Jac Schaeffer on crafting ‘The Ballad of the Witches’ Road’ and the spell it cast on fans, plus working with Kathryn Hahn.
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00:00I mean, yes, and also my family's, and my, yes, the idea was that we wanted to cast a
00:09spell on our audience, like that was the big idea of the show, and it was sort of several
00:14weeks into the process that we were like, well, like a song is a spell, and so the fact
00:20that it got stuck in people's heads and that it iterated and iterated, to me, that means
00:24we accomplished our goal, people, a spell was cast on the audience, so I feel great
00:28about it.
00:29Before we started production, it was very early on, and I had lunch with Catherine Han,
00:35and she was asking me who was going to direct, and I told her that I was, and I was very
00:40nervous, and I was like, is that okay?
00:43And she was like, ugh, in her Catherine way, she's like, what's happening, it's everything,
00:47and she just fully committed to the adventure with me, and that was a really big moment
00:54for me, like personally, emotionally, and also I feel like for my career.
00:57There were a lot of those moments.
01:00One moment that was really special was when, in episode six at the very end, when the camera
01:08pushes in on Joe, and he says, I'm Billy Maximoff.
01:13Say again.
01:19I'm Billy Maximoff.
01:22We shot that a little bit later in the schedule, and Joe is extraordinary in the show, and
01:28he really sort of came into his own during production, and that moment, I think it was
01:33like the fourth or fifth take, he says it, and it has so much gravity to it, he owns
01:42it, and afterwards I went to the steadicam operator, Nick Muller, who's really talented,
01:45and I was like, you nailed it with that move, and he said to me, he's like, no, Joe pulled
01:49me in, and I was like, he did.
01:52So that was just, I was like, ah, we've made a superhero.
01:56I mean, of course I went to see Wicked, and of course I cried through the entirety of
02:00it, and it also, like, I went with a dear friend, and we both just cried, we just cried,
02:05like we were just leaking the whole time, and it's one of those that I sort of hope
02:10Agatha is maybe in this camp, where there are times when you cry and you're not really
02:14sure, it's some intersection of women, and, you know, being marginalized, and being pushed
02:21to the side, and stepping into your own power, and like, fighting injustice, and finding
02:25sisterhood, and then sisterhood being disappointing, and like all of that sort of morass, I just,
02:30it was so, so moving to me, and I think that that is what it means to be a witch, is all
02:36of that complexity.
02:37Well, we had a line that got, we had to cut, that I can't even, it's not even going to
02:42be funny, it's just as, it's Laura Donney, one of the writers, is very talented, she
02:45wrote a terrific line.
02:47Let me think, I mean, I love Catherine, if you want straight answers, ask a straight
02:51lady, I'm like, yeah girl, do it.
02:55Hey, you want straight answers, ask a straight lady.