A Quote by Andrew Lloyd Webber

I began to think, now is the time. I found quite a lot of opposition in Hollywood about the idea of doing a film musical and we ended up having to buy the rights back. I'm glad we did because it meant John and I were able to make exactly the movie we wanted.
I think it goes back to me being a recording mixer and engineer. Because of all the technology now you can make music yourself and a lot of people are doing that now. I started out doing that a long time ago and I found when I did that I came up with a unique sound.
[Having perosonal trainer for the movie 'The back-up plan'] I felt like I had just given birth. He was like, "You can't eat anything but this. You've got to do what I say." So along with doing the film, I did this kind of disciplined workout regimen, because every cheese farmer is ripped and buff, and I wanted to be true to character, because I'm Method. But it took a lot of hard work to get there. You can rest assured in the fact that it's all gone now.
I remember doing one day of work, and I was so good I ended up doing 25 days on that movie. And all of it ended up on the editing room floor. That was my first Hollywood lesson: Just because you filmed a movie doesn't necessarily mean that you're in it.
People think, 'Oh, you're doing 'The Wiz' because 'Empire' is such a big hit.' The truth is, staging this musical has been a dream of ours since the '90s, but the rights were tied up. It's just coincidental that, this year, when we were choosing a new musical, the rights were cleared.
I think that Billie (Jean King) and Zina (Garrison), they have a whole lot of experience. Even if I don't quite agree with something or have a different way of doing it this week, whatever they said, I did it right away and I found out that it was correct. I think that's helped a lot...I'm having fun. I had a lot of fun out there. Sometimes I was ready to smile -- but I knew I'd lose focus -- because I was doing things that I'd done in practice and we talked about. I was ready to laugh and give someone a high-five, but it wasn't time for that.
I don't feel like a very nostalgic person. I think about the past much more clinically. When I look back and wonder, 'Why was I doing that? Was it a waste of time?' I don't beat myself up. Instead, I say, 'I'm so glad I did that, because now I really know what matters to me.'
At the time I came along, Hollywood's idea of teen movies meant there had to be a lot of nudity, usually involving boys in pursuit of sex, and pretty gross overall. Either that or a horror movie. And the last thing Hollywood wanted in their teen movies was teenagers!
When I was growing up, all the films about teenagers were played by Tony Curtis or John Cassavetes when they were 27, 28 years old. We would see these teenage movies in the theaters and I would say, "They don't look like they're my age at all." So I wanted to make a movie that was real and I wanted to make a movie that wasn't about me.
I had to take over the reins of the company at a time when I did not know a thing about the business. The producers who were committed to work with my father wanted to back out because they felt I would not be able to sell their film's music the way my father did.
I created my own concept art and went in and did a 90-minute presentation that cost me a lot of money.And, the great thing is though, when I got the job, they had to buy all of it from me, because one of the set pieces in the middle of the movie was the scene I wrote, and they needed to own everything because a lot of it ended up being the movie we made, so I got all my money back. I was committed. I was going to outspend every competing director.
I think I've done a lot of movies that people would like to have seen a sequel to. But I grew up in a time when we didn't do sequels. You just did a movie because you wanted to do a movie and you wanted to tell a story. It wasn't to build a franchise.
I wanted to make a film about anorexia. I thought about it for a long time, but then gave up on this idea as I felt that this theme would be so hermetic and closed that it would not reach an audience. However, the plot about the character of Olga and the idea that a body has a lot of different meanings were still present in my mind.
I appreciate it if I make a Chinese film. And if there is an opportunity to make a Hollywood film, I will take it - especially because, as you probably know, in Hollywood, even today, there are not a lot of big roles for Asian performers. So it is a great opportunity. It is possible to make films that people everywhere enjoy. I travel quite a lot. I don't really feel like when I am in China, I am a Chinese person and when I'm here, I'm a foreigner. I don't feel that kind of difference anymore. In the past I did. Not anymore. I feel quite at home everywhere. The whole world is my home.
There were not that many people who were willing to come out and stand up for Muslims or stand up against the abuses of the Bush administration. That was post-9/11, so I think there was a lot of fear at the time about exactly what that meant - were they unpatriotic if they stood up?
There was a period that black film had no chance of making it in Hollywood. So, people just made the made the statements that they wanted to make. Whether it was a science fiction film or whatever, b/c they were just making movie for themselves. Then there was a period where people were creating projects as their Hollywood audition 'pieces'. I feel that today we are moving back to the era where we all have our own voices.
A lot of the Republicans wanted exactly what Barack Obama wanted, exactly what Nancy Pelosi wanted, exactly what Harry Reid wanted, which is to raise the debt ceiling, but they wanted to be able to tell what they view as their foolish, gullible constituents back home they didn't do it.
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