Pharrell Williams said “Piece by Piece” director Morgan Neville was like a life coach for him during the making of his upcoming Lego-animated biopic, saying the filmmaker’s personality and work style was similar to PBS icon Fred “Mister Rogers” Rogers.
“This process was incredibly therapeutic,” Pharrell told TheWrap’s Steve Pond at TheWrap’s 2024 TIFF Studio sponsored by Moët & Chandon and Boss Design. “I think Morgan asked the right questions, not only of me, but people who have experiences with me. And for him to sort of look across all of the information, and my life as the subject, I think he did a really, really good job. It was kind of like a therapist listening and giving you some advice. Actually, less like a therapy situation and almost like a life coach, because you go through that with a life coach.”
Neville took on the role of director for Williams’ biographical flick, which the musician described as a culmination of several “yeses” received from Lego and the film’s producers Focus Features, Universal and Neville, who also serves as a co-producer.
“I guess what you’re looking at right now is what impossible looks like,” Williams explained. “Usually people who look like me are often told ‘no.’ They live in a world of no. But this project is a sum of a bunch of yeses, which spells out impossible, and here are. This guy’s architected it.”
And that guy, Neville, was Williams’ creative of choice, as he was a fan of the work he’d done on “20 Feet From Stardom,” his 2013 Oscar-winning documentary that spotlighted music’s most well-known backup singers.
“Morgan was the documentarian of my choice because I love what he did with ’20 Feet From Stardom,’ but I also loved his Mister Rogers vibes, too,” Williams said. “I was like, ‘Man, that guy … If he would tell my story, I’d let him tell it whatever way he wanted. But I want to do it in Lego.”
After signing on, Neville said he was totally game for whatever creative desires Williams wanted for the film, explaining that “Piece By Piece” is a three-pronged project that was amplified by the freedom Lego animation provided him with.
“Pharrell’s original pitch was, before he even mentioned the L word, he said, ‘I want you to make a film about me, is the idea, and when you’re done, I want you to throw away all the visuals and replace them with Legos,” Neville said. “I instantly was hooked to that idea, but what I realized immediately was that, it’s not just a one-to-one translation of a documentary, because Lego gives you so many opportunities to go to places you can’t. So in a way the film has three different types of gears: one is a documentary gear where there are music videos and things we shot, they’re translated into animation. Then there’s the memory people have of stories, which become a cinematic telling of stories. Then there’s the music, which to me, unlocks the ‘Fantasia’ of it. Anything can happen when music comes in.”
“Piece by Piece,” which will depict Williams’ life story, will open in theaters on Oct. 11. The film’s score was produced by Williams and Michael Andrews (“Instant Family”).
