Vivek Tiwary

0:07Awesome. Well, thanks for doing this. Yeah, thank you for having me. So as a giant Beatles nerd, I am very excited to one read this book and then you just told me there's a movie coming out to you. Yes, indeed. So what's the difference between writing a script and writing a book? How do they differ and how does your process differ behind doing the two? Yeah, you know, there are two very different mediums, the graphic novel medium and the film medium. There's obviously a lot of overlap and you're seeing a lot of films come out of graphic novel these days, but I really do treat them both like two completely different mediums. There are entire sequences in the book that don't happen in the film and there's entire sequences in the film that don't appear in the book, just appreciating that some things work on the page that don't work on screen. The very, very exciting piece of news on the film is that we have the sign off of the Beatles and we've done a deal with the music publishing holders, so we have access to Beatles music for the film.

0:52How many people get that? That's amazing. We are literally the first film about the band in history to have gotten their sign off. There have been other Beatles films like Backbeat or No Where Boy, but if you go back and look at those movies, there's no Beatles music in them. So we're very, very proud of that and obviously because we have music rights, we're going to use them. So there's going to be a lot of music in the film and music is obviously something that you can't have in the book. So there's a lot of sequences in the film that are music sequences that we couldn't do in the book. There's also a sequence in the book where Brian Epstein introduces the world to Sergeant Pepper's to that record and he gives a press conference at his house and it's a very fanciful scene. It's the dawn of the psychedelic era and it's done in sort of a collage. I can show it to you later that looks a little bit like the old Star Wars movie posters. It's almost like as if Salvador Dali did a Star Wars movie poster.

1:41That's kind of what it looks like. It's very surreal and very fanciful and that's also something that looks fantastic on the page. It would be very strange on screen. So there are, it's just a matter of respecting both mediums and treating them like two separate projects. You know, you ask the book is coming out first and the film will come out afterwards. Give a little plug. The book is coming out November. November 19th, yeah. And so there's no question that the film will be heavily inspired by the book, but really I view them as two separate entities. You said so much in there I want to touch on. I guess I'll start with now that you have the right to song. Which one song has to be in the movie for you? Oh, if I had to pick one that had to be in the movie, it really would be all you need is love and that's because there's a sequence in there that juxtaposes all you need is love with with Noel Cowards if love were all.

2:26And so it's a very it's a very sort of interesting juxtaposition to the two songs. That is probably the only song that narratively needs to be in the film. But we're going to have lots of Beatles music in the film. You mentioned Pepper in there and see I've read a lot about the Beatles over the years and there's a lot of allusion to it might have been Pepper that made Epstein crack being like they don't need Mandy Moore. They don't need Mandy Moore. They can like he was in rehab while they were creating that record and he was like they just don't need me anymore. Do you want to say do you think that was the cause for the overdose but did that have something to do with it? You know we definitely touch on this. And it's not it's not a theory that I subscribe to. I mean the Beatles you know yes they were no longer touring and Brian really enjoyed touring. He enjoyed putting all that stuff together. So there's no question that he was was concerned and like you know and and and uh

3:15and sad that he could no longer put together touring stuff but they were also the largest man on the planet. So it's not as though there was nothing to do. You know what I mean? They were he was plenty busy with the Beatles and even Sergeant Pepper's that project he was he was in recovery at the time he was uh what do you call the recovery that rehab wasn't around. You know it was actually he was he was in the hospital for extreme exhaustion. It was less about too much drug use and just just stress in general. There was some some prescription pill drug use that was a part of that but it wasn't your traditional you know doing too much cocaine and having to clean up. It wasn't that kind of rehab. But while he was in hospital he was very busy with Sergeant Pepper's. He was trying to convince the record label that it was okay to put out a record that was going to be a bit druggy.

4:01He was working on getting permissions from every single one of the the people or the estates of the famous people who are on the cover. Each one of those people they had to he had to get approval on and so that was an incredibly busy thing to do. So Brian was plenty busy you know so it is a fallacy to think that that just because they weren't touring any longer that there was nothing for him to do. I'll go to another fallacy because one of the big stories is that vacation which on London. Do you touch on that in the book? We do very much and you know the truth is the only people who knew what happened there are Brian and John and neither of them are with us anymore. And quite frankly if they were with us I wouldn't I wouldn't necessarily trust either of them. You know a guy like John Lennon might have said that that they had anal sex just to be a troublemaker or he may have said nothing ever happened and that may may or may not be true who knows.

4:48You know John was certainly a troublemaker. But you know by personal feeling on it is that Brian's homosexuality is part of what allowed him to have a real vision for the band. He was sensitive to presentation issues in such a way that he could see that women would love the Beatles, men would love the Beatles, parents would love the Beatles, etc. And I think his sexuality was a part of what made him sensitive to those things and part of how he could really have the vision for the band that he had. Do I think that John and Brian had a homosexual relationship? I don't. You know part of the human side of Brian's story is what a struggle it was for him to be so in the public eye and to be gay at a period where it was against the law.

5:35Like if it had come out that he would it was gay he'd have been thrown in jail. You know and he was constantly worried about that about it coming out both for himself but also how it would reflect on his clients. And John Lennon was the largest celebrity in the world. There's no way Brian even if he wanted to. There's no way that he would have risked something like that happening. So I personally I just don't think that happens. The way we treat it in the book is a little bit ambiguous. We want the audience to decide what they think happened but I'm telling you what I think. That's what I asked. That's cool. I'm just talking about celebrity there as a final question. They didn't attend his funeral because they knew the press would be there and the hoopla would be a crazy thing. So do you touch on the discussions of them deciding that in the book? Like at the end? That moment is not in there. The moment. So where does the book start? It does end when Brian passes away. But the last sequence in the book is the Beatles responding to that and reacting to that.

6:25It doesn't specifically deal with how they whether they decided to go to his funeral. But the very last few pages do very much deal with their response to realizing that he's gone and that they're going to need to go it without him. So that is very very much in the book. You know the book it is a Beatles story for sure. You know obviously. You call it a book or graphic novel. I keep saying book but you say graphic novel. It is a graphic novel. You know I mean you know it's funny I guess part of why I call it book is that when the graphic novel is released on November 19th it will be the only book graphic novel or otherwise in print about Brian. There are no books about Brian Epstein so I guess I call it a book because it's the only one. You know and we've tried to treat it in a very literary way. So I think of it sometimes as a book. What's the difference?

7:11You know I don't really think there is it. Yeah I mean it's a graphic novel. It's a story told with scrunche alert. You know I grew up reading comics. I love comics. I think for somebody who's not in the comic book. Who's not a comic book fan. The word comic unfortunately has slightly derogatory connotation or comic. It must be fanciful. It must be disposable. It must be a little silly. You know and so I think people use the term graphic novel or even book sometimes to just get across to people who don't read comics that this might be a serious piece of work. So my dad will enjoy it. As a giant Beatles fan my dad will be. Absolutely. You know what I was going to say is that it is a Beatles story obviously. You know it's the untold story about the man who made the Beatles. It is that and if you're a Beatles fan it's a real treat because there's a lot of stories in there that haven't been told.

8:01I think a lot of my research for this book was done by interviewing people who knew Brian. So it's material that's just not available anywhere else. So that's awesome and it's a great story. How he got them a record deal when no one wanted to sign them. How he came up with the suits and the haircuts. How he couldn't been said Sullivan to book them when a British fan had never made an impact in the US. It's all in there and it's wonderful. However to me the real heart of the story is not so much the Beatles side of the story but it's the human side of the story. It's the fact that he was gay and Jewish and from Liverpool at a time when there were three significant obstacles. You know in addition to it being a felony to be gay there was a lot of anti-Semitism in the UK. Liverpool was a port town but there was nothing cultural going on in Liverpool. So for this gay Jewish man from Liverpool running around saying I found a local band and they're going to be bigger than Elvis.

8:46It was laughable you know but he was right and he stuck with it and he really beat down the doors of those record labels to get them to sign the band. I find that terribly inspiring. You know as a young person of Indian origin making my way in the entertainment industry I could kind of relate to that slightly outsider feeling. Yes the dog is a feeling, no that's not a feeling. What am I? Damn it. You're a canine. As a canine. I feel you. You can't understand that as well as a canine interviewer you know. Yeah you're a bit of a outsider. You know. But you know that's what it's really about and with that in mind you don't need to be a Beatles fan to love this book. You know. And with the film for example it's yes it's a music biopic. That is what it is technically. But I always say it's far less ray or walk the line and it's more like rocky or billy Elliott.

9:32You know it's about the least likely guy to succeed going the distance against all odds in their chosen field. And in much the same way you don't need to love boxing to like rocky. You certainly don't need to be a huge ballet fan to like billy Elliott. You don't need to be a Beatles fan to love this book. You know. It's not just for Beatles fans. Although if you're a Beatles fan like I am it is a special treat. So yeah. Just one last question here. I don't know if you can say casting. Do you have choices for Brian? Yeah we're not really at the casting phase right now between the excitement over the music rights and the buzz about the graphic novel. We are where I'm happy to say that we are getting a lot of enthusiasm and excitement from Hollywood circles and UK film industry circles. But specifically what we're doing for the film right now is talking to directors.

10:18We are. So this vision do you have another? Well I don't want to drop names. You know I will say we're in conversations with some very exciting very top level directors. But you know I don't like dropping names until it's real. I feel so often in this business people will say we're in conversations with so and so it doesn't mean anything. You know so as soon as I can firmly report who it is I will and but it's going to be someone exciting. I will say that because the people we're talking to are all very exciting choices. And then once we have our director then we'll look at cast because the types of directors we're talking to are all folks who have a deep connections to cast and we'll have opinions. And so we want to do casting with our director attached. Awesome man. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.