David Furnish and R.J. Cutler are behind the brand new film about Elton John's life. They reflect on how emotional it was to watch back clips of him being vulnerable and admit he sobbed after watching. Report by Jonesl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00How are you?
00:01Hi, I'm good.
00:02Good.
00:03So, can I just say...
00:04We're in the same circuit.
00:05I know.
00:06We're best friends now.
00:07It's spectacular.
00:08Thank you very much.
00:09As a fan of Elton, a big fan, you've really done an amazing job.
00:12The pressure.
00:13I mean, you know him pretty well.
00:14Was it hard?
00:15Making this?
00:16No.
00:17I mean, you know, when you have faith in your subject, and I knew that we were sitting on
00:22an absolute treasure trove of material that's never been shared before, the challenge for
00:26us as filmmakers was to break new ground, because Elton's life story is so well known.
00:32But the minute we started, you know, digging our noses in, it was amazing the things that
00:36we were able to uncover.
00:38The greatest compliment for me was when Elton watched the film, and he said, I haven't seen
00:42most of this stuff.
00:43Most of this footage is completely new to me.
00:46And that, to me, says to me, we did our job well.
00:49Did he say, guys, there's one bit, can you just not include that?
00:53No.
00:54No.
00:55And he said, we've pretty much done, which was great, and then said, maybe I'll never
00:58look at it again.
00:59He's not very good at looking at himself.
01:02It's very, you know, and then the only other time he did watch it, he was deeply moved.
01:08At the world premiere, he was, you know, afterwards, he was shaking.
01:14It was a very powerful thing to witness.
01:17Did you have a great crying hug at the end?
01:20Yeah, it's very emotional.
01:21I mean, it's difficult.
01:23You know, you have a professional obligation as a filmmaker to do your job, but when it
01:28hits so close to home, you know, I found moments of it where I just thought, I don't know if
01:33I can do many more things like this, because I've spent the last decade as Elton's manager,
01:38you know, celebrating him.
01:40But it's all about coming to the end of something, the end of a tour, the end of touring.
01:44But I keep my energies and my passions focused on the fact that this is an exciting new chapter
01:50for us.
01:51You know, a time to be together, and a time to be together as a family, and I don't want
01:55to look back now.
01:56I just want to work on new things and exciting things, and I'm so happy that we've- It was
02:01important to me when I met RJ, Elton coming off the road.
02:05He's toured his entire life.
02:07It's a big cultural, historical moment, so it was important that we mark that with a
02:11landmark piece of film, and I hope we've achieved that.
02:14Does it mean you might get a holiday or something, or, you know, get to chill?
02:16Yeah, that would be nice.
02:18And what do you want people to kind of learn about Elton from this?
02:21What would you love people to come away from the cinema and be thinking?
02:25Well, you know, life comes at you very quickly.
02:30It goes very quickly, and how you're going to live it is up to you, and we see in this
02:37movie that Elton has made key choices about how he wishes to live his life, not how he
02:43wishes to satisfy others, and as a man who has so much to risk in making those choices,
02:52you know, we want people to see him as a role model, you know, as an inspiration.
02:59Yeah, and he is that.
03:01Did you find it tough watching back some bits and pieces?
03:03He's very, very vulnerable in this.
03:04Yeah.
03:05Yeah, I did.
03:06I mean, I'm loving my life.
03:08It's hard to, you know, see people completely vulnerable and then think of the responsibility
03:12you have putting that up on a screen.
03:14Yeah, you did an amazing thing.
03:15Thank you so much.
03:16Great seeing you again David.
03:17Thank you so much.