So the one difference though, between that Saturday night show, correct me if I’m wrong, is the three guest stars were not part of the Saturday show.
Not part of that Saturday show. No.
Did that make you nervous at all
No, because it’s not about specifically like, “Oh, we haven’t practiced that song.” It’s about getting in the groove of it. Everybody’s firing and everybody’s getting their angles and everybody understands what their job is. And once you’re on a unit working as we were together on that Sunday, anything could have happened and we would’ve been O.K. It was less about rehearsing the beats of like, oh, he is going to stand there at this point, it was more about everybody feeling out how he wanted it to feel and look. And so by the time Sunday came and seeing those performances, we covered them really well. And also the other thing is that day on Sunday, it’s the only thing that we rehearsed because we’d already seen the show the night before. Brandi (Carlile), Kiki, (Dee) and Dua (Lipa) came in the afternoon and we rehearsed it in daylight. That didn’t give me pause. No, I think this is what I was going to say earlier. I think that one of the things that you’ve really got to capture if you’re doing these shows well is you’ve got to capture the intimacy of the relationship with his fans and him, which is something when you go to an Elton show that’s really apparent. And having studied it in the lead up to this, you see five-year-olds dressed up as Elton with the glasses and the feather boas, and you see 90-year-old women dressed up, and it’s this real moment where you see these signs saying, I’ve been to 1700 of your concerts and you are better than ever. And there are these stories that you can find and you can see in the people. There was a moment where during one of the songs, a guy got down on one knee and proposed to his girlfriend and she said “yes.” And we didn’t know that was happening. It was just quick-footed by the team on the floor. They noticed it. We ran out and we cut live to this proposal while the songs going on and being in the control room, the gallery, the truck, it was so exciting. “Oh my God, Paul, that’s happening. Cut back to…” It was soexciting, like cutting between Elton and this happening. And we were telling stories of these individuals who Elton had meant so much to them over the years. And so on the one hand we were telling Elton’s story of going in 1975, and he wasn’t happy. And now here he is performing, saying goodbye, happier than ever. That meant bringing his family on stage. That meant him enjoying himself, celebrating, and being in the moment. But then at the same time as telling those intimate stories, you also have to be able to go, “Oh my God, this is huge.” Because you are going wide on helicopters and drones and you are showing off Dodger Stadium, this iconic, massive, huge stadium full of people.
The one little elephant in the room, and I don’t know if you’ve talked about this previously,but that was sort of a big day in the history of the Walt Disney Company, and from what I’ve heard, Bob Chapek, the CEO at the time was supposed to introduce the show.
No.
He wasn’t? That was incorrectly reported?
No, that’s not true. That’s factually inaccurate. No, he was 100% going to be there. I had seats reserved for him and they were good seats, but he was coming as an audience member.
While you were prepping the news sort of exploded on social media that Bob Iger was replacing Chapek as the CEO of the Walt Disney Company. Were you trying to push it all aside? Were you like, what the hell is going on? Do you even remember it happening?
I do. Yeah. So what happened was we did all our rehearsals, we had our camera meeting [and then] Gabe and I went for a walk, Gabe’s my partner of Fulwell with me. And we went for a walk away from the truck, almost like a pre-gaming. And I often go and do that. I go for a walk and I clear my head before shows because if you’re in it too much, you sometimes need to walk away to be able to come back fresh and be in the game. And I hadn’t really been to the hospitality tent because when I’m doing a show like that, I’m working, I’m very far away from the noise. I like being in a truck. I’m never side of a stage. At the Grammy’s, the former EP of that show, he would be on the side of stage. A lot of American executive producers like to be on set. I’m always in the truck, I’m always in the control room because that’s where I can control everything. I’m not shouting into a microphone saying, “Can you hear me? Turn the lights up.” I’m in the booth where I can talk calmly to the sound team and talk calmly to the lighting team and talk calmly to cameramen and directors.
So I go out, I have a walk, came across the hospitality tent and I thought, oh, this looks nice. And I went in, to see who was there, and all of the Disney team were there. Great team. I really am a huge fan of everyone who works at Disney. But high-powered executives were in that room. And I was very aware that Bob Chapek was coming who I hadn’t ever met because I’d been consulted on where he should be sitting to make sure he had a good seat but also he wasn’t on camera because that wouldn’t have been appropriate. And I was just chatting to members of the Disney family and suddenly their phones all started blinging and binging. And I could see everyone was going into corners. And I was like, “That’s a bit weird.” And then one of them came over to me and he said, “I think just so you understand what’s happening, I think we’ve all been hacked because we’ve all got this email from Bob Iger saying he’s coming back to the company. And so I think there’s been a hack or something, and that’s why we’re all a bit freaked out.” And then gradually they all started realizing that “No, no, no, no, this .” And then The Hollywood Reporter’s running it and everyone’s Twitter’s going mad. Listen, I don’t know Bob Chapek, I’m sorry that anybody loses their job. So it wasn’t funny. It was just very, I guess entertaining, watching all these Disney employees going, “Oh my goodness, this is a significant night. And you could tell in the room everybody was thinking about what it meant for them.” But it was a good distraction from the work in hand before I went back to do it. I mean, for me personally, I’ve known Bob Iger for a little while and I’ve always looked up to him and I thought it was quite exciting that he was coming back. But it was interesting to see the reaction from everybody in that room. And then I dusted myself off and got back to my truck where I had to really focus on what was happening, where something like that was not relevant to the job we had to do that night.
Do you have dreams of what you want to tackle next? Do you want to do something like the Olympic opening ceremony? Is there something you want to do next because you’ve done this?
Listen, I love making big shows. At Fulwell, our company, we love doing big shows that people watch. And so I’m always excited by a challenge. We’re a small company, we’re a family-owned company. It’s like me and my two mates from when I was a kid with my other best mate and their cousin. We’re a real family business. We’ve been doing it since we were kids. We started this company in East Finchley, in London, in Leo Pearlman‘s spare bedroom. And that’s where we worked out of in 2005. And it shocks me that here we are in 2023 and we are doing these things. I always have a pinch myself moment whether it be doing an Elton special, the Grammy’s, “Encanto,” Adele, “Late Late Show,” all these things, “The Kardashians” even. It’s always like, “How are we doing this?” I’m always excited for what the next opportunity is, and I’m always just about how do I make this show be the absolute best it can be. And if I do that, then the next one sorts itself out and just pops into my inbox. And that’s sort of how I think about these things really.
That’s a very grounded and smart way to approach this business.
But it is true. And we don’t know each other, but those people who do know me, I’m sort of a bit like, “Yeah, I’ve just got to make what I’ve got.” I remember when we made “Friends: The Reunion,” I felt real pressure because of how beloved “Friends” was. And I was like, just get my head down and do a show that I’ll be proud of and then just cut out the noise. And if people hate it, then you don’t need to turn on your phone. And if people like it, more sh*t will come from it. And Kim Kardashian watched and I got a random phone call from the family saying, “Hey, we just watched the ‘Friends’ Reunion, would you do our new show on Disney?” And I’m like, “What?” And we feel really fortunate at Fulwell that we get these opportunities to make these shows with icons like Elton John, but we don’t try and over plan on what’s next. But I do think it’ll be hard to beat Dodger Stadium, a remake of the 1975 iconic gig, Elton’s last-ever show in America, and being the first-ever live Disney show. I think the only thing that tops it is if he wins an Emmy and it gets an EGOT for it. And then it’s like, “O.K., now that’s it. We’re quitting. We’re going home. We’re calling a final whistle on ourselves if that happens.”
Is your team coming back to produce the Grammys this year?
Oh yeah. I don’t know if that’s been announced.
Since you did the last two I assumed you guys were coming back.
Last three actually, my first one was the COVID one in the round, and then I did the Vegas one, which got delayed. And then I did last year. So, last year was my first LA sort of Crypto Arena one. But this will be my fourth this year.
Having looked at one particular pop star’s tour schedule and they will likely be nominated for God knows how many Grammy nominations, have you made the request? Are you keeping your fingers crossed that you can get Ms. Taylor Swift to perform at the Grammy’s this year?
I keep my fingers crossed that the nominations are going to be great. Yeah, no, I’m never getting involved in that. Good effort though. Great effort for trying.
Hey, I tried. [Laughs.] Before I let you go really quick, one of my favorite images of the past couple of years is from actually your “Adele: One Night Only” special at the Griffin Observatory, there’s a moment during “Skyfall” where she’s singing and you cut to a stunning sunset over the hills. As someone who did the Hollywood sign hike probably once a week at sunset during the pandemic, I was like, thank you for showing the world how gorgeous LA can be.
Yeah, it was beautiful. I’ll tell you a quick story about that that’s really insane. And I do think we get love for that. People talk to me about that special a lot. And it won the Emmy last year for Variety Specials [Note: it actually won every Emmy it was nominated for]. So It was a star-studded audience, just 300 people up at Griffith Park. And we got access to the park on Friday. And then the plan was we access to the park, start building the stage on Friday, and put cameras in, lights in on Saturday. And then Sunday she was joining us for a rehearsal and we were going to rehearse the show at night on Sunday. And then Monday we were taping it. And all these people coming. And that’s a short turnaround that Friday, Saturday, and Sunday shooting on Monday. But also, you can’t take over Griffith Park forever because people like yourself want to walk there and you’ve got to be respectful to the fact it’s a public park. And I’ll never forget on Thursday or Friday, looking at my phone and seeing the weather app and it had a thunderstorm and it said 100% for Monday night. I was like, “Oh my God. 100% rain thunderstorm.” I remember calling Adele and saying, “I don’t know if we can do the show on Monday, how would you feel about doing it Sunday instead?” And she was so incredible. That’s a tough thing to hear. Remember this was her first performance. This was her first performance in a long time. I don’t know when she would’ve performed before that moment if I’m honest.
Right, it was coming out of COVID.
Well, it was like the launch of that album, but I doubt she’d been on stage since the last album. So it was a big moment. And suddenly you’re saying you thought you had till Monday, can you do it 24 hours earlier? And she was so amazing. She did it that Sunday night. So that was the first time we had looked at it on camera. It was what you saw was us shooting it live. Again, by the way, that’s Paul Dugdale, the same director who did Elton also did Adele, a brilliant job he did on both. And he won the Emmy for direction on that. And it was so crazy because we did it that night. We got our beautiful red skies, we got these sunsets, she was unbelievable. The audience all came 24 hours in advance. Think about that, from Leonardo DiCaprio to Drake to all these people, Ellen, Oprah, they’re all like, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll make it 24 hours earlier.” It’s like everyone dropped everything to be there. I mean, on my Instagram from two years ago, you’ll actually see it. I did a side-by-side of the exact time that we were supposed to film on Monday night to Sunday. And it is genuinely insane seeing the thunder and lightning that came down.
“Elton John Live: Farewell From Dodger Stadium” is available on Disney+.