Pharrell Williams sat down with The Hollywood Reporter during his THR cover shoot and opens up about his personal story in the animated Lego biopic 'Piece by Piece.' During his interview he talks about the evolution of creating his Lego doc, finding inspiration and more.
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00:00It's never too late. If you're eight years old or you're 80 years old, it's never too late to go
00:04buy yourself a Lego set and like build things, right? Or even in your own mind,
00:10or even in your own life to build things piece by piece.
00:23Hey, Pharrell.
00:24Hey, how you doing, man? You know what would be cool is if we told my story with
00:28Lego pieces.
00:30Seriously?
00:31Yes.
00:32Lego. Just be open.
00:34Yeah, that's exactly how it went. I never really like talking about myself and I don't really like,
00:40I mean, these days anyways. My agent at the time was just telling me about how many people
00:46were doing documentaries and how he felt like my story would be interesting. And then finally,
00:52he was like, look, I mean, I understand why you wouldn't do it. You can literally do
00:56whatever you want to do. And I'm like, hold on, whatever I want to do. And he's like, yeah,
01:01I'm like, okay, well, cool. Let me think about that. Then I took it seriously because it was
01:07like, okay, they have no idea. I'm gonna go left, which is where I feel like I belong.
01:16And so I took a minute and then when it dawned on me, I was like, oh, I want to tell my story
01:21through the platform of Legos. I mean, telling it through the guise of a Lego world
01:28allows everyone to feel like it's possible to not only tell their story,
01:37but to also ideate and be creative. And it's never too late to build things piece by piece.
01:43It's kind of like how it works. And that's the point. That's the point in
01:48the film. That's the point in my story. That's the point in the song. I mean, it's all one thing.
01:55It's like we're all building our lives here. We're co-creators with the creator, right? So it's like
02:01just reminding people of that and using the Lego world as a platform to tell that story and to
02:09communicate that to people. It took five years to make. It wasn't just the animation that took
02:16the time. It was like all the interviews, you know, just like the thought that went into it,
02:20because this has never happened before. You know, this is unprecedented. It's never happened before.
02:25I didn't feel vulnerable. It just felt like what I'm supposed to do, whether I want to be in front
02:33of the camera or not. And that's the other thing that I really loved is that I personally did not
02:39have to be in front of the camera, but my feelings and my reflections and my observations and
02:46at times my opinions, whatever I got to opine whatever way I wanted to,
02:50like that brought about a level of comfort where I wouldn't usually be comfortable because I don't
02:57like being in front all the time. In fact, I like being a producer and being in the back,
03:02being a writer and being in the back. It's always an evolution to the process. And if it's not,
03:09you're no longer learning. So you have to remain curious and you have to
03:13you know, listen to different genres and and music of like, you know, what's out there in
03:20the world, you know, old and new, just be open. And that's to me, I think is the key.
03:29I think my my levels of gratitude and and my processes of just like how to invest in myself,
03:39how to invest in my health, invest in my mind, my body, my soul and my spirit.
03:45Those making those investments, you know, taking the time to block out the distractions to just
03:50purely invest time and space, being open, being curious. I hope it lights a fire
04:00and every human being is able to see and feel it.