It’s bizarre to consider life paralleling artwork in Bill & Ted Face the Music, on condition that the film about time journey, alternate realities, and a single music that may hold the universe from imploding. But it seems that a few of what went on behind the scenes of the third movie within the Bill & Ted trilogy does mirror the story it’s telling. For one factor, your entire film is about long-delayed artwork. In the unique slacker comedy basic Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, surfer-bro dimwits Bill and Ted (Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves) be taught they should cross high-school historical past so sooner or later, their garage-rock band, Wyld Stallyns, can file a music that may unite the universe. But in Bill & Ted Face the Music, a long time have handed, the high-schoolers are middle-aged dads, they usually nonetheless haven’t gotten round to writing that music. So they tried to steal it from the longer term.

Bill & Ted 3 director Dean Parisot, who additionally directed Galaxy Quest and the Jim Carrey / Téa Leoni action-comedy Fun With Dick and Jane, just lately talked to Polygon about how the movie adopted an identical course — it additionally was delayed for greater than a decade, as Winter and Reeves tried to discover a studio that wished to fund a goofy comedy about slacker dads. But even when the movie lastly discovered funding and was able to go, Parisot was in the identical boat as Bill and Ted — he didn’t have a groundbreaking, universe-changing music available. In a cellphone interview, Parisot advised us how he used The Beatles to resolve the issue, how Alex Winter virtually muscled himself unconscious on the set, and what Parisot considers the important thing to cinematic comedy.

This interview has been edited for concision and readability.

How do you are taking a few males of their 50s and get them to maneuver like they did of their 20s? How did you strategy re-creating the previous with Keanu and Alex on this movie?

I simply stood again and watched. Those guys are gifted, proficient, sensible actors and filmmakers. And we had been all growing this factor for a few years. I used to be hooked up for seven, they usually had been on it for 11 years. They simply labored on it. It’s them. It’s completely them. They’re each sensible at it.

They got here at it very severely, and rehearsed it considerably daily. They had been rehearsing every thing from the physicality of it to how the scenes labored. They labored extremely laborious at it. That doesn’t imply there weren’t gentle moments — when you’ve gotten your scene, you’ll be able to typically open it as much as improv, and a few issues come out of that, as effectively. It’s actually about laborious work for them, they usually took it severely. But on prime of that, they’ve such an ideal friendship. That’s a part of that efficiency. They had been nice buddies for years, because the authentic, and it reveals. They hang around collectively, they joke round a lot. They’re each nice filmmakers, they perceive the method, which is enjoyable to look at.

We labored on the script so much collectively over time. It was arrange a few occasions at completely different studios within the seven years I used to be on it. I’ve identified [Bill & Ted co-writer] Ed Solomon for a very long time, no less than 25 years. We didn’t have to speak about it. It’s all in our psyche. It was an odd and pleasant expertise, this film, as a result of we actually had been in the identical boat for therefore lengthy, drifting alongside, speaking about it, remodeling it. When we lastly acquired to make it, we didn’t actually have to debate that a lot. It was largely a logistical dialogue by that time, as a result of we needed to shoot it in 37 days, and it was a variety of work, logistically.

How a lot did the script evolve over that seven years?

The core of it didn’t change. I imply, it was all the time about Bill and Ted realizing that they’ve this future, and never being profitable at it. It was all the time about their relationship with their wives and their daughters. It was all the time a time-travel film. All the construction was precisely the identical. We simply labored on altering scenes, there have been scenes that acquired dropped. There was an ideal scene at Circle Ok, which we simply couldn’t afford to do. Things like that. It acquired restructured a little bit bit in publish. But for probably the most half, it stayed intact. We had been simply honing the characters and dealing on the journey, as a result of it’s a ticking-clock journey, 77 minutes and 25 seconds.

Why did it take so lengthy to get the movie made, particularly in a such an period of reboots and nostalgia initiatives?

It’s unusual to make a sequel 29 years later, so, there was a variety of, “Well, can’t you bring us the young Bill and Ted?” Also, the originals had been theatrical comedies, and people are disappearing. They’re tough to monetize, as a result of they aren’t like massive Marvel motion pictures, which may play large in China. Comedy is commonly particular to a tradition, so it’s tougher to get them to play worldwide. I believe we’re discovering that’s truly not true with Bill & Ted, which is attention-grabbing. But it’s laborious to get funded. The studios are all asking that very same query, “Why make it a theatrical movie? Why can it be on television?”

In planning this movie, then, had been you fascinated by the right way to make it extra common, the right way to make a global comedy?

Well, I used to be, however apparently nobody who was investing was! [Laughs] I noticed Sullivan’s Travels just lately with my daughter. I’d forgotten about it. You know, on the finish of Sullivan’s Travels, he’s been attempting to make this very critical movie, and he discovers that the factor that’s actually serving to folks is dumb comedy. I believe we’d like these movies each every so often. The gloom of this second in historical past is carrying us down a little bit bit, so hopefully it is a distraction. Hopefully.

Did you your self return to the unique motion pictures for design parts or something in that vein?

I used to be on this for therefore a few years. I believe I knew the movies fairly effectively. And I used to be attempting to contemporize them, and doubtless deliver extra of my very own style to it. Everything we introduced ahead was needed, however we additionally had been attempting to make it really feel like an journey that was made now. So between the previous and the current, we saved buying and selling off till I discovered an equilibrium that I believed labored.

A giant problem on this film is realizing that the entire movie is constructed round a universe-changing musical quantity. How do you strategy staging one thing that must be that vital for the viewers?

With terror.

From the start, for seven years, I saved saying, “We gotta get this song!” But because it because it advanced — for me, what’s great in regards to the film is the final sentence, “It wasn’t so much the song as the fact that everyone played it together.” That actually is the guts of the film, thematically. So we didn’t must make the very best music ever written, that may be a doubtful factor for anybody to attempt to try, particularly an impartial film like this. But I believe we had been very profitable at creating that music, ultimately. We had a very nice music supervisor, Jonathan Leahy, and we form of Frankensteined it collectively. We didn’t have it but once I was capturing that sequence. We shot that entire sequence to “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.”

You actually had them enjoying The Beatles music?

Yeah, we used it as a reference observe in playback as we had been capturing. In the movie, everyone’s trying to play to that music. And then after we created the music, we saved the identical tempo, and it labored completely. Go determine.

Why that individual music?

I used to be in search of one thing everyone knew, one thing celebratory, form of joyous. And additionally that was in a time signature that we might recreate. And it labored as a result of the viewers of extras knew it. If you realize the music, and you may immerse your self within the spirit of it, it’s simpler than in the event you play one thing nobody’s ever heard earlier than, the place half the viewers received’t be into it. That music was already within the cultural zeitgeist.

How did the large crowdsourcing credit sequence come about? Do you understand how many individuals submitted air-guitar videos on request?

Ed and [Bill & Ted co-writer] Chris [Matheson] wished to do this, and I believed it was nice. We acquired hundreds of them, and I believe we had been capable of put virtually each single one in there, when the movies begin to shrink. You might not have the ability to blow it up large enough to see them. [Laughs] But I’m fairly positive each single efficiency we acquired is in there. And it was a world challenge. Of course, extra got here in after it was too late, nevertheless it was wonderful. We had been pondering we’d get a few hundred at greatest, and it was much more than that. So we needed to make some vital decisions through the sequence, however then we determined to try to match all of them in there by some means, in that montage.

What’s your greatest set story about Keanu and Alex?

We had been capturing and a hurricane hit New Orleans, and we escaped throughout Lake Pontchartrain, and we had been caught on this resort whereas every thing was flooding. And Keanu and Alex determined to have a meal for all of us, and all of us simply form of realized there was nothing else we might do. So all of us had this massive meal collectively, and simply laughed and ate and drank for your entire day earlier than we might return to the capturing once more. I’ve by no means had a break like that in the course of a movie. And they had been so gracious.

It was enjoyable, nevertheless it was attention-grabbing to shoot in that warmth. I bear in mind Alex coming as much as me — for one sequence, he wears a muscle swimsuit, and it weighed 40 kilos. It was proper up round 100 levels, and 100 p.c humidity. And he’d been waltzing round — I checked out him and mentioned, “Alex, are you okay?” He mentioned, “I’m not okay. I think I’m gonna collapse.” I mentioned, “Okay, get him inside!” It was laborious. He wasn’t going to surrender, although. And Keanu by no means broke a sweat! I don’t get it! Alex’s was heavier as a result of he saved including muscle tissues behind his again. As we constructed the swimsuit, he saved saying, “No, more muscles, more muscles!” Not realizing he was gonna put on 40 kilos and two inches of latex in 100 levels. But we put him in ice water, and he was tremendous.

Do you’ve gotten a comedy philosophy that leads you to initiatives like this and Galaxy Quest?

I believe actually, I’m interested in characters who typically fail, to ludicrous or broken folks, trying to cope with a tragic circumstance. I believe comedy comes from drama and comedy blended collectively. That’s what I discover myself drawn to. Who is aware of why? Too a lot tragicomedy within the ’70s, I assume.