rian Henson is an award-winning director, producer and puppeteer who also serves as chairman of the Jim Henson Company. He took over the company at the age of 27, after his father's untimely death. Henson is an executive producer of Farscape and has directed one of its episodes.
Henson recently wrote, directed and produced Jim Henson's Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story, a four-hour miniseries slated to air Dec. 2 and 4 on CBS. It's a multimillion-dollar project that includes over 500 visual effects shots from Jim Henson's Creature Shop. Like Gulliver's Travels, for which Henson served as executive producer, Jack and the Beanstalk brings a classic story to life in a big way.
How did you take a fairy tale and develop it into a miniseries?
Henson: We didn't know how to expand Jack and the Beanstalk into two nights without doing something that we've all seen or expected before. So we got this idea—this is just Jack's story. Nobody knows what happened up there except for Jack. Jack was the one who told the story. What if he wasn't really telling the truth? What if there was a different story? What if he made it up to glorify himself and to justify himself? And wouldn't that be an interesting hook? And that becomes the prologue to a new fairy tale, which is really the sequel to Jack and the Beanstalk, or the continuing story. What we were trying to do was create a modern-day fairy tale that has the same elements as traditional fairy tales, but is relevant to modern society and modern morality. That's kind of a heady description of what we did, because in the end it's just a lot of fun with a complicated plot line that's challenging to follow.
Michael Wright at CBS asked us to do Jack and the Beanstalk over two nights. He said, "I think maybe it's modern day, maybe Jack goes back up the beanstalk." He didn't have much, but he was very enthusiastic. Jim Hart and I initially didn't react really well to it. It wasn't until we sat down and started thinking about it that we really liked it.
I saw it as highly restrictive. There were a lot of dangerous areas in terms of just retelling the story like people know. What's the message that you're reinforcing? These were all problems. It's interesting how if you go into a project where you see the problems more than you see the benefits and the options of what you can do, it does actually focus your creative energy. I think Jim and I hashed this all out in about eight days.
Jim and I went away and looked at it and thought, boy, we don't know how to expand it, and we don't really like the fairy tale that much. It's a little simplistic: the evil giant, and stealing the gold so you can save your mother and be a hero. It just felt like, wouldn't it be interesting if we twisted this hard. If we undid Jack and the Beanstalk.
I think the scene that got us started when we were just talking about it was when we thought up the scene that the movie opens with. There's a guy who's really, really rich, who's got ancient family money, and he runs a corporation. And on his family property, there's an excavation that uncovers giant human bones. And we thought, wouldn't that be a great way to start the movie, because it tells you an awful lot. It says this is modern day, and by uncovering these ancient bones in the ground, the audience knows right away, they're going to say that Jack and the Beanstalk really happened, and that it happened a long time ago. And now we're going to hear what that means today. Then we got caught up in all the scenes of what if Jack's original actions had catastrophic repercussions in the world that he stole the stuff from, and what if now his descendent has to pay the price and has to right the wrong?
We really thought we had something that was kind of important when we hit upon the theme, where we thought, you know what? Jack and the Beanstalk could be a story to glorify himself, just like conquerors would have done during the British empire-building. Just like all those explorers that went out and met new cultures and took all their gold and introduced them to Christianity, and all the wonderful things that they did. If you look at it from the other side, quite often, is quite horrific, the impact that they had. So we thought this was a nice thematic parallel. There's one line in the movie that articulates the theme, when Richard Attenborough says, "Surely if you benefit from the wrongdoings of your ancestors, you inherit the obligation to right the wrong." And that's the question thematically that we ask: What if we all had to live with the responsibility of righting the wrongs of our ancestors—what would that mean?
When I think back to the original fairy tale, it's easy to see how it can be interpreted as a story about greed.
Henson: It's a take on it. The key storyline originally, I think, in the fairy tale was really between Jack and his mother. And then it is "boy going and making good." But it's so easy to look at the other side. That's what we like. We liked the idea of let's say that Jack is driven by greed. It wasn't really about wanting to save his mother or wanting to right the injustices of his home world—it was really just greed, because he didn't have any consideration for who he was taking from.
Jack comes across as truly fearless when it comes to seeking out the truth. What was your intent for that character, and what does Matthew Modine bring to that role?
Henson: In writing, Jack went through a few incarnations of "What should the character be? How convinced should he be that the corporate priorities should be his priorities in life? To what degree should we be sympathetic?"
Matthew's got this wonderful thing. He doesn't often get cast in an adult, commanding role, because he's such a beautiful boy—but he's not. He's 40. But he's got that youth and innocence in his voice and his attitude. We thought, with Matthew, this is really interesting, because with him you can see that there's an innocent and instinctive and good-hearted child in him, always. So you can have him espouse the values of corporate priorities: "We're here to make money, we're not here to save the world." That's the point of any corporation. It becomes the struggle with that character all the way through so that you're seeing the two sides of him all the time. You know that he instinctively knows when he's doing the wrong thing. The priorities that are pushed on us to become "successful" in our society sometimes pushes you away from your own personal sense of morals. And what his character does is to start not being driven by his heart, and then comes back in touch with his heart. By the end of the film, he's a more rounded person whose able to now re-prioritize his life the way that he knows is right.
This seems very relevant and true of the corporate world. It's easy for people to forget their values in the workplace.
Henson: I've seen all this, as well. The Jim Henson Company is a wonderful company. It always has been. We have a wonderful mission. We know we're here for the right reasons. But as you try to negotiate deals, try to negotiate contracts, whatever, you always have the issues come up where the group kind of forgets why we're there. And you have this struggle of, wait a second, wait a second, wait, wait, wait. Are we doing this to make money, or are we doing this because it supports what we're trying to do as a company? It's hard to reinforce those priorities, because sometimes they're not the most money-making. But truthfully, in the end, if you're making the right decisions for the right reasons, that's what creates longevity in a company that really is trying to do something good.
Is Jack and the Beanstalk intended primarily for an adult audience or for children or both?
Henson: I wanted it to be a modern-day fairy tale, which means it's scary and there are some heavy themes and there are some really unpleasant things that happen. I think that fairy tales were designed for adults to share with children and to talk it through. I think kids from about the age of 7 will enjoy the movie, and from the age of 9 will really understand the movie. And under 7, parents had better be there to talk them through it, because they're not really going to follow that much. I don't think it's disturbing, but I think it's challenging to the mind.
Most 9-year-olds that I've talked to, and some 7-year-olds, really can follow it perfectly all the way through, and they know exactly what you're meant to get out of it. They know what Jack learned. But it's certainly to entertain adults. First and foremost, I wanted to make sure adults found this a really cool thing to watch. And teen-agers, even the audience that doesn't like to watch television that much, are really enjoying it.
Do you have any plans to develop any other miniseries or fairy tales in the future?
Henson: Oh, I probably should. There are a couple of others we could do this sort of thing to, and we might. We'll see.
It's interesting, because before the whole world changed in the last few months, I was getting a lot of: "Boy, this is a very good program you've made. It's a shame that miniseries and fantasies don't really work any more." That's what I used to hear. Since September, that's not what I hear at all. Everybody's sort of wide open again. Their minds are opened up and they're ready to see the American consciousness shift. Now everybody's thinking this could be a really powerful and good piece.
I think it taps into a lot of what's going on in regard to many people rethinking their priorities and how they live their lives. Jack and the Beanstalk seems like a perfect match with that.
Henson: I think so. Also, considering the implications of what your ancestors have done before you, I think that's also timely. I know it's controversial, and I wouldn't want to say that there's all that much to learn, but certainly some of the stuff that's happening right now to America is a backlash of previous actions that people don't consider so much. And it's important to look back: How exactly did we get here?
What did you enjoy about making this miniseries?
Henson: Directing and creating an adult romance was new for me. With the Muppets, I'm used to trying to tell powerful stories that will move the audience, and with Farscape we're always telling powerful stories, but I only directed a little bit of Farscape in the beginning. I really just got it set up. I'd love to have done some of the later episodes, where the Crichton and Aeryn romance is really powerful. But for me, to be able to do the Ondine and Jack romance—two people from two different worlds with nothing in common, they shouldn't come together but they do—I found that very satisfying. And the fact that the end of the movie does really move people. What I like the most is sitting with a theater full of people and feeling that the audience is really moved by the end of it.
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