Pharrell Williams is mainly known for his music career, but he's branched out into producing films and his latest is "Hidden Figures"; China’s increasing involvement in Hollywood is an issue both Democrats and Republicans actually agree on; The Secret City is a theater experience that's part cabaret, part joyful tent revival, and all about worshipping art;
Pharrell Williams produced 'Hidden Figures' because 'it lifts women in an amazing way'
"Hidden Figures" tells the true story of three African American women who were instrumental to the success of the U.S. space race in the 1960s.
Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson were mathematicians who worked at the NASA Langley Research Center. They helped plot trajectories that put astronaut John Glenn into orbit and brought him back to earth. But the women couldn’t even use the same bathrooms as their white colleagues in Jim Crow-era Virginia.
Songwriter and producer Pharrell Williams has a producer credit on the film and he wrote music for the soundtrack, along with composers Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch.
We met up with Pharrell in a Hollywood recording studio to talk about the film, and I asked him: of all the projects he’s offered, why did this film speak to him in particular?
Interview Highlights:
On what attracted him to the story:
First of all, it lifts women in an amazing way. It wasn't a movie about a weekend trip or divorces or whatever. It's a movie about three African American female protagonists who were into science, technology, engineering and mathematics. And the idea that this all happened in Hampton Roads [Virginia], which is my stomping grounds. As soon as I heard about it, I couldn't believe that I hadn't heard the story before. As I get older, I realize that there's nothing random in life, and there's often more times of serendipity. Six years ago our charitable organization, called From One Hand to Another — [which] is largely based on the STEM program — had an African American astronaut by the name of Leland Melvin. And he came and brought Katherine Johnson. I didn't know her then, and even when I told my mom the story, I didn't remember that I met her because it was very briefly. That's when my mom said, You met her before ... That was mind blowing.
On the story not being well known:
The story is not more widely celebrated, not just because of segregation [but] because of what's going on with women and what's always going on with women. Women have been an integral part of everything we've ever done. Just think: anything that a man has ever made, a woman made him. But women's direct contributions in terms of achievements, the accolades have always been slighted, dismissed or forgotten. These women were dealing with a double whammy of not only being female, but also being African American. So it was tough.
On how he figured out the style and sound of the film's music:
When I first started the project I wanted Hans Zimmer to do it, and he insisted that we all do it together. We found ourselves in the room the first couple of days just throwing ideas and chord progressions around, asking ourselves, How did it make us feel? The lowest common denominator for us is that when you think about film scores, a lot of them —chord progression-wise — tend to go a bit Anglo, a bit Euro. That may not be the feeling that these women were feeling — these African American women in the 1960s. They were feeling something completely different. Music is one of the only things that can penetrate barriers. When there's a physical wall, music — because it's sonic, on a wavelength — literally can penetrate the walls. So we thought, Why not give them music that felt a little more hopeful toward them? We really wanted to think about that. So again, it was, both things considered. It was not only African American, but there was a female consideration.
On segregation and discrimination at NASA:
In the 1960s, as an African American female working at NASA, it was an amazing opportunity and such a great stride and progression for our culture. However, it did come with obstacles. As an African American woman, their bathrooms were not in the same buildings or the adjacent buildings. They had to go all the way to the other side of the campus. In the 1960s — we forget that women were frowned upon for wearing shorts or pants. Women had to wear skirts and dresses, so there was no campus bike riding for them. So she had to make a 30-45 minute round trip to the bathroom every day whenever she had to use the bathroom. And because things were so timely and you needed to be punctual, she had to run. Rain or shine, this woman had to run. I thought to myself, What must she have been thinking? She was a mathematics savant. Her numbers obviously superseded that time. They superseded everything that was going on to help us in the space race. As she was running every day, what was she thinking? What is a mind like that thinking?
On his hopes for the audience's takeaway:
I can tell you this: you see what you want to see, right? When people talk about their [political] candidates and they talk about the bad things and the good things, they see what they want to see. So I don't know what people are going to see in this film, but I hope they see the equality. I hope they look at this, look at their wives, look at their grandmothers, look at their aunts, look at their nieces and their daughters and say, Man, I had no idea that you go through this. I want to come out of this and see what I can do more. Of the different viewings that we've done, it's been amazing to see men hold their women closer. It's been amazing to see women recognize that, yeah, they're having their moment in the film, but they can have more than that moment. They can have a lifetime if they just band together. It's been beautiful to see the strength that I see in women when they see this film.
On whether or not art can change the way people think:
Art has always played an integral part of any kind of messaging. Message, muses, musician — it's all the same. Art was meant to convey a message any way you look at it. Any artistic discipline — from an automobile to a chair to a blouse to a painting, sculpture or song. It's all meant to convey a message. So I'm hoping that the messengers recognize that it's our time.
On if he expects it'll be seen by President-elect Trump?
The current president and First Lady are due to see it in December. We're going to go. That'll be interesting. The next administration ... How do you judge? ... It takes ugliness to recognize what is beautiful and for us to recognize the things that we should cherish. So in the face of ugliness and ugly messages, I think that people are going to galvanize. They're going to recognize that there's power in numbers. I think they're going to think everyone who was afraid is going to recognize that if they come together, they're going to be stronger. I was thinking women would galvanize and just say, You know, we're going to make that decision. It's my opinion that women, if they wanted to end the human race now, they could do it. They'd just simply say, No more children. And there's nothing that men could do. I think that day is coming when they recognize that they have that power. I'm waiting on the women, personally.
How The Secret City became a Sunday service worshiping art
Sunday morning in America.
It is a spiritual time of the week for many people as they head to a house of worship. But it could also be considered a time when lots of us separate ourselves from others based on what we believe. There is one church (of sorts) here in LA that hopes to connect as many people as possible. Yet it’s not a church at all and it’s not part of any religion. It’s actually a live performance that toggles back and forth between a cabaret and a joyful tent revival. It’s called The Secret City and their next show happens this Sunday at The Bootleg Theatre in Silverlake.
The mastermind behind this project is Los Angeles theatre veteran, Chris Wells.
“Well, the funny thing is, I very much believe in theatre,” laughs Wells. “I will always think of myself as an actor and person who makes theatre and performs. I guess I felt the theater I was making wasn’t really addressing the community. And the community wasn’t really engaging with the theatre. They are just showing up to consume something. I sort of wanted to break through both of those things. And maybe as an actor maybe I was feeling I wasn’t using everything. I was performing and I was good at it and I had achieved some success but I wanted something sort of hugely challenging.”
That frustration got Wells thinking about how to stretch himself as an artist and how to extend the reach of traditional theatre. So he started talking to friends like Leslie Tamaribuchi, a Cal Arts faculty member and current Secret City board member.
“I remember just a few coffee dates we had in the mid-90s where we would just brainstorm,” says Tamaribuchi.
It turns out those humble coffee talks about how to use theatre as a tool to build community led to small tea parties in Silverlake where more creative people would join in on the jam sessions.
“There was a lot of conversation about church and ritual and the idea of organizing this gathering around, like a church service,” says Tamaribuchi. “But we had a lot of conversation around how people felt about the idea of church. What people’s experiences of church were. And whether that was an attractive word to use. One of things that Chris and I have in common, as really different people, we both went to Congregational Churches growing up.
I was part of a family that moved around, that was pretty nomadic and moved every 1.5-2 years when I was growing up so we would always find a church as part of moving to a new place and as an entry point into community and getting to know a new place. It was never really about God or faith as much as it was about community and place.
I feel like one of my most formative experiences growing up was a year when my junior high school church group actually spent a Sunday a month or a day a Month visiting other religious institutions services. Going to a Chinese Baptist church where they had full immersion baptisms and everybody was speaking in Mandarin. Going to an AME church. Going to a Jewish synagogue. And seeing kind of what the delight in what was similar in how people gather to enact ritual and form community, what was different and surprising and diverse. That, I feel like there is something in that series of experiences that I also recognize in the Secret City and that I’m really attracted to.”
But in 2003 the idea for The Secret City got put on hold. Chris Wells was done with LA. He had fallen in love with his boyfriend, the painter Robert Lucy. The couple moved to New York. Chris’ acting career was on the upswing, but that meant lots of time away.
“So when I moved to New York, I realized that I never really ever find the community there that I was looking for,” says Wells “And I also was doing a lot of regional theatre and I was not feeling that engaged by the theatre I was making. I wasn’t that satisfied living on the road and living out of a suitcase.”
What did satisfy him were the memories of those LA brainstorm sessions and intimate salons with friends, where people would bring a poem, a story or a song to share. So Chris and Robert rented a small studio space in lower Manhattan and picked up where they left of in LA. The word quickly spread and soon The Secret City was holding “theatre church” once a month in New York.
Since 2007, the raucous services have brought together thousands of art lovers with the artists themselves—in any given service, presentations can come from painters, poets, bubble blowers, chefs, Aztec dancers, fashion designers, you name it.
And just like in a traditional church, each ceremony is rooted in a sermon. At Secret City, the man of the cloth is Chris Wells, although his cloaks tend to have sparkly sequins, cool glitter and fantastic feathers. And his homilies come from his real life stories.
In 2010, The Secret City scored an OBIE award. It’s a special honor given for Off-Broadway theater. In this case, Wells received a special citation for creating The Secret City and for service to the creative community. Two years later, Chris Wells & company have gone bi-coastal, staging shows in New York City, Woodstock, NY right back here in LA—where it all started.
At a recent service, LA filmmaker Laura Nix shared a clip from her latest work—a documentary about a community of senior citizen ballroom dancers in San Gabriel, CA.
“The couple I’m following is a Chinese Vietnamese who came to the US in their 20’s,” says Nix. “The clip is from them dancing at their high school reunion!”
After the clip ended, Chris Wells invited the couple, Millie and Paul Cao, to perform live for the excited Secret City audience.
“Paul had his costume on. But he was shy,” remembers Nix. “He felt very self conscious that he had his sequins on in a room like on Sunday afternoon. And he took off his coat and he revealed his sequins and the entire place the whole theatre went completely crazy for him. they were just like ‘what?!’—everyone just went completely wild. And Millie had her on sequined dress. They went up and they did their dance. And it was maybe a minute and half. When they finished—I get chills thinking about it now. The entire audience stood up and gave them a standing ovation. They were just screaming and hooting and hollering and pounding the floor with their feet because I think they got it. Which is ‘Look at what these folks are doing!’”
That’s exactly the goal says Wells: “Whether they know each other or not, we are asking them to engage with each other. We’ve designed the events so there is built-in interactivity. We’re telling people ‘We are here to engage.’ And we hope that people are not put on the spot or made to feel uncomfortable but there is a very hearty, joyful invitation to participate … the events are designed to soften the barriers between what an audience member is and what a performer is. Being with other people, I think there is salvation in that. I think that’s how we are going to be able to move forward. If we can actually be with other people in real time and space.”
Next summer, The Secret City will reach even more people—offering its first free outdoor performance at Grand Performances in downtown LA.
To find out more about The Secret City click here. The next service is Sunday, December 4th and all are welcome.