This original interview appeared in the February, 1987, issue of the French magazine Ecran Fantastique. I translated it.

Click on a thumbnail to see a full-size pic of each page.

Thank you ever so much to Solea for allowing me use of the mag!

In the issue before last, we gave you an overview of the production of Labyrinth. We showed the birth of the project, character sketches, the various special effects used and the themes of the movie. Now we welcome Jim Henson back again to tell us more about the film. We still have some questions to ask. Jim Henson, with customary adroitness, puppeteered one of the most captivating characters from Labyrinth for a TV commercial, the bellicose but chivalrous Sir Didymus. Then he told us he was rather satisfied with the film, but worried about the future of fantasy films. For his part, he envisions turning his New York studio toward smaller-budget projects…

AS: Labyrinth seems to have been conceived mainly to show off the Muppets, or, in any case, the animated characters or marionettes. What is the film’s focus really?

JH: We wanted to make a film with puppet characters, but really different than Dark Crystal. Dark Crystal was an epic; we want a more intimate film that focused on the personalities and relationships between the characters, a light-hearted film, a comedy with music and human actors. It’s from the combination of all these elements that Labyrinth was born.

AS: The mixture of puppet characters, creatures and actors in the flesh must have posed novel problems, on top of having a star in the cast…

JH: I warned David and Jennifer from the beginning that they would have to be very patient! That they would be on screen by the first or second day of shooting, but they’d have to wait for the creatures as well, which could take ten, twelve, even fifteen days. But it’s there that the great professionals show themselves; David and Jennifer were perfect. They redid certain scenes an incalculable number of times. That being said, you can’t ignore the complexity of an undertaking that consists of comedians and more than an armada of puppeteers. In fact, the presence of actors added to the credibility of the creatures. If the public comes to believe that the puppet characters are real, then there’s more of a chance that they really believe that they are engaged by living characters that walk, that talk, and that have a real life. When we put the character of Hoggle, who was very complicated, on screen – four people are needed to make him move; his face is entirely controlled by remote control. The first scene that we filmed, we showed it to viewers and asked them a single question: “Can you believe that this character speaks realistically?” That’s all that matters.

AS: So that was the reason that made you chose David Bowie for the character of Goblin King. Because otherwise you would have used a puppet creature?

JH: I wanted to put two characters of flesh and bone in the middle of all these artificial creatures, and David Bowie embodies a certain maturity, with his sexuality, his disturbing aspect, all sorts of things that characterize the adult world. Since we knew from the beginning that he was going to have to sing, we then thought it would be fun to bring rock music into a fantasy film, and the choice was easy: David is one of the best, if not the best, singer/actor of the moment, and he had the advantage of being able to be seductive, threatening, scary…

AS: But the film isn’t a musical comedy. You could have very easily had David Bowie sing in voice-over, rather than seeing him sing on screen. His appearances aren’t really choreographed, for example.

JH: There’s a sense of choreography, not very elaborate, of course, but choreography is not absent from his musical numbers. We didn’t want to do a musical film, but just to put a few songs here and there in the film. I adore musical comedies; putting music in films pleases me, but only if the songs fit in, if they’re justified. We had already made several musical films, like The Great Muppet Caper and several TV films. What I like best about the musical numbers is that they permit a greater lyricism.

AS: David Bowie wrote the songs, but not the music for the film…

JH: No, the music is signed “Trevor Jones,” but it was for the most part inspired by the melody of David’s songs. The songs and the score needed to create a general harmony, and I was very satisfied with the result. There was practically a fusion between the two, the songs, which we didn’t touch, and the score, which accompanies the songs and focuses on them. Trevor worked on the synthesizer to isolate different instruments used by David and to draw out their sound to accompany the images.

AS: How did you collaborate with screenwriter Terry Jones?

JH: We – Brian Froud, Dennis Lee (who’s a Canadian poet) and me – had worked for six or eight months on the story, and we gave the resulting draft to Terry Jones to get something filmable out of it. He brought substantial changes to the work, to the benefit of all, I have to say! But, while working with Terry on the storyline, Brian amused himself by drawing characters to show Terry what he was thinking of, and many of the characters are taken from Brian’s doodles. I really like Terry’s work, not only with Monty Python, but also elsewhere. He’s written several children’s books that are just gems. He has an amazing sense of fantasy. He’s very creative in that domain, and he knows the medieval ages very well. He’s a Chaucer specialist, and, what’s more, he has an inexhaustible sense of humor.

AS: How come you didn’t talk to Frank Oz, like you did for Dark Crystal?

JH: Frank was already busy with The Little Shop of Horrors. He collaborated a tiny bit on Labyrinth, but he didn’t really have the time to do a lot. He played the part of the old sage. He always works with us. To answer a question people ask a lot, we both co-directed Dark Crystal and made the characters move. It was very complicated. I made two characters move – and he did too – and we weren’t much producers to be able to look at the big picture. When I manipulated the characters, Frank directed and vice versa. We worked for such a long time together that we’re practically interchangeable. We complement each other perfectly. Each one of us knows what the other is thinking.

AS: But you didn’t puppeteer any of the characters in Labyrinth?

JH: No, I thought it would be better if I devoted myself to the producing. I left the manipulation to the puppeteers.

AS: How did you choose Jennifer Connelly, and how do you explain the fact that her film character doesn’t come off as very sympathetic?

JH: Oh, I find her very sympathetic myself. Sure, at the beginning, she does neglect her brother, being an overspoiled brat, but, at the end of the film, she understands that she is in charge of her own life and what happens to her day to day. For that role we needed a progressively maturing character. We auditioned more than a hundred girls before choosing Jennifer Connelly, but we realized right away that she was the one we needed. She’s a great girl, very intelligent and talented. I think she’s a great actress. She was only fourteen when we made the film. Now she’s nearly a woman, but, at the time, she was really a child. But she already had the air and reactions of an adult.

AS: You chose a baby for Sarah’s brother and not, for example, a four- or five-year-old kid. Was this to play up your heroine’s maternal instinct?

JH: To make a long story short, the baby in the film is the son of Brian Froud, and his mom, Wendy, is one of our collaborators. She had already had a major role in Dark Crystal: she sculpted the two main characters. But, to return to your question, no. More than any maternal instinct, we wanted to show that there’s a moment when a person has to recognize that he or she isn’t alone in this life. We’re responsible for others and not just our own little selves. Children’s thoughts are entirely focused on themselves, while adolescence is marked by the acknowledgement of other people. That’s one of the film’s themes: the realization of one’s responsibility toward the rest of the world.

AS: You’ve said that doing things that have never been done before excites you. Were there new things and special effects in this film?

JH: There were lots of little new things, but nothing really revolutionary. Every film represents a step forward technically, of course. In Dark Crystal, most of the characters were controlled by cable, while, in Labyrinth, they’re almost all remote-controlled. That way, it’s better; the character is freer in its movements since it’s not attached. Despite this, the scene with the Fireys, those weird head tossers, was very complex to film. There were three or four puppeteers per character, and they were dressed in black. We filmed the scene on a black background, then used a matte, but that gave us problems. We filmed with a split matte, and we didn’t realize until four months after shooting that there was a problem on that level! We had to then use the Rotoscope on the whole sequence, which is a very time-consuming process. But I liked the rhythm of the sequence so much that I strove to keep it in. The acting and the characters in that scene are great, but the visual effects, unfortunately…

AS: What costs the most in a film like Labyrinth?

JH: I’m not sure. The creatures certainly cost a lot, but I can’t tell you exactly. The sets too… The filming is one of the most expensive parts of a budget. We worked almost exclusively in the studio, which really adds up. We had five months of filming. That’s very long. But I think that all major fantasy films that require a lot of post-production work are equally expensive, around $20 or $25 million. Labyrinth cost $25 million. Unfortunately, you can’t make a major film for less. Movies are more and more expensive, and there’s less and less of a chance that you’ll recoup your outlay.

AS: What was the response of audiences around the world?

JH: Labyrinth was very successful in Japan. It’s just coming out now in Germany and the Netherlands. It did very well in Great Britain, but the reaction varies by country. I was really disappointed by the U.S. box-office results. I think they were so low because the film made its U.S. debut during the summer at a time when 21 major pictures came out in three weeks. That’s a lot of films at one time, and some of them were very big productions. We were lost in the crowd. That said, if the audience really wanted to come see it…

AS: So who’s the audience?

JH: I think it’s a film for all ages, adults and kids. Maybe not for really little kids, but, above the age of seven or eight, kids should really like it. That’s what worked against this film in the U.S. People thought it was a kids’ film. Also the main character was a young girl, but all the films that do well in the U.S. have young boys for main characters. (Laughs.) When a boy and a girl want to see two different films, they’ll compromise by both seeing the one with the boy in it. So it’s really not so strange that the film was relatively unsuccessful.

AS: In this film for all ages, do you still see elements aimed at adults?

JH: I think the material that you think is adult-oriented actually works better with kids! One doesn’t exclude the other. I always target both groups, all groups, actually, because what’s the division between adult viewers and children? All kids will be adults some day, but they don’t suddenly grow up.

AS: The Bog [of Eternal Stench] scene is really weird. It’s kind of suggestive.

JH: That scene goes over well with the boys; it amuses them a lot. I was at the London premiere, and Prince Charles laughed a lot. (Laughs.) I’m very proud of that scene.

AS: In what way did George Lucas work on the film?

JH: He worked a lot on the script, the story. He wanted it to be constantly entertaining, with something always happening. He was interested in the plot from a technical perspective, but he didn’t work at all on the filming. He came back for the final editing. He’s a very good producer, and he really got the rhythm of the film. He values the plot over all things. I like filming, and he really likes editing.

AS: Was there a relationship somewhere between him and the fact that you used Gary Kurtz for Dark Crystal?

JH: I met Gary and George at the same time while we were working on The Return of the Jedi(the puppeteering of Yoda). We helped them out. Wendy Froud worked for Gary, who produced the film. She was with him three or four months. Then I called up Gary to produce Dark Crystal, and we asked George to join us. The project interested him. He was available. He was going to take a few years’ sabbatical before he came back to producing, so it was only after he did Howard the Duck.

AS: The moral of Labyrinth hinges on the fact that you shouldn’t be a slave to your dreams, and yet, at the end, the dream characters become real…

JH: I don’t think that’s really the message of the film. The heroine lives in her own little imaginary and fantasy-laden world. Dreams are very important to her. The Wizard of Oz means a lot to her. When she goes into the dream world, which makes up the whole film, she plays a role that recalls the way she feels about the real world. At the end, when she emerges from the dream, from the fantasy, she starts to renounce the foolishness of her childhood, and what the characters say is simply “We’re here; we’re part of you, all of us as we are.” You don’t have to give up your fantasies because you grow up; they’re part of you all your life.

AS: The labyrinth appears to be a symbolic conception of life…

JH: When you think of a labyrinth, you think almost automatically of Theseus and the Minotaur, but, normally, the labyrinth really is a symbolic representation of life. It has been way back through ancient times before Christ. Going through a labyrinth is a metaphorical vision for journeying through the universe. The church used many labyrinths of all types. That’s basically what happens in the film. In one night, a young girl suddenly grows up and changes. The film marks a decisive shift in her life in the sense that she understands that she’s responsible for her own life.

AS: So what are your current projects?

JH: After a year and a half, Labyrinth is now done, and we’re doing several new films. Some are still in the brainstorming stages. I’m putting the final touches on some TV shows. We did a special TV show for last Christmas in the U.S. I did the pilot for a new NBC series of fairy tales for adults. And then we periodically go back to the Muppets. We even have a new long-term project for them.

AS: Do you have any other big-screen projects besides for the Muppets?

JH: Yeah, but with really small budgets. Right now I don’t have the desire to do a big-budget film. It’s too much work.

AS: If you compare Labyrinth to Dark Crystal, which had the bigger budget?

JH: It was pretty much the same for both. For me, Labyrinth is a more finished film than Dark Crystal. In Dark Crystal, we only pulled off about 80% of the effects that we wanted to, but, with Labyrinth, we made the film exactly as we wanted.

AS: So what are the weak points in Dark Crystal for you?

JH: The two main characters, maybe, because we chose the story as a function of them. It was a decision I made at the beginning, and the characters were very difficult to move if we wanted to get the perfect 3-D effect. To give them extreme facial expressions would have deformed them too much. They were so cute, and that would have made them ugly. Whereas, in Labyrinth, you can’t really say that the characters are cute. The caricatured faces allow a greater range of expressions. And we were helped out by the presence of the human main character who served as a pivot.

AS: What’s your favorite character in Labyrinth?

JH: I like them all equally, really. I have a little weakness for Hoggle, maybe, in the sense that my son did his voice in the English version, but, anyway… Ludo’s not bad either because he looks like a big teddy bear, and Ron Muech is a wonderful puppeteer.

AS: Tell us about your son.

JH: Brian is 23 years old. He started working with me on The Great Muppet Caper. He helped us out with the marionettes. Then he worked on a bunch of films. He did Jack Pumpkinhead in Return to Oz, one of the elves of Santa Claus (!), etc. But what I’d really like to say is that, as complicated as the work can be on a film like Labyrinth, at the heart of every creature, there is a gifted puppeteers. We never want the technology to take over. Techniques like remote control only show the value of the puppeteers’ work. You need lots of talent to make animated characters seem alive!

AS: What’s the structure of your company?

JH: We usually hire freelancers for a particular film. Without that, we have a permanent team of decorators and sculptors who essentially work on TV programs. Of course, obviously, the corporate staff is all in New York.

AS: So when you say you want to do cheaper films from now on, do you still want to do live-action/puppet films?

JH: Yeah. People usually cost less than puppets! (Laughs.)

AS: Did you see Return to Oz? What did you think?

JH: What do I say? The critics attacked the film in the U.S. I don’t think it was a total success, but I also don’t think it deserved such a bashing. It’s a rather sad film, which is, at the least, strange for that particular genre. But there aren’t more than a few fantasy films that really went over well in the U.S. in this past decade. Return to Oz, Dune, Legend – none of them worked. I hope the trend will change, or else we won’t be able to make more fantasy films.

AS: Maybe when special effects come to a point of perfection that we haven’t seen yet, the public interest will run away…

JH: Yeah, you could say that, but it’s difficult to prove. You don’t know what the public will pay attention to. Also, none of those films were really very good. We could have made them better in many respects. How do you tell whether the lack of success comes from the film or the viewers?

AS: But when you do a film like Labyrinth, do you expect well of the public?

JH: We made a film that we wanted to make, before all else, hoping that the public will like it.

All original content © 1997 to the present by me, Elizabeth A. Allen.
Plagiarists will be suspended head-first in the Bog of Eternal Stench.