00:00When I was approached to be Lydia Grant, the actress, I let them know I would be happy to play that part, but I was much more interested in choreographing and becoming a director, and they said, okay, you can do that on the side.
00:22I became the manager, in a way, not just the director, but I had to manage them, and through those dance numbers and through, you know, whatever they were going through.
00:33Come on, get up! Come on, you're on time! Two and three and... Come on, come on, get up on the ground! You're hopeless! It's your hope, please! Stop, stop! Come on, thank you! Don't do any more, thank you!
00:44Oh, please, you can have the choreographer. We don't care about that. They didn't even know what they had said. They said, you can have all of it. I said, I'll take it! And they paid me $2 to do that. Honest to God, $2. Almost $2, honey.
00:59The way I worked on Fame, we worked, there was no precedent. There was no show to tell me how to do it. That's what I'm talking about. I took on that challenge not knowing exactly how I was going to do it, but I knew I wanted to do it, and I figured it out.
01:14And Debbie was just a whirlwind of energy and hard work and commitment and focus. I mean, so she was just a dynamo, as she is in most things that she does, and so I loved working with her. She was a great collaborator and just, you know, brought a tremendous amount to the show and to the choreography.
01:44And so I used to love working with the dancers. I loved the spirit and the hard work that they put in. I loved how prepared they had to be when they showed up for work, you know, when it came time to film.
02:06So, yeah, it was a great experience.
02:11So what Debbie and I would do is, she would record the rehearsal, and at that time I think it was on videotape, but she would record the rehearsal, and we'd look at it.
02:21And I definitely would say to her, I mean, I would see certain things and I have strong ideas about it, and then there'd be other things I would definitely say to her, where do you think this looks best from?
02:33I mean, she's a choreographer. She did it. Do you think it looks best from down low over here in the corner? Looks best up higher? Tell me what your thoughts about.
02:40So, yes, very collaborative. What are your thoughts about what you choreographed? Because they would, they would have a visual sense of it.
02:48And I would marry those ideas. My ideas about what, you know, jumped out to me on certain things that I saw and that I wanted to do, because I loved music and I loved dance.
02:58And very much I would take from the choreographer, in this case from Debbie, very collaborative. What is it that we both see about this?
03:07And sometimes I would bring things that they hadn't thought of, and certainly there would be times when they would reveal things to me that I hadn't thought about.
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