Original subtitles

When John was making Hairspray, I'd been out in L.A...

...working with New Line, and the deal with Vestron to make the film fell through.

New Line picked it up. They came to me and said:

“Do you want to go produce this film in Baltimore? We assume you do."

And I said, “I have no idea how John's gonna respond to...“

I was a production assistant when I did Polyester, you know.

Does he really want his production assistant coming back as his producer?

S0 I called him up and said, “New Line wants to send me...

...to produce the film for you. How do you feel about this?“

He was delighted. He said, “I'd much rather have somebody I know and like than some stranger."

S0 it actually was a very, very good thing, but it was very difficult walking into a group...

...who had been able to sort of, you know...

.-.treat me like a production assistant...

...and to now walk in as the studio and as the producer...

...and say, “Okay, now I'm gonna tell you what to do."

I was very nervous and uncomfortable the first time I dealt with everyone after Polyester.

And I was there probably a day...

...and John was going through location photos. And he'd never had a producer before...

...because this was the first time there was really real money involved.

He was going through location photos, trying to make some locations work.

I realized that they weren't working, and I said: “Well, go get him some more choices."

And he was so shocked and thrilled that there was somebody there to help him...

.-.that that was an immediate change.

And from then on, I was completely accepted.

Completely part of the group.

And I take the approach, as a producer, that my job is to try and expedite things.

Not be the suit, not be the studio.

Not say, “No, we don't have the money to do this.“

It's about finding out what the director wants...

...and trying to provide it for him. And John had never had anybody...

...to do that for him. And so immediately on Hairspray, it was this great relationship.

Hairspray was the first time that he'd done a film with a full distribution...

...with a company that was a reputable company financing the entire thing.

But it was a tremendously ambitious show because of the dance numbers and the period--

That it was a period piece and that we had period cars.

And we had to do very, very difficult things...

...like, you know, have all the extras work for free.

We had the scene in the...

Dorney Park, in the amusement park, where we needed hundreds of extras rioting.

And we had to try and get them to work for free because it was still, I mean--

I think under 2.5 million to do a period piece like that.

And like all John's films, it was full of chaos.

You can't just have one person running around.

You have to have as many as you can possibly get.

S0 it was a very complicated film and there were a lot of different locations.

And it wasn't like the old days when he could run around with his own camera.

It was, you know, permits and it was a professional film that needed...

...a full crew, and that was a change for John. It wasn't so much...

I mean, Polyester had been a change as well from that point of view...

...that he had-- He wasn't doing everything himself.

But Hairspray was the big-- The next big step.

I mean, I remember the day that we discovered that we were gonna get a PG or a PG-13 rating.

I can't remember which one it was.

And John's-- The absolute terror on his face...

...that this would be the end of his career.

And, I mean, I love Hairspray.

And I remember saying I think that, you know, this is a great thing.

Your love of this period and your love of this topic is what's come out in this film.

And that's what filmmaking's about.

And that's-- Not that I'm any great sage in this...

...but I had great faith that people would see what was great about Hairspray.