! Her enthusiasm for it was matched only by our admiration for her work.
"She's very, very musical. She sang onscreen in 'Postcards from the Edge' and 'A Prairie Home Companion,' but no one was prepared for her power and precision in singing these songs. She owns them. I think it will be a huge thrill for audiences." Lloyd laughs heartily when I ask if, due to a recent movie success of the two-time Oscar winner (and 14-time nominee), the title of the movie may be changed to "The Devil Sings ABBA."
Says Lloyd, "There's no doubt that Meryl's commitment to the movie gave us a credibility that we otherwise may not have had. [Laughs] We had theatrical and rock 'n' roll credibility, but Meryl gave us an extra dimension that made people curious, and excited to join the party.
"We were so lucky to find Amanda Seyfried, and to be able to bring together some of our best-loved British actors — Colin Firth and Julie Walters, who's a national treasure. And there's Christine Baranski, Pierce Brosnan, Dominic Cooper, Stellan Skarsgard. We were unbelievably lucky to have this cast — to each man and woman."
Impossible onstage, close-ups worked well for Lloyd. "They enable you to see a character's inner life. The power of a close-up can be extraordinary, but you have to have actors who are able to reveal themselves. Of course, we did."
Camaraderie with Craymer and Johnson facilitated filmmaking. "We're the same age; we're like 'Donna and the Dynamos,' except I won't tell you who's who. But I'm definitely not Tanya. [Laughs]"
Lloyd's claim light-heartedly refers to her orientation. Openly gay, she'd hardly identify with a character thrice-divorced. Bristol-born, Lloyd has a brother. None of her family's in show business. "I think I'm generally regarded as a changeling."
Determined to be an actress "since I was five," Lloyd switched career goals "at university. When I began to direct, I discovered that I was much more comfortable than I was acting. I began my career in television, at the BBC in my 20s — and have taken a rather circuitous route back to cameras."
Her first name is pronounced PHYLL-id-ah. "I think the only other one in England is Phyllida Law [Emma Thompson's actress-mother]. We get muddled up a lot. She's very funny about it. We've never met, but we have a correspondence. She's even had a letter saying how brave she was to be taking up directing at her age. [Law is a quarter-century Lloyd's senior.] We write to celebrate our mutual successes or failures. [Laughs]"
Among Lloyd's directing credits are theatre (including Six Degrees of Separation, The Threepenny Opera, Mary Stuart, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie) and opera (e.g., Carmen, Medea, La Bohème, and Wagner's Ring Cycle).
Recalling the Broadway opening (Oct. 18, 2001), Lloyd notes, "9/11 had just happened, and people questioned if a musical was really an appropriate thing to be doing. It was extraordinary to experience Mamma Mia! What an injection of good spirit and heart it was.
"When we considered the possibility of a movie [version], [the show] just flew out of a cage onto the screen. I'm sure the studio was apprehensive; I'd only directed one short television film ["Gloriana," 2000]. But we were able to persuade them."
In the wings for Lloyd is a 2009 return to Broadway, "with Mary Stuart, starring Janet McTeer [1997 A Doll's House Tony winner] in the title role, and Harriet Walter as Elizabeth I." Walter last appeared on Broadway in 1983, as gentlewoman to the Countess (Margaret Tyzack) in All's Well that Ends Well.
Speaking a day before flying back to England, Lloyd sums up her cinematic adventure: "It's been a thrilling, life-changing experience — so hard, so physically and emotionally demanding — almost too daunting. It's only worth it if you feel possessed. Of course, one feels possessed about stage projects, but no feeling was tantamount to this."
Cut. Print.
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