Pharrell Williams on Why He Chose to Tell His Life Story Through Legos in 'Piece by Piece' | Variety Studio at TIFF 2024 - video Dailymotion

Variety

Pharrell Williams talks about the upcoming film 'Piece by Piece' at the Variety Studio at TIFF. He breaks down why he wanted to tell his story through Legos and how he made the off-beat idea come to life.

Transcript

00:00It's a project that's just been the sum of a lot of yeses.

00:05You know, when you come from where I come from and you look like me, you hear a lot of no's.

00:10But Morgan Neville said yes, Lego said yes, Focus said yes, Universal said yes,

00:17and the universe itself said yes.

00:30I firmly believe that everybody has talent, beauty, and potential.

00:34Thanks for being here, Pharrell.

00:36You say in the film that Legos are the best way to express yourself.

00:41How did you discover that and why?

00:44I don't know if I discovered that as a kid.

00:46I think I was just given Lego sets as a child and that was like a really amazing platform

00:55for me to allow my imagination to just flourish and to learn things about myself.

01:05As it has for most kids and, you know, a lot of people, you know,

01:09millions and millions of people on this planet.

01:14Cinematically, what are the limitations of making a Lego movie

01:18and then what are the things that allow you to do things

01:21that you would not be able to do in a live action biopic?

01:25Well, you know, unlike most documentaries that are dependent on the visual

01:32and the audio of whatever the documentarian has captured,

01:38we had more cinematic license to depict and illustrate literally and figuratively

01:48whatever it is the person was saying who was doing the interview at the time

01:52or, you know, the person who was being interviewed.

01:56So it gave us like a cinematic liberty that wouldn't otherwise exist.

02:02And doing it through the guise of Lego, it's obviously the first of its type.

02:07It makes it an unprecedented exercise, which was fun.

02:13I also want to ask about the PG rating.

02:16You know, there's explicit music and there's allusions to drug use very creatively.

02:23Why was it important for you to make this an all audiences movie?

02:27Well, there are no explicit lyrics in the songs and the portions of the songs that were used.

02:33And there were there was no allusions to anything.

02:41But the PG spray was a good, clever touch.

02:44No, it just needed to be PG because there was there are things that are far beyond

02:50their subject matter, but not drug related and not rated R in the lyrics.

02:58It's just the energy of the story is a bit mature for kids who might otherwise

03:08work with Lego sets.

03:12But there was no there were no references that would be that would be.

03:23And purposefully, there were no references that would allude to anything that we wouldn't

03:27want children doing.

03:29Can you talk about the process of bringing in all of the people who are in the movie,

03:34Kendrick Lamar and Jay-Z, et cetera, et cetera, and who had maybe the funniest reaction to

03:39saying you're going to play a Lego?

03:42Well, we purposely did not tell anyone that that was going to be the finishing,

03:50that that would be the finished product.

03:52We wanted people to just answer the questions and really give their full unedited

04:02reactions to the opportunity to do the interviews, because if we would have said, OK, this is

04:10going to be in Lego, then people then they would they would have sort of curved what

04:15they were saying to try and.

04:21I don't know, I'm not saying that they would be trying to contribute to the direction,

04:27but I think we didn't want them to be influenced by what we wanted.

04:31We wanted the purest part.

04:32And that's, I feel like, part of the magic of what makes this film pop the way it does

04:38is because it's so vivid and it's not scripted.

04:41You know, it would have started to have felt like, oh, we're making this for kids.

04:45And it's like, no, we're not.

04:46We're making this for human beings.

04:48And, you know, while I am a black man that comes from a marginalized community,

04:56we wanted this story to feel universal.

04:57And that was the reason why we we told it through the guise of Lego.

05:01And were they surprised when they found out the format?

05:03Everybody was like pleasantly surprised and incredibly supportive.

05:07Look, this film is a it's a it's a project that's just been the sum of a lot of yeses.

05:18You know, when you come from where I come from and you look like me, you hear a lot

05:22of no's.

05:23But Morgan Neville said yes.

05:25Lego said yes.

05:26Focus said yes.

05:28Universal said yes.

05:30And the universe itself said yes.

05:33So like when people ask me about this project, I tell them like, man, we're working on the

05:37impossible because this is nearly impossible.

05:41And for all the yeses that we got, we also got an equal weight in commitment.

05:46People were committed.

05:47And that is the reason why we're at this juncture right now.

05:50And I could do an interview for variety like this is this is a this is a dream that I never

05:58knew I had.

05:59And when my mom and dad bought me Lego sets for Christmas, I never knew it was going to

06:04lead all the way to this place right here.

06:07Well, we're happy to have you.

06:08And thanks for sitting down with us.

06:09No, thank you.

06:10Yeah.

06:11Thanks.

Pharrell Williams on Why He Chose to Tell His Life Story Through Legos in 'Piece by Piece' | Variety Studio at TIFF 2024

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