Daniel Radcliffe and Evan Rachel Wood on the new Weird Al biopic and ‘doing something crazy’
When a relatively unknown streaming platform announced it was making a biopic film of parody king Weird Al Yankovic – there was really only one man for the job.
It was revealed Daniel Radcliffe had signed on to play the musician soon after, joining actors such as Rami Malek and Taron Egerton who have starred as real-life performers in biopics in recent years.
Though unlike Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman, this biopic is a parody – a reimagining of Yankovic’s life with everything from jumping into bed with Madonna, to wielding machine guns in South American drug dens.
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Speaking to Backstage, the TV and film podcast from Sky News, Radcliffe said he didn’t feel pressure playing Weird Al.
“There was something quite liberating for us about how different the people we’re playing are from their real-life counterparts,” he explained.
“You know, if I had been walking off set, and it was a ‘Serious Al’ biopic, I’m sure I would have been looking at Al every time and being like, ‘Oh, is he happy with that?’ Like, ‘is that moment we’ve recreated alright?’
“But, you know, when I’m walking down the table, letting loose with a machine gun, it definitely gives you a lot of licence to go ‘we’re just we’re doing something crazy and different’.
“If somebody played me as a crazy person, I’d be delighted.”
Westworld star Evan Rachel Wood, who plays a scheming Madonna, added: “I would have had to have gone to a boot camp if I was really doing her.”
She was referring to the rumours that actresses vying to play the Ray Of Light singer in her own biopic had to go through a gruelling dancing and singing bootcamp.
Evan Rachel Wood in Weird. Pic: Roku
Instead, Wood “watched as many interviews and videos as I could and then thought, ‘great, now just turn her into a raging sociopath, and we’re there'”.
The movie was made in a miniscule amount of time, with filming taking just 18 days in early 2022.
Not only that, but it packs in cameos in just about every single scene – from the likes of Jack Black and Lin-Manuel Miranda, to Conan O’Brien and Weird Al himself.
Plus factor in musical performances in kitchens, all the way up to stadiums – this shoot could not have been easy.
However, the breakneck speed of production wasn’t a barrier, Radcliffe told Backstage, saying instead it felt “amazing”.
“It was the fastest shoot I’ve ever done. It was amazing – it was so well-prepared, that you did feel like you were basically getting enough time for everything and everyone came in super prepared.
“Everyone came in also and realised very quickly, ‘oh, we’re getting like two, maybe three takes of everything. And that’s just that’s what it is, and you can’t be too precious about it’.
“The vibe on set was just… it did feel very celebratory all the time. There was no one on set that was indifferent to Al’s work.”
Evan Rachel Wood and Daniel Radcliffe in Weird. Pic: Roku
For Wood and Radcliffe – maybe in a few years we’d see films about their illustrious careers, as biopics seem to start becoming part of the Hollywood churn.
But who would play them?
“I almost need to feel like I need to stop giving this answer because we do get mistaken for each other all the time, and I think it’s probably annoying him, but Elijah Wood is the obvious place to play me in a parody of my life,” Radcliffe told Backstage.
Radcliffe and Wood became household names at similar times in the early noughties, with the pair starring in the lead roles in the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings franchises.
Wood says Rachel Brosnahan, the star of Marvellous Mrs. Maisel would play her, saying she is often mistaken for the actress.
Weird streams on Roku, a free streaming service, from 4 November.
Entertainment
Creatives having to be even more creative as National Theatre overhauls how it stages productions
The National Theatre is overhauling how it stages productions – as its ambitious climate targets mean creatives are having to be even more creative.
After setting itself the goal of achieving net zero as an organisation by 2030, off-stage quietly radical changes are under way.
Pic: Reed Watts
Sky News was invited to see how the theatre, based in Southbank, central London, has gone about overhauling its approach to staging productions, meeting with some of those who’ve worked on its adaptation of the much-loved children’s classic Ballet Shoes.
While critics have been full of praise for the visual spectacle on-stage, how the whole look was created required a fundamental shift in approach.
“All of the team have had to be on board with reinventing, recutting and reimagining items rather than just making them from scratch,” costume designer Samuel Wyer said.
A new resource they had to work with was the National Theatre Green Store in Bermondsey, southeast London.
The warehouse has more than 131,000 items of costume and almost 22,000 props now housed under one roof so that designers can repurpose items from previous productions to try to cut their carbon footprint.
It’s a surprisingly satisfying challenge.
Mr Wyer said they were able to “dip and cut clothes… which meant I was finding things even outside my imagination that were more perfect than I could have drawn on a piece of paper”.
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Trying to lead by example, the theatre hopes to demonstrate how the industry needn’t take a fast fashion approach to making sets, props and costumes from scratch.
“I think if it’s demonstrated that we can do things in this way that helps all of us imagine a world where we can use what we’ve got rather than new, new, new, because we need that balance,” Mr Wyer said.
“Theatre is where we come to imagine who we could be.”
Pic: Reed Watts
‘Every piece has its own little quirks’
Last year, the National set itself targets of 50% of the materials used in its productions having had a previous life, and 65% being repurposed at the end of each production.
For set designer Frankie Bradshaw, hitting those targets has meant working with a lot more repurposed furniture.
“Lots of second-hand cabinets, bookshelves,” she said. “Ordinarily [carpenters] would have been used to building from scratch following a drawing and this has been quite different.
“Every piece has its own little quirks, and they’ve had to adapt their processes to fit that way of working.”
While it’s by no means straightforward, the process is proving rewarding.
“It requires everyone to be a little bit more flexible, a little more patient, but it does mean you can end up with a product you’re a lot more proud of,” Ms Bradshaw added.
Ballet Shoes runs at the National Theatre until Saturday 22 February.
Neil Young has been confirmed as a headliner at this year’s Glastonbury – despite saying he was dropping out due to the BBC’s involvement in the festival.
The 79-year-old Canadian musician wrote on his website earlier this week that both he and his band, The Chrome Hearts, were pulling out because the BBC’s involvement was a “corporate turn-off”.
He has now said in a statement that this decision was down to “an error in the information I received”.
Emily Eavis, the organiser of the Glastonbury Festival, posted on Instagram on Friday: “Neil Young is an artist who’s very close to our hearts at Glastonbury.
“He does things his own way and that’s why we love him.
“We can’t wait to welcome him back here to headline the Pyramid in June.”
Glastonbury, which takes place at Worthy Farm in Somerset in the summer, has worked closely with the BBC – its exclusive broadcast partner – since 1997.
Posting on Neil Young Archives, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer wrote in his initial statement: “The Chrome Hearts and I were looking forward to playing Glastonbury, one of my all-time favourite outdoor gigs.
“We were told that BBC was now a partner in Glastonbury and wanted us to do a lot of things in a way we were not interested in.
“It seems Glastonbury is now under corporate control and is not the way I remember it being.”
Young performing at Glastonbury in 2009. Pic: AP
Young, who headlined the festival’s Pyramid stage in 2009, added: “We will not be playing Glastonbury on this tour because it is a corporate turn-off, and not for me like it used to be.
“Hope to see you at one of the other venues on the tour.”
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In an updated statement, he wrote: “Due to an error in the information received, I had decided to not play the Glastonbury festival, which I always have loved.
“Happily, the festival is now back on our itinerary and we look forward to playing! Hope to see you there!”
Young, who is married to US actress Daryl Hannah, was booked to play Glastonbury in 1997 but pulled out after cutting his left index finger while making a ham sandwich.
Glastonbury, one of the UK’s largest music festivals, is set to take place between 25 and 29 June, with Sir Rod Stewart booked for the Sunday teatime legend slot.
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