Academy Award-nominated director Julie Taymor is probably best known for her stage adaptation of Disney's "The Lion King," which took home five Tony Awards in 1998, including two individual Tonies for Taymor for her directing and costume design. But since then, Taymor has also made a name for herself on the big screen, directing well-known films like the 2002 biopic "Frida" about Mexican painter Frida Kahlo and the 2007 musical drama "Across The Universe," which celebrated the music of The Beatles and, Taymor says, was semi-autobiographical.

Her latest film, "The Glorias," is also a biopic and depicts activist, journalist and feminist Gloria Steinem at varying points in her life, played by different actors at each one. It’s based on Steinem’s memoir “My Life On The Road,” and Taymor appropriately uses a Greyhound bus as a through line for the movie, taking interior monologues that Steinem writes about in her book where she might question a decision she made to do something or not and turning them into exterior dialogue with the various Glorias. 

Today on FilmWeek, KPCC’s John Horn talks with Julie Taymor about the making of the film, how Steinem’s life, activism and writing inspired it, and how the results of the 2016 election drastically changed the movie she ended up making from the one she originally envisioned.

With contributions from John Horn

Guest:

Julie Taymor, director, writer and producer; her new movie is “The Glorias”; she is also known for “Frida,” (2002) “Across The Universe” (2007) and the Tony Award-winning Broadway adaptation of Disney’s “The Lion King”