ON THIS PAGE: INVESTIGATING THE '60s; ABOUT THE CAST AND THE CAMEO PERFORMANCES

READ MORE ABOUT REINTERPRETING THE SONGS; THE CHOREOGRAPHY AND PRODUCTION

READ MORE ABOUT: THEATER, FILM AND OPERA DIRECTOR JULIE TAYMOR; COMPOSER ELLIOT GOLDENTHAL; CHOREOGRAPHER DANIEL EZRALOW'S; "TEESE" GOHL (SONGS PRODUCER, SUPERVISING MUSIC PRODUCER) AND WRITER, PERFORMER, AND MUSIC PRODUCER T BONE BURNETT

At once gritty, whimsical and highly theatrical, Revolution Studios' Across the Universe is a groundbreaking movie musical, springing from the imagination of renowned writer-director Julie Taymor (Frida, Titus, and the Broadway smash hit musical "The Lion King") and writers Dick Clement & Ian La Frenais (The Commitments), that brings together an original story and 33 revolutionary songs - including "Hey Jude," "I Am the Walrus," and "All You Need is Love" - that defined a generation. Taymor says, "The idea was to create an original musical using only the songs of the Beatles."
A love story set against the backdrop of the 1960s amid the turbulent years of anti-war protest, mind exploration and rock 'n roll, the film moves from the dockyards of Liverpool to the creative psychedelia of Greenwich Village, from the riot-torn streets of Detroit to the killing fields of Vietnam. The star-crossed lovers, Jude (Jim Sturgess) and Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), along with a small group of friends and musicians, are swept up into the emerging anti-war and counterculture movements, with "Dr. Robert" (Bono) and "Mr. Kite" (Eddie Izzard) as their guides. Tumultuous forces outside their control ultimately tear the young lovers apart, forcing Jude and Lucy - against all odds - to find their own way back to each other.
Revolution Studios presents a Matthew Gross/Team Todd production, a film by Julie Taymor, Across the Universe, starring Evan Rachel Wood, Jim Sturgess, and Joe Anderson. The film is directed by Julie Taymor. The producers are Suzanne Todd, Jennifer Todd, and Matthew Gross. The screenplay is by Dick Clement & Ian La Frenais, from a story by Julie Taymor & Dick Clement & Ian La Frenais. Executive producers are Derek Dauchy, Rudd Simmons, and Charles Newirth. Director of photography is Bruno Delbonnel, A.F.C. The production designer is Mark Friedberg. The editor is Françoise Bonnot, A.C.E. The choreography is by Daniel Ezralow. The original score is by Elliot Goldenthal. The songs are produced by T Bone Burnett, Elliot Goldenthal, and Teese Gohl. The costume designer is Albert Wolsky. Co-producers are Richard Barratta and Ben Haber. Casting by Bernard Telsey, CSA. Columbia Pictures distributes.
The film also features cameos by such notable stars as U2's Bono, Salma Hayek, Eddie Izzard and singer Joe Cocker.

INVESTIGATING THE '60s
Julie Taymor, the groundbreaking visionary behind Revolution Studios' new film Across the Universe, says that she first conceived a film that would, in her words, "investigate the '60s. It had to penetrate all levels of the Beatles' songs. From the love songs to the political songs, the music and the film would not just reflect the microcosm of a character's experience, but, from my perspective, would also represent the macrocosm of the events that are happening in the world."
For Taymor, though the film is set a generation back, making the story and the film fresh and alive for today's audiences was the entire point. "I really want young people to see the passion in this movie - to see with what fervor these characters invested themselves into social movements as well as self-exploration," she says. "I hope it really speaks 'across the universe' and across cultures... that anybody could identify with the situations and the events that are happening in this movie."
According to producer Jennifer Todd, the film is an artistic statement from Taymor. "In addition to being a unique voice, Julie is the hardest-working director I've ever worked with," she says. "It's an amazingly satisfying experience to work with someone who lives and breathes the movie morning, noon, and night. One particular weekend, we went away and came back to discover that an entire new sequence had been invented. Because she's like that, she attracts people who want to work just as hard to achieve her vision."
Producer Matthew Gross, who generated the project, concurs. "Julie is a national treasure," he says. "She is a true artist - not only does she bring visual appeal, but she has just the right touch with the singers and dancers, which was so necessary for this film. The work she did in Titus and Frida show her incredible vision. In addition, because everyone wants to work with Julie Taymor - and with good reason - she is able to attract top artists and amazing talent to work with her. She is a tremendous asset to the film in every way."
Unlike most musicals, where a story comes first and songs are inserted in at key points, the songs created the story. "Beginning with over 200 songs written by the Beatles, we eventually chose 33 that we felt best told the story of a generation and a time," says Taymor.
Todd explains, "The film is an original musical and it has an original story - one you've never seen before, inspired by Beatles' music in a way that you haven't heard before."
"The entire concept of this musical," Taymor explains, "is that the lyrics will tell the story. They are the libretto, they are the arias, they are the emotion of the characters."
Although Taymor was only in her early teens in the 1960s, the story was inspired by her childhood observations:
"Lucy and Max, the brother and sister, are modeled slightly after my own older brother and sister, and I'm Julia, the young girl who's watching. During that time, I was a voyeur to what my parents were going through with teenagers and then college students who were going through the radical political movement: the draft, the hippies, the drugs. And so I was there - I didn't get immersed myself, but I watched it."
Taymor admired the outspoken spirit of the time. "People really took chances," she says. "As Lucy says, 'I'd lie down in front of a tank if it would bring my brother home from the war.' And of course Jude responds, 'But it wouldn't,' and she gets upset and she says, 'Does that mean you don't think I should try?' I'm so moved by the fact that at that time, people would try."
But Taymor definitely did not view the project as a piece of nostalgia. She notes that many of the issues facing young people in the '60s are still very relevant today. The filmmakers' goal was to translate the passion and feeling of the 60s and have it resonate in a way that made it feel as contemporary as possible. The reason to make a film like this, in her mind, was the immediacy of the themes. "You constantly have to revisit these stories in order to reflect upon your present and really think, 'What is it that's different now?'" Taymor says. "That era is explicitly important to our time now."
In order to bring the era to life, Taymor and screenwriters Dick Clement & Ian La Frenais created an entirely new story, using the songs to guide their way. "Characters were created for the songs," Taymor continues. "For example, the character Prudence: I loved the idea of taking 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' and giving it to an innocent cheerleader in Ohio."
The song begins with the young girl singing plaintively on the sidelines of the football field. "We don't change the lyrics," says Taymor, "but partway through, you realize she's not in love with the quarterback - she's in love with the blonde cheerleader. All of the sudden the song works in a totally different way, because it's about repressed love. By the end of the song, this young girl, who doesn't even know what she's feeling, leaves home. She hitchhikes her way to New York City. Without having to go into the background of the character, without having to see her mother and her father and her life story, the song says it all."
"As we went through the journeys of characters, songs came up," Taymor continues. "In the story, Max is going to be drafted into the Army. I went through dozens of songs until finally I got to 'I Want You' and it registered in my head, 'My God, "I Want You," isn't that the Uncle Sam motto?'" It was a perfect fit.
As the story began to grow, in this organic way, Taymor would follow the songs where they led her. In many cases, the songs would move to other characters and take on multiple meanings, as in the case of "I Want You," which starts with Max's army induction and continues to a more erotic scene between the characters of Jo-Jo and Sadie. In some cases, the songs seemed more like private moments, and in the manner of an aria in an opera, expressed inner thoughts.
In still other cases, like "Revolution," the directness of the lyrics led them to portray the emotion of a scene in a stronger way than dialogue could. "When Jude sings 'Revolution,' he's actually breaking into the Students For Democratic Reform office, going right up to Lucy, and using the emotion of the music and those lyrics to express himself instead of saying it just with straight dialogue," notes Taymor. "He keeps singing because he's in a state of being that is beyond the everyday; he's in a heightened state that's going to get him beat up and thrown out by the end of the song. It really helps us encapsulate time, because the music helps you to go very quickly through an emotional state and get to another level that is very, very heightened and very dramatic."


ABOUT THE CAST AND THE CAMEO PERFORMANCES
With the characters created from the raw material of the songs, the filmmakers placed an imperative on choosing the best actors and singers they could find for the roles.
As a result, the only cast member with major film experience is Evan Rachel Wood. Taymor notes, "She's so young and nobody really has seen her grow into a woman - in this movie, she grows into a full-fledged adult, serious woman. She's going to be a major discovery for people. Plus, no one even knew she could sing."
Among all the songs she sings in Across the Universe, the one she looked forward to most as the greatest challenge was "If I Fell." "I've never had any training in singing, and that song goes very, very high. It's also the most emotional song I sing. So I had to prepare myself emotionally for the character at that moment and also put it into song - while also remembering what my voice had to do," says Wood. "As I was learning the song and trying to figure out how to sing it, they brought Jim Sturgess into the room so I could sing it to him. It was the very best I ever sang it - it took my mind off what I was doing and freed me up."
Wood notes that she shared not only a connection with Sturgess, but with the entire cast - and that it was reciprocal. "Julie knows how to cast a movie," she says, "and she knew that we would work well together because we're all very similar. During production, I'd felt like I'd gained brothers and sisters; they're all such interesting people and they all have great life stories."
Open casting calls were held in England for the role of Jude. Taymor said she could tell from a tape of Jim Sturgess that he was the one, even before she met him in person.
Taymor and her longtime collaborator, composer Elliot Goldenthal, were very particular about what kind of voices they wanted, she explains. "We did not want musical theater voices, and we didn't want pop-y voices. Jim just fit in right away. Jim's been in a rock band and he's an actor. He just sings with such an incredible ease that you feel that the character is talking just to you. He has a beautiful voice - and there's no disconnect between when his speaking voice and his singing voice. Jim can go right from talking to singing."
Sturgess says that he is fortunate to be making his major-studio debut in Across the Universe and to be working with no less a talent than Julie Taymor. "She's brilliant," he says. "She's an endless head of ideas. She has a definite idea of what she wants to see, but also allows her actors the room to bring their own ideas - she just takes it all in."
Working with the stars playing the cameo roles in the film was also an eye-opening experience. "One day, I was sitting around, watching Bono sing 'I am the Walrus' - so I was already having a good afternoon - and then he comes over and asks me if I'd like to come to his show at the end of the week. What was I going to say? 'Sorry, I have other plans?' No, I stood there and said, 'I'd love to, thank you… Mr. Bono." Another highlight for Sturgess was the day Bono came to set and told the young actor that he liked Sturgess's voice.
Max is an American, but Taymor did not find an American actor that had the qualities she wanted for the part. When she met Joe Anderson, another Brit, she found it interesting that he did not even want to audition for the role of Jude: "When I went to London he auditioned for me, but he said, you know, "I'm not that character - I am Max," so even he knew that his own personality would be better suited to that. And he looked like Evan, so he was really the right mix to play her brother."
For Sadie, says Taymor, "I knew Dana Fuchs and I created the part for her. Dana had done a demo for Elliot for another project, and she has that voice that you haven't heard since Janis."
Fuchs says, "I felt like I was in a movie when I was on the phone with Julie and she was telling me that I got the part. There was no one there to witness. I was shocked - on top of getting the part, to find out she wrote it for me was amazing. She said there was no other Sadie."
Sadie's partner in the movie is the character of Jo-Jo, who is also a musician. "He comes from Detroit, comes from soul music, and hooks up with these young strays and he becomes part of Sadie's band. He transforms in front of you, going from the slicked-back hair to the wild afro." To play Jo-Jo, Taymor called upon Martin Luther McCoy, a singer and a guitar player in New York without much acting experience. Taymor says that he proved himself to be "a phenomenal actor" as well as musician.
T.V. Carpio, who plays Prudence, was another discovery. Along with having a beautiful singing voice, T.V. is a dancer and former ice skater. "I had Prudence become a skating horse in the circus scenes because she could ice skate. Then, I thought, 'Well, she'll be the cheerleader, instead of just watching the cheerleader, because she's so good physically," says Taymor. "As you get to know the actors, you create more and more for them."
The feeling was mutual. Carpio recalls, "As Jim said to me, in the very beginning: 'I'm just desperate to do what Julie needs from us.' We wanted so much to make her vision come alive. When she would tell us what she saw, it would never be just what's written on a piece of paper - it would be something just completely out of this world... we were so honored to be a part of that. We couldn't even believe that this is our job."
Wood agrees. "Julie really brings out the best in you," she says. "She can make you do things that you never knew you could do. I love how she brings that out of people. You can't be afraid and you can't have any fear. She throws you into the deep end and somehow you're just in there and you swim there, and you realize, 'I didn't know I could do this.'"
The cast was rounded out with some very special guests in supporting roles. Bono, who was in the middle of a world tour with U2, managed to fit in two days on set as "Dr. Robert." He played Madison Square Garden late into the night before each of his early morning calls. "We concocted the character together, me and Julie," says the rock star, activist, and first-time actor. "She wanted him to be true to the time and period, so we made him a west coast, Neal Cassady type." Cassady, of course, was the inspiration for Jack Kerouac's On the Road; a key figure in the 60s counterculture, he was also an author in his own right and the driver of Furthur, Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters bus). "We studied film of him and the way he worked, and it's almost like he wanted to be a rock star - he has all these jerky moves, a lot of self-confidence, always plays to the women in the room. For my first acting role, I thought this would be interesting and a little bit special."
Salma Hayek, Taymor's friend and Oscar®-nominated star of Frida, plays the sexy dancing nurses in "Happiness is a Warm Gun." Taymor asked Hayek if she wanted to play a nurse and Hayek said she wanted to play all five of them - something that was accomplished with motion control camera work (requiring Hayek to repeat her dance number very carefully many times during two long days in order to create the illusion of five pin-up nurses). Eddie Izzard plays the role of the circus ringleader in "Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" and Joe Cocker worked in the middle of several nights to complete his multiple "Come Together" roles of singing bum, pimp, and hippie.

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