Sometimes singing super-stresses the stars
Published date | 26 November 2022 |
The comedic duo was possessed with not-even-joking fear about the prospect of full-throated singing and dancing.
Not goofy singing like we’ve seen Ferrell belt on SNL or Reynolds’ version of Careless Whisper crooned during the Deadpool credits.
Spirited (streaming on AppleTV+) is the real musical deal, with original songs written by Oscar winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (La La Land) and sung alongside top Broadway dancers.
‘‘It’s a very different animal from messing around in a sketch. This is making singing feel believable and earnest,’’ Ferrell says. ‘‘A high level of trepidation kicked in when it was clear the level of song and dance execution that would be expected.’’
Reynolds ratcheted that stress level up a notch.
‘‘I was at the highest threat level, red, and I’ve never come back down,’’ he says. ‘‘It actually got right up into puce, a very specific dark red that I never want to see again.’’
Writer and director Sean Anders had faith in the two actors for his novel Spirited concept that shows an entire industry built around annual hauntings in the nearly 200 years since Ebenezer Scrooge changed for good following three ghostly Christmas Eve visitors.
Ferrell, as the veteran Ghost of Christmas Present, makes it his song-and-dance-filled mission to redeem the year’s most reprehensible human, Reynolds’ cynical marketer Clint Briggs.
The two have some musical history. Ferrell sang a number in Mel Brooks’ 2005 comedy The Producers and in the 2020 Netflix movie Eurovision. Reynolds proudly points out screeching It Takes Two in bed next to Sandra Bullock in 2009’s The Proposal.
Anders also found a YouTube video of the Deadpool star wearing a unicorn mask and singing Tomorrow from Annie on the South Korean Masked Singer during a 2018 promotional tour.
Reynolds tries to explain: ‘‘This was before Masked Singer was ever in the United States. So I was thinking this is an obscure South Korean show. No-one’s ever going to see this or know about this. It was so terrifying and traumatic, but fun. I thought, there’s my singing career — beginning, middle and end — all in three minutes. Little did I know.’’
The co-stars both made it abundantly clear, and the videos don’t lie, they were not in the league of Greatest Showman star Hugh Jackman. Reynolds says he even consulted...
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