Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again When I Kissed the Teacher
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New College, Oxford University, 1979 — this is where we outset run across a immature Donna (Lily James), the character originally played past Meryl Streep in 2008's Mamma Mia! In the new film Mamma Mia! Here We Get Again, Donna strides down the aisle of her graduation ceremony in gold platform boots, strips off her graduation robe, and launches into a riotously fun rendition of "When I Kissed the Instructor" that spills out into the streets of Oxford.
The number is a colorful, energetic fashion to kick off a sequel that was ten years in the making (an idea producer Judy Craymer says was "ever in the hemisphere"). Here We Go Once again flits dorsum and along betwixt the past, where we follow a young Donna (and the Dynamos, Tanya and Rosie) every bit she meets (and hooks upwardly with) all 3 of Sophie'southward potential fathers, and the present day, where Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) tries to laurels her mother'southward legacy by opening a hotel while facing her own pregnancy.
Not merely does "When I Kissed the Teacher" open the film, it also marked the commencement of shooting for the sequel. "I thought if nosotros just went for information technology and if we nailed it, it would prepare the tone for what we were going to do from then on," director Ol Parker tells EW.
"We were similar, 'How exciting, we become to develop these relationships as Dynamos and grade this bond of sisterhood through our rehearsal procedure,'" adds Jessica Keenan Wynn, who plays young Tanya in the film. "Then on twenty-four hour period ane when nosotros arrived, information technology was just the nigh massive undertaking. There were hundreds of extras and ensemble trip the light fantastic toe members, three different cameras coming in at you, and and so we had to re-block it.… It was a huge endeavor, but beingness thrown into the deep finish is the best way to first the whole process, because it was quite an like shooting fish in a barrel ride after that."
Below, the pic'due south cast and coiffure members spill the details on the careful planning, ingenuity, and disco magic it takes to bring this ABBA vocal to life on the big screen.
We run into young Donna at Oxford in 1979, as she turns her graduation into a concert.
OL PARKER (director): I wanted to show young Donna as iconoclastic, prepared to shatter conventions and be a rock chick. The funniest thing would exist to put her in the stuffiest possible surrounding and so take her shake that up.… [The song] was originally "Super Trouper," so when they sing it in the showtime movie, it's like a callback to their youth.
JUDY CRAYMER (producer): I went to Sweden to run across with [songwriters] Benny [Andersson] and Björn [Ulvaeus]. It was the same setup at Oxford, and Bjorn went, "What near 'When I Kissed the Teacher'?" There's a sense of irony and wit in the lyrics, and it'southward such a high-free energy number, that was it. That'south how information technology plant its space as the first song.
PARKER: I [wanted] the first track to be something new. There are so many other brilliant songs in the ABBA canon, I wanted to establish from the start nosotros weren't just going to replay all the greatest hits. ["Super Trouper"] didn't seem to denote the sequel as a sequel; it seemed similar a retread rather than a sequel.
CRAYMER: That moment had to fix so many elements — she was leaving academy, her friendship with Tanya and Rosie, the fact she was slightly anarchic and a flake of a minx — and this song did information technology. Nosotros changed the lyrics slightly. Because in the song written by ABBA in the '70s, it was obviously a male teacher, and the vice chancellor is a adult female, played by Celia Imre, which we thought was part of Mamma Mia, the whole blend of empowerment and fun.
PARKER: Sometimes you mind to the lyrics and that will dictate where you put it, to a degree, and you're trying to write towards it, equally it were. And some songs you write yourself into a place and you go, "Now what song would fit there?" In this case, that was "When I Kissed the Teacher." Yous can have her kissing Celia Imre, which is always a pleasure, simply also it's a banging track.
ANTHONY VAN LAAST (choreographer): I didn't want to make information technology cute, because Donna is a stiff woman. I wanted to requite information technology a real strength of movement and evidence something a little bit anarchic with the three girls [equally] a unit of measurement.
ROBERT D. YEOMAN (cinematographer): It was shot at Oxford at [New Higher]. It had very nighttime wood and an old English feeling to it. We wanted to give it some life, and so we put big lights outside the stained drinking glass windows and shined them through to give the feel of the direction of sunlight coming through.
PARKER: That was the most fabulously pompous place we could discover. In a good way. Fabulously learned and impressive. Information technology was all the funnier for Lily to rip off her costume and become for it.
JESSICA KEENAN WYNN (immature Tanya): I felt like English royalty. I felt like I was a guest in someone's castle. To be in a identify of so much wisdom and history was exceptional and an honor.
YEOMAN: We wanted to requite it a certain amount of energy.… It wasn't a proscenium kind of thing where you just lock the camera down and let them practise their thing. We wanted to be very active with the camera and move very apace, because they're moving effectually very chop-chop. Trying to follow the action and keep the free energy going every bit much as possible.
CRAYMER: [It] was setting the tone for those women and where they were going to get. Oxford could allow Ol to bring all that into that vocal.
Donna, Tanya, and Rosie (Alexa Davies) strip off their graduation robes to reveal their Donna and the Dynamos getups, including platform boots and bong-bottoms.
WYNN: You experience tall, regal, and secure considering the boots were custom-made for united states of america. Once we got them in rehearsal, we felt similar we finally understood what the Dynamos were.
CRAYMER: Those costumes are, in theory, cut out of the curtains of their rooms. That's how they would've made their fun dress. They would take cutting stuff out of the sofa and stuck them on their jeans. The feather boa is meant to be a scrap of a shaggy rug they've torn up and put effectually their necks.
WYNN: The little elements of having star patches on the boots and throughout our costumes, I thought that was a nice nod to nigh a David Bowie element nosotros took into it. In the dorm room, Tanya has a massive poster of David Bowie. If you await shut enough, you lot can encounter our defunction, in the corner — they've all been cutting up, which is a cute petty addition.
As the number gets going, the professors backside Donna get kissed and join the dance.
CRAYMER: That'south ABBA's Bjorn [Ulvaeus] every bit one of the professors. The row backside in the ruby robes are all quondam Mamma Mia stage actors. In that location's some of the original bandage, and cast over the final 20 years.
VAN LAAST: Information technology was like a huge reunion. The peachy thing nearly Mamma Mia is we're similar a family unit. They came with nifty spirit and [were] unbelievably supportive. Information technology was the first thing we filmed.
CRAYMER: They sat there very patiently for 3 days. It also gave Ol something extra-special. Because information technology wasn't a just crowd scene. They are already achieved actors that were really happy to practice this because they were in Mamma Mia and part of the alumni.
PARKER: Bjorn was baffled by how long information technology all took and how wearisome it was.… At that place was something worrying to me about having a celebrity cameo inside the first 3 minutes of the flick. But information technology just seemed the right place for him, and he was very funny. We shot outtakes of him dancing on stage with the feather boa.
WYNN: At that place was and so much electricity in the room — to showtime off having these old castmates there to pb us into the sequel. It was nigh like a baton pass. It was a treasure to be in their presence and to perform for people that have been involved with this musical from its incarnation.
Donna and the Dynamos leap into the audience and crowd-surf in an overhead shot.
PARKER: The video for "Bulldoze," past R.E.One thousand., has a superlative shot of Michael Stipe rolling around on the artillery of the crowd. He'southward held aloft higher up them. Information technology'south black-and-white and much more than high-sounding. I sent that to [Anthony] going, "Annihilation here?" and he was like, "The 3 of them could do it."
VAN LAAST: It was highly, highly choreographed for rubber. Unlike real oversupply-surfing, where the people are moved effectually by the oversupply, the catchers underneath did the move and all the people on the outside stayed still. Underneath each person, we had most 5 people who were the pivots to movement them. If yous're looking at the film, yous'd never know that.
WYNN: In the rehearsal procedure, they really catered to my essence of Tanya and gave me the cutest boys to autumn into.
YEOMAN: That [overhead shot] was off a crane nosotros brought in and put up equally high as nosotros could go. Then they surrounded [the stunt people] with dancers to fill up the frame and make information technology an homage to Busby Berkeley.
PARKER: That was take one. We expected it to be very difficult — they're trying to turn them exactly in rhythm, and that's non piece of cake. We hadn't got information technology correct once until the first accept of the flick.
VAN LAAST: I looked downward and the iii girls moved in perfect sync, and it was like, "Oh, God, that's really, actually good."
WYNN: On the day of, those ensemble members were key to the success of that shot. We didn't have to exercise it too many times; I think later on iii or four times they had the perfect shot from up higher up of u.s. twirling effectually. How can you not experience like the ultimate superstar?
Credit: Jonathan Prime/Universal
They burst from the hall and cycle into the Oxfordshire countryside.
PARKER: You want to get from one identify to another and I thought virtually driving in cars, but that seemed a flake fanciful. My principal retentivity of university was riding down country lanes with a canteen of something in my manus.
VAN LAAST: That wasn't in the original script. All the students in Oxford ride effectually on bicycles, so we should salute that in the number.
CRAYMER: In that location was a phase at Shepperton where they were rehearsing with bicycles and the stage and everything. It was pretty amazing when we actually got to the location.
YEOMAN: We had a camera auto with a small Technocrane and a lever head on information technology. Information technology's a lilliputian uncontrollable, but information technology gave it a sense of spontaneity. We just found a little lane out in the countryside at that place that was very beautiful. I couldn't really light them, and then we backlit them and just had them riding.
VAN LAAST: They were trained past stunt people, and so nosotros picked the best cyclists and mixed [them] in amongst our cast. That was how we kept it together.
WYNN: We were rehearsing information technology and I stuck my legs out, like a wide 2d position, and [Parker] was like, "You need to do that now, every fourth dimension." That's called when Jessica Keenan Wynn is having likewise much fun and the director ends up putting it in.
PARKER: The fleck you lot can't see is a really steep hill, and then when they come up around the corner they're all absolutely exhausted, only they take to pretend that they're not and accept plenty of lungs left to sing a song.
Credit: Jonathan Prime/Universal
The number concludes with the Dynamos dancing on height of a barge before ending with a freeze-frame jump into the Cherwell River.
PARKER: The girls were just going to dance by the lake. We were going to create a pub garden and the girls would get on a table, and the others would be dancing around them. [While scouting], nosotros were standing past the lake, and 100 yards down the river at that place was a barge. There was no one at that place, so I jumped on, stood on the roof and was like, "This would be absurd to trip the light fantastic on."
VAN LAAST: The first time nosotros got on the gunkhole, it was really rocky. The boat had to be completely reconfigured. Because when you're wearing platforms, you can't actually experience where your feet are. Nosotros had divers get down and wedge the gunkhole properly.
WYNN: We'd been practicing on a very high wooden platform for a while. Once you get on a boat, you see all the elements around you: That'due south hard grass, those are flowerpots, that's h2o. Nosotros had to make sure nosotros were very in tune with each other and with our environs.
PARKER: They had a crash pad. Realistically they would've jumped in [the water], but if they do jump in we can't shoot again for another hour [because] Lily'south hair is a production, the clothes [have to dry out].
WYNN: There's things you don't recollect about when you lot're jumping off a barge on to a platform, like keep your head up and smile, don't wait like yous're in pain, don't expect like you're going to dice.
PARKER: [In the get-go moving picture], they went in the h2o in "Dancing Queen." They all did that jump, so I had this thought to do a freeze-frame. Lily is doing the bomb, which is a tribute to what Meryl does in "Dancing Queen" in Mamma Mia. It just seemed lovely that the two girls on either side would do a star leap and Lily would do the Meryl bomb. Information technology's a callback.
WYNN: It's one of my favorite moments of the picture, that freeze-frame of the iii of us jumping into what's next in our lives.
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Source: https://ew.com/movies/2018/07/18/mamma-mia-2-when-i-kissed-the-teacher/
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