Stevens And Nalluri Bring Dickens to Life in - The man who invented christmas

A Christmas Carol, arguably the most beloved Christmas story ever. Coming into this project did you guys have a favorite film version of A Christmas Carol? Yes Yes Muppet Christmas Carol. Muppet Christmas Carol. - [Stephen] Both of you? It's gotta be or It's a Wonderful Life. Which people don't people don't realize is actually A Christmas Carol backwards. Because it's a good man shown what the world would be like if he didn't exist. It would be a darker place which is actually the other way around to Scrooge so I would say somewhere in there. But Muppet Christmas Carol is pretty high. You can't go wrong there. - [Bharat] You cannot go wrong with it. - [Stephen] Okay, well Dan, you of course play the role of Charles Dickens. - [Dan] I do. - [Stephen] And your character is quite animated during his writing process in the film, where did you draw your inspiration for those scenes? I think from the man himself really, the work and also Susan's script really sort of highlighted this manic energy that he seemed to have where he would have extraordinary bursts of energy and greats of prolific moments and then would just hit a wall as many great artists do. They have their sort of blank periods and they struggle with that and wrestle with the black dog of depression that can come over them at those times and then you know shake it off and go crazy full of the muse and so that's a really interesting sort of energetic path to dance through with a character and with a film like this. Yeah, it was a lot of fun, a lot of fun to watch. Bharat, back to you. As the director you could have very well chosen to use a lot of CGI in this film. Yes. Particularly in the scenes where Charles is interacting with the characters of his imagination. But you didn't, why is that? Well thank you for noticing that. It is absolutely done on purpose. We were inside Dickens' head and I realized very early on that Dickens had never seen a CGI movie before so I kind of wanted to represent how he would have kind of envisioned a ghost visiting him. And so we went back to how they would have done it in stage plays how he would have imagined it himself. So it was a joy actually to go back to old film makery skills. We did it all in camera and as you've spotted, it's like the camera moves one way and like the set moves the other way. And I think it's given it a really nice, it feels really fresh, doesn't it? It was very refreshing. It's not like the city explodes or the ghosts fly in through the window. It feels very real. Dan back to you there is a point in the story where the pressure mounts for Charles to meet a seemingly impossible production deadline to the point where the characters from the story begin to torment him in his imagination. And we soon discover that Scrooge is actually, as his wife puts it, "Dickens' secret self who no one is allowed to question." Do you feel like we all have a little bit of Scrooge in us? (laughing) I think probably yes and I think that's something that Dickens was really tapping into. I think he definitely saw it in himself that sort of mean, miserly quality that he struggled to suppress sometimes. And he definitely saw it in the world around him the rise of rampant industrial capitalism really was kind of I think very, made him very angry and really frustrated him and drove a lot of the story lines that he used. But yes I think that he's tapping into all sorts of universal themes in that story. There is also a pivotal scene in the film where Charles says, "No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of another." How would you say this film best inspires us to be useful for impacting positive change in the world? Oh well, I mean Dickens did that and that was his genius. He allowed you to think it was fun and as a story and as an adventure and it's funny and it makes you laugh and cry but at the end, he changed the world. Charles Dickens did, he literally, you know, laws of the land were changed. And it's just basically because he came back down to the simple human values and it really is summed up by that little phrase, "No person is useless who lightens the burden of another." And it's a very simple thing, to lighten the burden of another doesn't take very much at all. He's not asking for you to change the world. He's asking you to change just a little bit of it. And we've reflected that in the film. It's a really joyous adventure, it's really funny it's gonna make you laugh and you're gonna, hopefully cry for all the right reasons. And at the end of it, if it makes you think about something else that's great. (slow piano music)